End of 2018, into 2019

First off, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all of you who follow along with the blog, and for some who also see the layout in person. I'm glad to be able to share what I am doing with you and I enjoy the interactions and friendships that have developed over the years.

As I wrap up 2018 and move into 2019, I thought I would share a couple photos and some information on recent work. As noted earlier, I focused on some scenery prior to the November open house. I also did some work on the town scene for Whitefield. I have had mocked up buildings there for a while but I decided to start roughing in the roadway and sone of the scenery. I also finished off a couple buildings adding some interior details and lighting with LED strips.

I roughed in scenery tasing foam, then added some Sculptamold to smooth the contours. I applied another coat of Fast 'n Final to the road, using a much lighter color to better represent older asphalt.

I restaged the buildings I have and plan to use. The first 3 from the left are essentially complete. I created sidewalks using a photo from actual concrete, wrapped around gator board. The interior for the diner was finished and I paved the parking lot with newer looking asphalt. The second building was completed well over 20 years ago and is just dropped in place on the sidewalk section I created for the diner. Across the B&M tracks I created the Whitefield Tavern, finishing off a DPM kit with signs and interior details. Inside a band is playing. The remaining structures are loosely placed and will be worked on over time. The white farmhouse will get a prominent spot across the road up on a hill side.

I should mention that the photo image I used for the sidewalks came from Lance Mindhiem's site. He has lots of great information and also some nice images to download.

Here are a couple of close up shots showing the interior details a little better.

The darker section in the middle of the road is from  a gloss coat I sprayed as I get ready to apply yellow stripe details.

A band is playing inside on this Saturday afternoon,

I have my layout open for the New Jersey Division Meet coming up on Saturday January 12th, so I've held off doing to much other work. With holidays, there was not much time to work anyway.

After the open house, I'll start getting ready for the Springfield show at the end of the month. I'll be taking the modules on the road again to include in the large, multi-group Free-mo layout in the Mallary building. Stop by and say hello. Although I may be away from the layout at times, but hopefully I will not miss seeing you.

Back to Christmas, and I got this really nice Exactrail bulkhead flat from my wife,. I confess that I did provide her a wish list, but still I had not seen the car in person and sorta forgot it was on the list, so it was fun to open on Christmas morning.

The wood deck is a separate laser cut piece that I look forward to weathering before applying. Note that the 2 consolidated lube placards came off (see the white spot to the right. These seem to have been glued with a less than stellar product, but luckily I retrieved both small pieces before they were lost.

I received a really nice Christmas card and layout update from Greg McComas who lives down in Texas. It was a really nice picture he staged with his Michigan Interstate Railroad locos in the snow. Check out Greg's blog, it is really interesting how he keeps the railroad up to date and writes about the projects for his layout with a prototypical slant.

And finally, my wife and I visited Longwood Gardens during the holidays. It is a really spectacular location with gardens, fountains, a spectacular conservatory and much more. I particularly enjoy the outdoor beer garden and food. We are members and go often - I highly recommend a visit if you live in or find your self in the Philadelphia area.

For the holidays they have outdoor lighting that was the main attraction for us. But we also got to check out their garden railway display, which is set up just for the holidays. Really nicely done, and lots of greenery despite the cold winter weather.

Multiple trains running at once on what I believe were 5 separate loops. You can see part of the beer garden buildings and tents in the background.

Really nicely done as I would expect from Longwood. I'm just surprised that do not have a garden railway all year long given the work involved in building it.

Woodsville Terminal

In my last post I mentioned the Woodsville Terminal Railway Co. This was a fictional shortline created by Mike Confalone that he modeled before switching over to the Allagash (which has been covered very well by Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine in articles, e-Books and videos). The older WTRC was covered in Model Railroad Planning.

Decals were made for the Woodsville Terminal by Highball Graphics, part of their Freelance Railroads series. I picked up their set FL-1 for Woodsville Terminal boxcars as it offers a neat paint scheme that clearly identifies the location of the (fictional) railroad being in VT and NH.

Highball Graphics set FL-1

On my car I went with a more orangish color than what Mike and Neil Schofield used in the examples from the Highball Decals web site, This was so it would not blend in too easily with the large number of Maine Central cars I have.

