Throughout 2012 and into 2013 members met and planned a serious update for our home museum layout. There had been at least 3 separate expansions over the previous 14 years and it all had to be tied together in both a visual format and a control format. Meetings were held and plans were made.

The long awaited Myra canyon was finished after much deliberation regarding whether we should follow some KVR prototype operation and have single track throughout or opt for a ‘visual’ Myra but include plenty of passing sidings to facilitate operations. A compromise was reached.

The entire layout was cleaned up and touched up as necessary to welcome summer visitors after a two-month shutdown.

Once in a while something went wrong and a search was carried out in order to find the problem. Sometimes we found things we should best have left hidden.

Max Hailstones is our master boat builder and he has two models of the actual tugboats and barges that plied the Okanagan during the height of the KVR operations. He has also contributed outstanding models to the Peachland Historical Society. This is the Penticton facility:

One of the things we had to do was to get rid of the DCC/DC option and go full DCC. After that decision was made we had to decide on the type of system we would use. This entailed a learning curve that was not always smooth but here we are today. We even invested in a program that rosters and configures our 40 + locomotives on our laptop.