LVRC Caboose 200 Arrives!

I got home on a snowy night this week and went to the mailbox. Inside was a brown box. I grabbed it and headed back up the snow covered driveway. Shoveling would have to wait. I hurried inside to get it open. There it was, the Intermountain model of Lamoille Valley's caboose #200. Wow! It looks great and seems to have all the proper lettering and logos, even the ones up on the cupola. Really nice!!


I'll have to add a little bit of weathering and paint the trucks and couplers and then it will be ready to leave Morrisville for its trip to St. Johnsbury behind train MJ-2!

Layout Fascia

One comment from a recent posting asked me to elaborate a little on my layout's fascia. In general I use quarter-inch Birch plywood from Home Depot, sold in 2 x 4 foot sections. I hand pick through it to get non-warped good looking pieces. One side is usually better than the other. The smaller size of these pieces actually makes it easier to work with although I need more supports added to the benchwork. I cut the pieces to size to fit the area and attach them with stainless steel screws with mounting washers. These give a real nice look to to the layout and I take care to mount them evenly to help promote a professional look. After the pieces are installed I stain them with Minwax Cherry gel stain. I top that with a few coats of water-based Minwax polyurethane applied with a foam brush, lightly sanding between coats. Pictured to the right is a new piece added in Lyndonville, a section just getting started.

On the end of the peninsula I set the wood for mounting on a curve and bent the plywood around to match. I think it gives a nice complimentary look top the curve of the tracks.

In some areas I am using pieces of 3/4" pine and also poplar. I selected pieces without knots. Some of these were used because they were leftover from a previous layout and I did not need more than the 6 inch height they provide. In other areas I used it to build out shelves, as evidenced here in St. Johnsbury. I recall seeing something similar on another layout years ago and thought it would be a good idea to provide some flat surfaces to put things while building, working and also during operating sessions. It has been one of the most commented on features of the layout from other modelers. It was not too hard to build but does require a little forethought to provide adequate benchwork support and clearance. Basically the shelf rests on the 1 x 2 cross pieces direclty on the L-girder, while risers wee used to support the actual yard (plywood base).

Under Morrisville, I did another long shelf like St. Johnsbury. In this picture you can see how the birch plywood simply butts up to the shelf section. It is all just built in place to fit and I add wood t the sides and behind the shelves to keep a good look to it. The shelves will be built in different areas mainly where switching activity will take place.

I have a not had any issues with the fascia and it cleans up real well if I spill some scenery material or glue on it. I know that this is a bit more effort than other styles of fascia (i.e. Masonite) but I like the look of wood and I think the Cherry color fits the theme of the layout, New England in the Fall.

As far as access, I have not built any doors or access panels in as of yet. Hidden track under the LVRC between Danville and Sheldon Jct. is basically accessed from underneath. But I may have to consider that a bit more as I get on to the areas with more hidden staging. The CV staging is probably OK because it is not close to the edge anyway. I may actually consider open areas below structures for some access. The Newport/Montreal staging is in place against the wall. If I build the fascia out far enough, i can ensure access from below and behind the fascia.

If there are any more questions, just add them in the comment section for this post.

Locomotive Projects

As mentioned earlier, I spent some time working on locomotive and car projects. This I guess was a natural follow up to all of the caboose work I did in the summer! I had some things I wanted to finish and get onto the layout for the openhouse, so I concentrated on getting these lingering projects completed.

First up I worked on the Lamoille Valley's tourist train by completing a pair of coaches and RS3 #7803. The coaches are by Hornby. I could only get them lettered so I used Solvaset to remove the lettering and then used a Microscale alphabet set to letter them. I was not sure what the LVRC used for numbers on their coaches, so I just used 1203 and 1204. These Hornby coaches are nicely detailed and with 4 wheel trucks and a shorter length they work well on the layout. They closely resemble the real coaches I have seen in pictures, although they are a little darker green than the prototypes.



To pull the train, I added 7803 to the roster. This followed the usual LVRC RS3 paint and decal process, although I decided to keep the weathering light and also paint the trucks silver. This seems to match the photos I have seen of tourist trains. I also added a Soundtraxx Alco DSD sound decoder to the locomotive, putting the mini oval speaker in the cab. It was a tight fit and I had to remove the weight over the rear truck as it interfered with the enclosure. But pulling two coaches is no problem for the unit. I am going to see if I can remove part of the weight and then reinstall it. It is nice to have some sound on the LVRC now!