WTRC 2601 looks real spiffy having just recently been placed into service. This is an Intermountain car I stripped the lettering off and repainted.

What is cool is the slogan actually mentions Northeast Kingdom. The font is similar but not the same as the Lamoille Valley. All in all a pretty neat looking car that looks right for my region and era.

I have some other WTRC equipment, purchased from Perkins Road Depot. These are wood chip hoppers with extended sides. These use custom decals otherwise not available.

I picked up this wood chip hopper from Dave of Perkins Road Depot while at the Springfield show this year. It joins 2 others purchased in the past, one black and one brown, 

In the past I have staged woodchip hoppers in Morrisville yard for the LVRC to deliver to the MEC and ultimately to the B&M for use at the Groveton paper mill. I assumed that the WTRC performed an interchange with the LVRC somewhere along the line and at the start of an op session, these hoppers were already in the yard.

Lately though I have been thinking about establishing a WTRC train to bring some cars into Morrisville during the session. I think it will add a neat little enhancement to the LVRC operations without too much of an impact. It will also give me the chance to look into some WTRC locomotive power, perhaps a re-lettered D&H unit, and maybe at some point an actual painted loco in the WTRC scheme, something I'm not sure Mike C. even had completed, but I'll have to find out.

Springfield Report

I'm back from the big Springfield show, and as usual, it was a great time. I did not hear anything about attendance, but it seemed very crowded both days. It was great to see so many familiar faces and talk to those I see maybe once a year. It was also great to meet and talk to those of you who read the blog and enjoy it. I'm glad you are out there following along!

Here are some assorted pictures and commentary from the weekend.

In addition to manning the Free-mo layout and doing operations (more on that below), I did venture out to the show floors across 4 buildings. I did not take too many pictures from the manufacturer booths, but here is one form Rapido showing some of their cool upcoming offerings. 

Got information I needed about LokSound decoders at the ESU booth.

Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine brought along their TOMA project layout (The One Module Approach to building a layout). I also talked a bit with Joe Fugate about his current and future layout.

It will be nice to follow along as MRH shares details on building this layout in their on-line FREE magazine.

Great scenery on the TOMA layout, which is based on the Vermont Railway.

Outside, a live, operating steam locomotive was on hand. It was nice to smell and hear this running during the weekend.

As figure 8 layouts go, and especially those using 3 rail O scale, this one is admittedly pretty nice!

The Free-mo layout was very linear this year, extending 200 feet, and included over 2 scale miles of mainline,  with additional trackage on 3 branches. This view is from my module area, near, but not at one of the ends. It goes all the way down to the just visible banner.

This is the track plan of the layout. The photo above looks to the left, with my module on the branch at the bottom right.

The recently completed FOS Scale Liquor Depot kit installed on the module. Looks like the local PD is checking things out, talking to one of the road crew.

A  new module at its first show demonstrated a clearance issue with a double stack train. Actually somewhat prototypical for a late 80s/early 90s mainline before clearance improvements would require "filleting" the stacks onto separate cars. No problem, as the owner quickly added additional base material to the bridge and the train proceeded without incident!

The weekend included free running on the modules, as well as Op Session time. Trains were made up in select yards and then instructions and a switchlist was provided to each operator. I ran light Maine Central power over to the Cedar Hill yard to pick up my train, a turn that serviced my Woodstown Jct, as well as the nearby Boston Street. Here I am returning with my train coming off the loop that transitions from the mainline onto the branch I am working.

My switchlist. The yard operator fills in the reporting marks of the cars requested by the ModuOps software, and my job is to spot these cars at each industry, and pickup the same number of cars (if they are there) to return back to the yard. My troublesome MEC 564 seemed to work OK throughout the weekend.

I arrived at Woodstown Jct with my train. The Lamoille Valley RS3 is the local switcher which can assist with local switching. This can be done with a second local operator, or solo using the second throttle.

I pulled my train up and let the local switcher work the tail end of the train for the facing point sidings and any cars for the yard side of the mainline.

A railfan talks to one of the railroad employees at the old freight house which now serves as a headquarters building for the local railroad.

With the local switcher having pulled all cars off the train and spotted cars at local industries, my train is ready to depart. the passing siding holds cars that will return back to Cedar Hill yard - No need to take them with me on the turn, I'll get them on the way back. Additional cars for the junction and other industries for the yard side of the mainline will be switched by the local RS3 while I am up the mainline at Boston Street.

