House of Leaves

I've gotten tied up in reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. What an incredible work of literature! I'm about 3/4 of the way through and I'm thinking I'll have to re-read it immediately to get the full effect; there are so many mysteries.

Anyway, the vocabulary in HoL has been challenging me. Here's a few new words I've learned:

• sabin
• aphonia
• scarification
• tenebrific
• tessellated
• celerity
• phillumenist
• prolix
• exegesis

Go loook them up if you don't already know their meanings.

Inter-Urban Industrial Update

The IUI has been downsized to something a little more manageable for my first foray into model railroading since I was a child. My little industrial empire now fits on a two foot by four foot table top. Here's the new plan:

I've left some expansion room to the right side, where the interchange track comes in. Where I intend to place the layout in my basement, I have another seven feet of shelf space about a foot wide. I've elevated the back side about 3/4" from the front to give a little interest to the terrain but the setting is essentially urban. The yard consists of 3 sorting tracks and a RIP track, with an engine terminal off the runaround. The right side of the loop also serves as the switching lead. The short siding crossing the yard lead serves a small freight station.

I've got the base built and a layer of foam on top of that. I've test fitted the track and will be ready to lay roadbed as soon as I purchase or manufacture the 3% grade inclines on get to the back industrial area.

Photos of progess to follow soon.