I also completed a long in process locomotive project, a pair of B&M GP9s. These have a long story, starting about 7 years ago when I happened upon a pair of Front Range GP9 shells molded in blue. I immediately thought of B&M Geeps because of the blue plastic, so I bought both for $9 total. I had no idea how I was going to finish them however. Over the years I accumulated parts and such for the project but never really started it. One big obstacle was the frame, trucks and drive train. I thought maybe I could use an Atlas GP7 mechanism, but the shells did not fit. About 4 years ago I found a pair of Front Range GP9s on eBay. I quickly picked these up, although this gave me another set of shells with no frame (oh well!). With everything on hand I finally started the project, about 2 years ago.



This was very much a project like I used to do 20 years ago. Lots of Details Associates and Details West parts added. Drilling and installing wire grab irons, rebuilding the plows to better match the prototype. I'll spare you the blow by blow process as I doubt you'll be building B&M GP9s from Front Range models (why p2K has not done a B&M GP9 I cannot figure).

Of interest is that I equipped these with Lokpilot decoders and put a DSX sound-only decoder in one unit. This was a new experience. The Lokpilots are nice and run the motor quietly, not bad considering it is a 20 year old original can motor. I did have some problems programming 2 decoders in one loco. I had to use separate addresses and temporarily cut the sound decoder wire to program only the Lokpilot, but eventually I got it all working.

Another "neat" thing about this project was when, after I painted the shells and prepared for decaling I realized I only had one set of B&M Herald King decals. I was certain I had more, but no, just the one. What to do? By coincidence I had just recieved an e-mail from another modeler letting me know that HK was back in business. I called them up and ordered the same set I already had. Amazing! The new decal was exactly the same as the one I bought 25 years ago (although it cost 5 times more). This seemed to indicate to me that this project really deserved to get finished!

I must say this was much more complicated than using locomotives produced in the last 10 years or so. I think we (or at least me) have started to really take for granted the amount of details and the quality of locomotives produced now. They tend to really be ready to run and only need weathering to get them on the layout.

One other locomotive to note (there were a couple others, but they are still in progress: MEC 564, LVRC 7802). With the pending release of the Intermountain U18Bs (April it looks like as of now), I ended up with some undecorated Atlas U23Bs that now will not get converted to U18Bs. What to do? Well, looking through my decal collection, I have a few sets of Herald King Lehigh Valley locos. I always liked this scheme. I also get a chance to operate on a layout that includes some LV trains and routes. So I decided it would be fun to do something different and give me a loco that I could take to the other layout on occasion. LV 512 is the result. I am happy how it came out. I made the weathering heavy but the engine is not too beat up as some prototype photos show. I also added a GE sound unit to this. The speaker was a challenge, but I got a mini oval with enclosure into the cab. It is fun to operate and gives a different sound then the rest of my locos. I could probably theorize that the Lamoille Valley leased a Conrail ex-LV U23B for a short period to help keep trains running on my layout...

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to everyone out there. Here is a photo I staged on the layout for the season. Enjoy:

Busy Fall

I have not posted anything since my return from the NER Syracuse convention but that was not because I have not been busy. I hosted an open house on November 22nd and in preparation for that I did a lot of projects and worked quite a bit on the layout. I'll get you up to date on what I've been doing and also discuss what is in the works for this winter.

First, I wanted to make some changes to the layout area, to give it a more finished look now that I completed the other half of the basement (non-railroad family room). So time was spent working on curtains to hang below the benchwork and to install carpeting. I really have enjoyed having this in place as it makes the area so much nicer looking and the carpet feels great under the feet.



The skirting was made from material we purchased and then sewn into panels by my wife. They are all 44" wide, so it is easy to get in where needed. They are attached with clothespins glued to the back of the fascia boards. It is also easy to disconnect the panels at a few clothespins and pull the material back to work without actually removing a whole section. The skirting does a good job of hiding the support legs and the shelving that holds layout supplies and kits. This makes it much more attractive for visitors. I am very happy with the results.



