Work Continues on Groveton Paper Mill

Inspired by my efforts on the brick facade representing a portion of the overall paper mill in Groveton, I looked over other kits and materials on hand, and also spent some time studying the layout area and planning what might fit where.

I had picked up one of the great Robertson Paper buildings from Monster Model Works when it came out. I did not have a specific location in mind for this building, for which the prototype is located in Bellows Falls VT. Looking at the space and the building kit, I realized I could fit it in as a stand alone building between the tracks and the larger background buildings.

I broke out the kit and spent a few hours with it. Th kit is tremendous to work with and the detail within the brick is outstanding. If you have not tried any of their products, I would highly recommend checking them out. The instructions are terrific also.

The main 4 walls require a little sanding on the ends and then a special corner piece with brick detail is used to join them seamlessly. I used Canopy glue and clamps with good results. The laser cut window components are shown here prior to painting.

After painting the window components (by brush, which does take longer), I started assembling them. These go together great as well, with peel and stick backing to secure the laser cut glazing. Completed window parts are in the upper right. I left the tissue backing on the back sides until I am ready to install them, to help prevent fingerprints and scratches. I did this while watching some railfan videos on YouTube.

After adding internal bracing, I brush painted the walls with craft acrylic paint, as specified in the instructions. I used a color called Heritage Brick which has a nice look and will contrast to the DPM wall I previously built. This building will represent a much older part of the mill. After letting it dry, there was small areas not totally covered and these were touched up. I used a second brick-like color to make some contrast here and there. The walls are ready for mortar next. The kit instructions mention using weathering powder and alcohol. This will be a new technique. I will start with the wall not facing the layout to see how it looks!

Down on the layout, I decided to build 2 larger structures, next to each side of the brick section I just built. These will be built up with styrene, other brick wall components and some concrete block components. More on that later.

To provide a sub-structure base for these walls, I used foam core board. A friend, who is a model railroader and also a developer, has provided many large sheets of this to local model railroaders. These were left over from various projects, having architectural drawings on one side, but empty on the back. I built up the wall sections, added bracing and supports so they would stand on their own, and determined openings for the tracks.

The overall scene changes dramatically with the building sections in place blocking the hidden trackage. To the left is the larger building, 8 inches by 42 inches. This will be concrete block on the lower half, and vertical metal siding above. I will build out sheds to partially cover the tracks leading into the building. These will help hide the view behind. Each track holds three 50' boxcars. To the right will be another section, brick on the bottom and then metal siding above to look like a smaller building expanded in height. The area in front of that will be the location of the standalone kit mentioned above.

In the center will be an older brick section of the mill. The idea is that the mill started smaller in the center area and expanded in each direction over the years. This view from my eye level indicates that I will need a little bit of roof added to better conceal the tracks behind.

Taking a cue from the prototype, I will paint the metal siding a greenish color, which seemed to show up on many buildings of this type in that time period.

Although the Groveton mill closed in 2007 and has since been torn down and the site remediated, there are a number of older pictures to use for ideas and reference.

An overall view from the river side of the mill. The rail served the opposite side. The combination of brick and metal siding is on display here.

The small building to the left gave me the idea to include stand alone building(s). The metal siding shows a number of interesting details that can be added.

A picture from the 1990s of the truck loading area shows the metal siding color and the concrete brick painted white.

 

In the 1990s, after the Maine Central and Boston & Maine (Guilford by that time) pulled out of the area, the New Hampshire & Vermont provided rail service. Here a GP38 idles next to the mill building.

The Berlin Mills boxcar is in a similar color to the metal siding. Again, more interesting details that can be added to the exterior of these parts of my models.

The taller structure with stacks will not be seen on my model as I have the upper deck limiting the height I can model. Here is the successor to the Grand Trunk, the St. Lawrence & Atlantic, switching the mill. The mill was served by both the B&M and the GT. I replicate some interchange at Groveton between the BM and GT, but I only include the BM servicing the mill in my operations.