Switching at Boston Street includes some street trackage. I've spotted a few cars and will now run around my train to drop the coal hopper at the facing point industry on my way back to Woodstown Jct. Once there I'll add the cars from the passing siding to the covered hopper seen here and return back to Cedar Hill yard.

We set up the Free-mo layout Friday afternoon into the early evening. On Saturday we operated and answered many questions to model railroaders and the public. So by Saturday night we were plenty thirsty. Here is about 1/3 of the gang enjoying drinks and dinner at a nearby establishment. Having fun socializing is one of the great parts about the Springfield weekend.

Looking forward to next year!

Wordless Wednesday #17

Annual Open House - Nov. 19th

This year the layout will be open in November for the annual Model Railroad Open House schedule for the NJ/PA/DE/MD area. Along with a number of other NJ area layouts, I will be open on Saturday November 19th from 12 noon to 5pm.

The schedule and website has a changed a bit for this year. There are actually 2 separate web sites now, 1 for the DE/MD layouts and 1 for the NJ/PA layouts.The older link will only show you Delaware and Maryland layouts.

Here is the link to the web site for New Jersey and Pennsylvania layouts:

themodelrailroadopenhouse.com

The format of the site is a bit different, I find it a bit difficult to understand as it really is a web site for PRR info with the model railroad open house schedule added in. But it is out there for everyone to enjoy, and I'm glad we do have volunteers to provide this info. Just click on the Schedule menu at the top to see the open house info.

Here is a direct link to the layouts open on the 19th of November in case you are planning to see other layouts in addition to mine:

http://pennsyrr.com/index.php/mroh-schedule/event-calendar/day/20161119?catid=2

Hopefully I'll see you then. Now back to the layout to get some more things completed before the open house!

(Note: As mentioned, for the DE and MD open houses, the old site of http://modelrailroadopenhouse.com/ can be used)

Op Session on the Harrisburg Terminal

I was pleased to get the opportunity to participate in an Op Session on Rick Bickmore's Harrisburg Terminal layout. It has been about 2 years since I was last there so it was great to get reacquainted with this great layout. Rick posts regularly to the Railroad-Line forum, so I know and have seen pictures of a lot of his progress since I was last there.


The layout is essentially a loop that is operated as point to point. His double ended staging yard represents Philadelphia to the east on one end and Pittsburg to the west on the other. In between Rick models what he calls the 7 miles of sheer hell. What makes it difficult (or more appropriately, interesting) is the density of traffic and the uniqueness of trains modeled. In addition to through trains and locals, Rick models steel mill operations that sees special hot metal cars and slag cars moved. All the movements keep a dispatcher pretty busy and a crew of 10 with just enough downtime to enjoy a little socializing. His session runs about 3-1/2 hours.


I didn't take a lot of pictures as I was busy running a number of road freights. But I did take a couple.


Here we see 2 shots of the general layout area.

The main yard to the left, and part of the steel making process on the right, along with other industries. The PRR double track mainline can be seen passing the yard, it continues around the entire layout, except where a couple branches break off.

This is exactly 90 degrees to the left of the other picture. The same double track mainline curves around the peninsula making its way back to staging. On the left is part of the massive steel mill. Rick dedicated a large space to it and a lot of operations occur there. Really neat.

Just one of the great scenes along the right of way. Rick is a great structure and scenery builder, and often comes up with and shares new ideas and techniques.

In relation to my previous post about turnout control in St. Johnsbury, Rick has really nice little control panels for controlling turnouts that are not hand thrown (which most are). A single push button and Red/Green LEDs really make it simple. If I find the need to change out my turnout control method, I would definitely build something like this. I need to see if there is a similar product that can take a pushbutton control to drive DCC stationary decoders instead of Tortoise machines, hmmm...

I ended my night by operating a high and wide movement, delivering this transformer to a GE Plant. One of Rick's great background buildings can be seen.

The return of the high and wide also had a load - good planning by the railroad! This GG1 was at the GE plant getting some electrical work done. Now it needs a repaint and can go back into service. Thats the massive Harsco Steel Mill in the background.