The carpet I installed is made up of 20" square tiles sold in a box by Home Depot. They are ready to lay down onto the concrete floor and include padding. They don't move when put in place but are easily lifted and moved if needed. Installation went real quick and works well for a layout as I only need to carpet the open areas, not under the layout. The squares extend under the skirting a few inches. I can remove sections if I am really doing some dirty work and want to protect them from damage. Here is a look at a section with unfinished benchwork so you can better see how they are placed onto the floor:



These were the main room enhancements. In my next posts, I'll show you some of the locomotive projects I completed as well as some scenery and detailing work done in Hardwick.

NER Syracuse Day 3

Saturday here and the weather has stayed cloudy with the threat of rain. We got some tips about a lot of CSX westbound traffic moving on Saturday mornings, so we are going to head out and see what we can find before going to the hotel for some clinics and more layouts this afternoon. More to come later today.



LATER: So we spent quite a few hours at an area just west of DeWitt yard watching the trains. It was probably a little lighter today than a weekday, but still plenty of trains for us. We were able to catch the usual CSX power as wel as an Amtrak train. But UP power on one train and BNSF on another was a real treat for us. Mostly I shot video, but here are a few pictures I got whil etrying to juggle the camera and the camcorder at the same time.





A couple trains were manifest freights and I was able to see some older MEC and B&M cars (not the Guiolford versions, but the 1970's schemes. Also going by was this neat Ontario Northland car in original paint plus a CV blue boxcar. You can see it has been relettered for FEC.





After this extended railfan session, we were able to get to a couple of layouts and another interesting hobby shop. Brian Curry's N scale layout was terrific and really shows that great modeling looks great regardless of the scale. The video I took could have easily been an HO or O scale layout if you did not know better,

Now it is off to the banquet to wrap up festivities. I'll post a wrap up entry tomorrow.

NER Syracuse Day 2

Friday starts off cloudy with rain threatening. I registered late for this convention so I am not doing any of the prototype tours this year. Instead the focus will be clinics, layouts and railfanning. After breakfast in the Hampton Inn lobby (got to love that free breakfast buffet they all have!) we headed over to the Holiday Inn convention hotel to get registered. A contingent of NJ Division modelers was found wandering the area (PJ, Bruce B. and Bob P.) and we traded notes on what was seen so far.

Anton and I decided to get some railfanning in before the weather turned bad. This worked well as most layouts did not open until the afternoon anyway. We headed over to Solvay yard where the CSX interchanges with the Finger Lakes Railway. Lots of big industry here such as Crucible Steel, a paperboard mfgr. and several chemical industry receivers. We scoped out the entire area and watched the ex-CR FGLK Quality diesel do some switching, but by now some rain started to fall. It was still early so we decided our best bet was to take advantage of overhead shelter and do our railfanning at the Syracuse Transportation Center, shooting trains from the Amtrak platform. We were quickly rewarded with a CSX train already passing by as we ascended to the platform. Next up was an Amtrak commuter train (Buffalo-Albany). While this was in the station a westbound CSX passed by. We quickly got our cameras repositioned to catch the train.

Listening to the scanner was fun too. There was some back and forth between the ND dispatcher and a work train trying to get track time to do their work. The scanner was vital too to find out when trains were coming of course. Both an eastbound and westbound train were in the area and sure enough the headlight of the eastbound was soon upon us. However the westbound track was now showing a green signal. As luck would have it both trains would be passing right in front of us. I did my best to get a still shot of the eastbound before switching to video to get the westbound.



The scanner talk died off, so we decided to get lunch and head to another trackside location to eat and wait for more trains. As luck would have it we missed two trains while trying to find a suitable spot to park trackside. The first "train" that passed us by was this CSX track car:

Later the Amtrak Maple Leaf snuck up on us but I was still able to grab a shot:



It was then time for some layouts and we headed off to see a nice Pennsy layout featuring Horseshoe Curve. Now, coming from an area outside Philadelphia you might think the last thing that I'd want to go see is a PRR layout. There are plenty back home, so PRR is not high on my must-see list. But this layout was really great. The wharf scene alone was easily 8' x 12' and was incredibly detailed. In fact all the areas were great like this and we were really happy with our decision to visit this layout. (This layout was recently featured in RMC).

We also made a stop a Central Hobby Supply to exchange some money for hobby items and then went to visit a new developing layout that featured many of the areas we have been railfanning. Dewitt Yard, Solvay, CSX, Finger Lakes, it was all here. We could find the places where we stood trackside to take pictures. It will be nice to see how this layout develops once scenery and structures are added.

Back at the convention hotel, we checked out a couple of clinics, including Earl Smallshaw talking about a new section he has finished on his classic layout (one of the structures was scratchbuilt 55 years ago!). A clinic on using photos for backdrops was interesting and made me think about some areas I might be able to incorporate some photos onto the layout. There was time for one more local layout, an N scale D&H, before calling it a night.

NER Syracuse Day 1

Like last year, I am at the Fall NER Convention and will be posting what is going on here to my blog, at least once a day, maybe more. Day 1 (Thursday) is the drive up to Syracuse NY. I have not been this far west for an NER convention yet (furthest before was Utica, so the area is new to me.

CP Rail modeler Anton M. is joining me for this year's pilgrimage. We made our way into Syracuse by mid-afternoon. We were pacing an NYS&W train along I-81, but were unsuccessful in getting off in time to set up and get a picture. We did get to a good location but just as the engines were passing by. The train was moving! Once in Syracuse proper, we decided to check out the railfanning opportunities and headed towards the west end of the area near Solvay yard. Using the July Railfan & Railroad magazine we found an overpass and a road that put us trackside just east of Solvay yard. I got the scanner set up and soon we heard an Amtrak train approaching and it was quickly upon us. This was quickly followed by a CSX intermodal train. It was pretty easy to figure things out by having the R&R map with CP locations identified. It has been a while since I was able to do some real railfanning where there was a good density of trains and this was fun!



Next we tried to find where the NYS&W moves through Syracuse, and although we did, it was easy to get lost and stuck in downtown traffic. Eventually we maneuvered to CP 286 on the CSX just west of DeWitt yard. We found a good location trackside and were rewarded with a train right away. The scanner picked up notes from the Dispatcher about a train moving from track 2 to track 8 and we were able to see the switches being thrown to do this. Soon the train was snaking through switches and moving past us. The dispatcher was talking to another train with 5 cars for Solvay and soon that too was going past us.



We finished up by scouting out the DeWitt yard area to be prepared for more railfanning later in the weekend. Near the east end we found a god spot to watch as the yard switchers worked a cut of cars using a GP40-2 and a GP38-2.



As it was getting late we decided to head over to the hotel and get checked in. We are not at the convention hotel (it was full when I tried to book), but just down the road at the Hampton Inn. After getting checked in, we looked over the layout book and had time to visit a couple of layouts and get some dinner before calling it a day.

Caboose Work

I have been in a caboose state of mind lately. Having gotten a few new cabooses over the past year, I decided to round them all up and do some basic upgrades to make them ready for the layout. As I received these, I pretty much just took them out of the box and put out them out there to test run, so they were all still a little shiny and such. They looked a little out of place in relation to my other weathered rolling stock and locomotives.

I started by bringing them all together and taking stock of what I have. I also looked through books and on the Internet for relevant pictures to see what I might need to do as far as details and weathering. One great book is Cabins, Crummies and Hacks: Vol. 1 covering the northeast. Lots of great photos there.



One of the main things I do with all freight cars is to paint the trucks and wheels with rust and grimy black. If nothing else, this (to me) seems to impart the most realism into the model. I use a brush to paint the wheel faces rust and the trucks grimy black. Usually this is enough as the rust dries dark enough to look pretty good. If it is too bright a hit it with a light coat of grimy black. I also take the opportunity to check the gauge of the wheelsets against the NMRA gauge to make sure they are accurate.

I also installed Kadee #58 scale size couplers. I have decided to try to standardize on these, concentrating on locomotives and cabooses first as these are usually most noticeable. Many of the models have the Accumate couplers which I have not really liked to much, in appearance or in operation.

The final standard upgrade i did to all cars is to install coupler cut levers. I use Detail Associates part #FC-6215 for this. I drill the #80 hole for the eye bolt and run the lever through it. I glue the end to the bottom of the coupler box making sure it does not interfere with operation of the coupler. Once dry I painted the lever with grimy black. A small detail to be sure, but it is neat when your eye picks up the bent wire ends of the lever as the train rolls by.

My roster has three B&M cabooses now, with the addition of 2 new Intermountain ones in B&M blue. These are really nice and pretty accurate based on photos I have looked at on-line. For my time period one of the important items to add are the consolidated lube plates an the U-1 wheel stencils (yellow dots). I used Microscale decals to add this to the models, right onto the existing glossy surface. The photos helped me find the proper placement of these items on the models. I checked the weight on these cars. Coming in at 2.5 oz. these cars are a little light (should be 3 oz.). I did not find an easy way to get the body off the underframe and did not want to risk damaging the details. So I will have to see how these perform and add weight later if necessary. The painting, couplers and cut levers finished up these B&M cabooses.




I also have a Athearn RTR caboose, #C23. The Caboose book actually had a great shot of C23, which shows the Athearn paint job is pretty accurate although the model is just close. I took care of the trucks and added the decals to match the photo.

My MEC caboose fleet has been built using the Atlas releases from the past few years. The first release was the wide cupola #670. I unfortunately only picked up one of these when they came out. I should have looked to see if additional road numbers were released, or picked up more and changed the numbers. So far Atlas has not done another release of wide cupola cabooses in MEC paint, although the MEC did have 13 others (numbers 640-645, 651-654 and 670-672). Perhaps another wide cupola caboose will be a future release coming up?

Atlas has since released two runs of standard cupola cabooses in MEC paint. Numbers 656 and 659 came first and have green cupolas. Then 657 and 658 were released in a different lettering scheme with yellow cupolas. Somehow I picked up an extra 656 model, so I used Walthers Solvaset on a q-tip to remove the numbering on the sides and ends and then used Microscale decals from set 87-903 to renumber it to 655 (which I have a picture of in the same paint scheme). I'm not sure of all the standard cupola cabooses the MEC had, but I only have found pictures of 655-659, so I might have all of them covered.

I should point out that none of these is 100% accurate as a MEC caboose model. The MEC caboose have varying windows and none of the steps are correct (the MEC had 3 while the models have 2). I can live with these discrepancies. Other modelers may want to address filling in the extra window(s), although paint matching to hide the work might be tough. And I believe Moloco makes a part to replace the steps with proper, more detailed 3 steps. It is just a question of how much of a project you want to make it.

For each of these I did the usual truck painting, KD #58 couplers and cut levers. These models already had the lube plates, so it was just a matter of adding the U-1 stencils, using prototype photos as a guide. I also checked the weight on each of these. They are just about correct. Being 5 inches long, the NMRA recommended weight is 3.5 oz. and these came in at 3.4, close enough!


I also simulated the end flasher on these caboose by cutting a piece of clear acrylic rod (Plastruct 92031), gluing it to the end and putting a spot of Tamiya Red Clear gloss paint (#X-27) on the end. This does enough to capture the look of the flasher. I also installed sinclair short antennas to the roofs and hit them with Polly Scale MEC green.

I did notice a problem with the first standard cupola release (656 and 659). These wobble very easily and rock side to side unprototypically. I compared these to the later release which does not exhibit this problem. What I found is that Atlas has molded 2 stabilizing pins into the truck bolster to keep the caboose from rocking. On the earlier release, these pins are not as long as the later release. So Atlas fixed this problem between releases. My fix was to also install longer stabilizing pins using styrene strip, sanded to match the angle of the bolster and glued to the other truck bolster to help stabilize the caboose. I made them a little long and then filed them until the trucks attached and pivoted OK while still keeping the caboose stabilized.

On the 670 wide cupola caboose, I finished up a project I planned to do a while back. While watching videos at one point, I noticed the flashing red beacon on the back of the caboose as the train passed by. I see these on the MEC caboose in the photos as well. I had already picked up a Miniatronics flasher with red LED and Tomar contact wipers. With everyting on hand, I decided to complete the project now. I will be writing this up for the MER Local newsletter and will probably publish the details on my web site. For now, here is a picture of the caboose done and ready for reassembly.



The caboose with the flasher looks pretty neat on the track. There is a little more resistance and less free rolling with the wheels having contact wipers, but this does not seem to be a big deal. It will look nice on the end of the train during the open house in November.




I also have an Athearn recent release of MEC #661. this is neat in that it has the covered window. I limited my work on this to painting the trucks and replacing the couplers.

Not addressed right now are my older pair of Proto 2000 NE style caboose models. I have never liked the orange paint on these - it just looks too orange and not like MEC paint. I am thinking about removing the lettering and masking off the green areas, then airbrushing some MEC harvest gold onto the model. If it looks good, I will then re-letter it. I'll cover that in a future post.


Moving onto the Canadian Pacific, I acquired a couple of the Atlas Trainman "C&O Style" cabooses. Again, these are most likely not 100% accurate for the CP Rail cabooses they represent, nor do they have the level of detail of the other cabooses, but I am OK with them for my layout right now. I added the U-1 stencil above the existing lube plate and also took care of painting the trucks and swapping the couplers for #58s. The rest of the model looks OK, especially for a $12 price tag! Maybe later I will look into a more accurate modern caboose for CP Rail, getting appropriate input from me CP modeling buddy Anton.


My last two caboose to be worked on are the True-Line Trains Central Vermont wooden cabooses. While these do have the CV noodle logo, I am not 100% sure they would have been in use on the Richford Branch in 1980. No matter, my modeler's license allows me to use these models on my layout! For these I added the lube plates, U-1 stencils and painted the trucks. I decided to leave the installed couplers as these are a scale size metal spring coupler that looks pretty good. I'll see how they working operation and replace if necessary.

Now all my caboose models are ready for final weathering. I'll use an airbrush to hit them all with dust and some diluted grimy black. Then I will finish up with some Bragdon chalks for soot, dust and rust.

Lamoille Valley caboose

So I was checking my e-mail and looking at the usual new release e-mails I get from my supplier (Mitch at Hobbies USA) when I scrolled down on the Intermountain July Releases and saw the NE-5 cabooses. Now, I had just received the B&M Blue ones earlier this week, so I was not surprised to see new paint schemes coming, including B&M in maroon. But I was not prepared for item CCS1225, LVRC #200! I cannot believe that they are producing this caboose prepainted and assembled in LVRC yellow with green! I had already planned to custom paint an Atlas NE-style caboose and had been using the undec unit on the back of my LVRC trains. I guess that saves me one custom painting project! Now I have the undec caboose to do something with, though...

NJ Division / RPM Meet

Not too much to report on the layout front over the past few months. Lots of other things have been keeping me busy, but I do hope to get to some things as we move into the Spring. Hopefully you'll see that reported here. Anyway, here is a quick update on my model railroad activities.

Last weekend the New Jersey Division MER-NMRA held a meet and also celebrated the Division's 40th anniversary. It was a good time and I think everyone enjoyed the Meet. I appreciated the other NJ Division board members work to make this Meet special with lunch and a birthday cake, as well as coordinating an interesting slide presentation on local railroads. I plan to write up the event for an NMRA publication.

I currently am serving as Superintendent of the Division and recently reported that I will be stepping aside after 10 years serving in that position. I feel I have done my part to strengthen the Division and keep the train rolling. It is time to let someone else step in with fresh ideas and passion to take the Division into its 5th decade. I must admit I am a little burned out. I do plan to keep editing the newsletter for another year, and I'll stay active with the Division of course. But stepping back will allow me to spend some more model RR time doing actual model RRing!

Right now I am getting ready to attend the RR Prototype Modelers Meet in Malvern, PA (outside Philadelphia) at the end of March. I will be giving a slightly modified version of my clinic I gave at the Albany convention, focusing on researching the prototype railroads around St. Johnsbury to plan for my layout. I look forward to presenting again and this will help refine the presentation for the NMRA National in Hartford next summer 2009. This time I plan to include a handout, so I am finishing that up. For those interested I will post a PDF to my web site for download.

So, that's it for now. Talk to you again soon!

November Open House

With the NER Fall Convention done, I turned my attention to getting some things done on the layout in preparation for the November Open House. This year the open house coincided with the public layout tour, so I had visitors from the Division Meet as well as some general public. As it turned out, over 50 people visited, but only about 15 were general public. I think there was an issue this year with not having printed layout books this year, they were only on-line. So I don't think enough public people were aware of the open house tour this year (by contrast, I had over 40 general public visitors last year). We'll have to see if we can do something about this next year to spread the word.

Anyway, I focused my attention on 2 areas for this year - adding more scenery and details to the Hardwick area and putting scenery into the section between Morrisville and Johnson. As I mentioned before, I put in crossing signals at the road crossing in Hardwick and added to that were some new structures, more details and more scenery elements. The video here shows the scene and the crossing signals:



In Hardwick, I added lots of the Siflor "tufts" and some more trees. I also added power poles (no lines yet), people and details, the recently completed church and the farm stand with pumpkins. I also started the swampy area with tall reeds right next to the road. I will continue this down between the tracks.





Over by the farm, I located the potato house and sceniced around it. I also added some larger foreground trees. Here are 2 pictures from a different angle than usual (along the track instead of straight on from the aisle.





For the area west of Morrisville, I have a curve going downgrade with a switch leading to the talc mill location in Johnson. I struggled with what to put in this small area and then thought about giving a winter scene a try. I have seen how late Fall in the high hills in VT and NH sometimes result in some snowfall, so I decided to try that. I also needed a place to put the A-frame house I won as a door prize a few years ago at the Stamford NER Fall convention. So I put in basic scenery, then added trees. I used larger trees here as I was not trying to force the perspective at all. With the location visually separated from the other areas of the layout, I think using snow works OK. Dusting on the snow was fun and I slowly built it up until I got the look I wanted. I then added some cross country skiers getting in an early run. I found it hard to get a good pictures of the scene, so I shot a little video instead:



Having the open house date helped me get these scenes finished. I got to sit back and watch trains run and also did a little yard switching in St. J. It got me to thinking about operations and what I still need to do to get there. So I want to finish up the other scenery, clean up some details in St. J and then think about work on the next phase, to get the required staging yards in place. That will be my goal by next year's open house!

NER Albany Convention Update Day #3

This morning I am heading out on the Port of Albany Tour. Two large buses are here, so it looks like more than half of those in attendance will be going on the tour. We arrived in the Port and did an around the area tour by bus narrated by Tony Steele so we would know what we were lookoing at. Nice to see the D&H lightning stripe geep switching cars in the yard.



Next we stopped adjacent to the Cargill grain unloading facility and were able to get off the bus and stretch our legs. We were able to go over and check out the Port of Albany RR SW9 and CP caboose they use. We even got to climb on the equipment and go through the caboose! No one was on hand from the RR and they were not operating today.





Across the street a couple of Cargill employees came out and answered questions while operating their remote controlled switcher. This locomotive works a lot like model railroading with the engineer walking alongside the loco and using a large radio throttle to control movements.

We arrived back at the hotel around 11am, so I had time to grab lunch before going to see Dominic Bourgeois's clinic on D&H modeling. Dominc's clinic was a nice mixture of prototype and model slides and he provided a good deal of information on various paint schemes and uses for the cars. Many of the models seen in the slides were on hand in the next room on his impressive Schenectady layout section. Here are a few pictures of his impressive modeling.






Due to the staggering of clinic start times, I was not able to get in to see the start of a Jim Six presentation on structure building. I think it was interesting to try staggered start times, but the result seems to be too many clinics where people are coming in late off another clinic. Probably best to have uniform start times and provide half hour breaks to allow prep time and social interaction. So I will head in to see an update on Tony Koester's NKP layout at 3:30.

Tony's clinic was crowded so I am glad I arrived with time to spare. As usual it proved to be interesting and thought provoking. I have been to a number of Tony's clinics through the years and his clinics follow a rolling pattern. His ideas and concepts are presented and then through subseuent clinics you get to see the results presented on his layout. As these items are "checked off", he moves onto newer topics. As displayed in the lcinic, he is progressing well on his layout. I enjoyed seeing things he presented as concepts years ago at the Boston convention (2003) now implemented on his NKP layout.

The Happy Hour and Dinner Banquet followed and the food was suprisingly good (better than the usual convention fare). Having Sam Adams on tap doesn't hurt either. The awards presentation went OK, not taking too much time but still getting the recognition out to those who excelled at modeling, which was good. I was real happy to see Dominic get awards for his models and layout section. A real nice turn of events was Dominic winning not only 2 Merit Awards for his structures, but also the Baldwin Award for the best in show, awarded to his Schenectady layout section. The ironic part about this is he was not even going to enter the contest, but instead only display his work. Just goes to show you that it never hurts to put something into the contest. Same could be said for Glenn Glasstetter who did not build his structure of a residential house for contest purposes but still walked away with awards because he decided to bring the model and enter it.

The presentation for next years NER Fall Convention in Syracuse looked really interesting. Nice to see the use of technology in helping present, plan and execute a convention (i.e. an on-site iMac allowing those to vote on choices for rail and non-rail activities, using Mac software to put together photos, video and text to advertise the convention). They have some nice new concepts to try out as well, including a CD packaged with the map book so you can get photos of the layouts with full 360 degree views and turn by turn directions to get from layout to layout. And they have 50 layouts planned so far. Looks like a full slate of events with a group well organized and ready to go. Check out empirejunction.org for more info.

Wrapping up the night (after checking raffle tickets and winning a CP Rail boxcar) is a layout building clinic presented by Jim Six. He touched on a lot of his clinic topics while presenting his overall concepts for building his latest layout. A nice way to end the on-site convention activities.

NER Albany Convention Update Day #2

Friday morning. Breakfast is included in the room price which is better than trying to head out and find a suitable breakfast place on your own. Met lots of other NJ and Philly Division guys here - more of us than the "locals" so far! Things starting at a laid back pace. Registration just getting set up but there are some clinics in progress. Most people here seem to be heading out to the afternoon operating sessions, and most of them seem to have also participated in last nights Op Sessions. That is an activity at Regional Conventions that has really become quite popular.

Looking forward to seeing some good clinics and layouts today. I also am fine tuning my own presentation today between conversations with others. Jim Dalberg has asked that I present my clinic at the Philly RPM Meet next March, so it is good to know that I will get some "mileage" out of what I have put together.

First clinic I am attending is Weathering with Mike Rose. Mike covered topics that have been featured in RMC over the past few years. These include the Dullcote and alcohol fading and using oil paints to do rust and letter streaking effects. It is really great to see these processes in action and be able to ask questions. The effects from start to finish are quite dramatic. Also good to see demonstrated is the ability to reverse many of these effects if you make a mistake. To me this is the essence of a convention, getting really great hands-on information that I can take home and use on my layout.

Headed over to the hospitality room. Of interest is a great display for next year's NER Fall Convention in Syracuse. Go to empirejunction.org for more info. Also on display are DVDs on building stuctures and weathering including one by Mike Rose on the same presentation he just gave. Needless to say, I decided to pick one up! Here is the producer of the tapes, Scott Mason.

A great clinic was followed up by a great layout. Andy Clermont's Rutland is really nice. He has steam in northern New York circa 1950. I really liked the scenery he has in place and trains really looked good running through those areas. I look forward to seeing the layout again, I'm sure in a magazine at some point.





Next up was time to give my clinic, an overview of Northern New England RRs and how I adapted that into my layout. It went well, although it went a little longer than I expected. But I did get a second request to give it again, this time at the Hartford National in 2009, So I guess people enjoyed it!

With not too much time left, I decided to head out for some more layouts. I went north to Lou Sassi's with the plan to make my way back south and see some more layouts on the way to the hotel. Lou's layout always looks great and it was good to see lots of detailing ideas up close so I can take ideas back to my layout.





Leaving Lou's the rain really started to fall and quickly became a torrential downpour. So I decided to skip more layouts considering how wet I would get trying to go from my car to the house. It took me about twice as long to get back to the hotel. With it nearing 10 pm I decided to get to the bar as soon as possible to get some food and drink before "last call" like the previous night. I just made the food cut-off! At the bar was fellow NJ Division members, so we discussed the days activities and upcoming NJ Division events. As people emptied out over the next hour, an early "last call" came again. Probably OK though as the Port of Albany tour leaves early tomorrow.