Wordless Wednesday #9

Groveton Paper Mill

I have been doing some layout work away from the layout recently. I have made use of our kitchen island to work on various projects in the past, and this I decided is also a good place to work on the structures related to the Groveton paper mill, served by the Boston and Maine. A large flat surface with good lighting really helps!

I am ready to do some scenery work around the Crawford station now that the full platform is in place, but that has to be done at the layout. I was looking for some work to do upstairs, besides locomotives or freight cars, and I realized I have a lot of what I need for Groveton already on hand, and just need to start building it.

The mill area will contain a number of buildings, flats, storage tanks, small structures, etc. to capture the rail served area of the mill. Having a large amount of Design Preservation Models (DPM) wall components on hand, I decided to start with one large simple building flat to get started. The area behind Groveton has 3 hidden tracks that should not be easily seen, but still have access if needed. I plan to have a number of flats to run along the approximately 60" length of this area. Some will just be flat only, others will have extensions out into the foreground. The idea is to not have just one long building flat, but a series of connected buildings built at different times to look more visually appealing. I am not following the prototype mill in Groveton exactly, but instead I will combine parts of mills I have captured in pictures and research, to best fit my available space.

The first flat will be a basic brick wall section tall enough to adequately screen the hidden tracks. I'll jump ahead here and show you the built up wall, partially completed and basically in the right place. It is not installed, just positioned to see how it will look.

The wall section for one building flat. It uses 16 wall components and includes cornice trim at the top for additional height. It will sit up a little higher and a little bit more forward to be out of the shadow from above, the shelf for North Stratford.

As can be seen, additional buildings will be needed to the left and right to adequately screen the tracks behind and also convey that this is a large industry.

It has been a while since I worked on a styrene structure or with DPM parts. It is a lot of fun, but the key is in the finish and weathering. Most of the pictures I have of New Hampshire brick buildings such as this show an almost brown color to the brick and usually quite a bit of staining from various elements.

After laying out and gluing the wall sections and adding a long .040" strip along the seam to solidify the joint between the top and bottom sections, I sprayed the wall with Rustoleum Rusty Metal primer, a pretty nice looking dark reddish brown paint. Next. I tried a mortar technique using Pan Pastel neutral gray and an alcohol wash. In short, I did not get good results. I know others have used this technique successfully but I was just not getting the look I wanted. Perhaps with more practice, but for now, I wanted to keep the project rolling.

So I went with mixing up a plaster wash, rubbing it into the the wall sections, letting it sit a bit to settle into the joints and dry a little, and then wiping it with a paper towel. This is similar to a technique I used before with water putty, but not able to find that in the house, I used some plaster instead. Here is a look at the painted wall, a wall covered in plaster and then a wall that has been wiped at the right.

The plaster is quite wet here on the center sections. It is best to let it sit a bit before wiping it off so that enough plaster is left behind in the joints. The straight Rustoleum paint color can be seen to the left.

It is fairly easy and the results look good. If an area has too little mortar for your liking, you can apply some more and wipe off again after a bit. As long as you don't let it set up too much, there should not be an issue.

To achieve some of the staining and color variations I saw in pictures, I did go back to pan pastels, using various red and brown colors and some black too. I did this once the surface was dry. I had more time to work and instead of waiting overnight for the plaster to fully set up and dry, I moved ahead. I did not have any issues. Here are some of the results after the Pan Pastels were applied. Further work was done after this but captures the basic effect.

I liked how I was able to show some streaking from the windows and add a little dirtiness around the lower sections of the walls. The reds and browns also helped vary the brick color a bit.

After finishing up and then letting it dry overnight, the color changed just a little and blended nicely overall. As I liked the look and do not think the structure will get much handling, I decided not to apply a flat finish. I'm not sure how that might change the look. I don't see any real issues handling it as I continue to work on it. I think on a future building I will prepare a separate section and do all the same work, but then apply the flat finish to see exactly how that affects the overall look, if at all.

Last night I did more work, but pictures will be posted later. I want to brick in all the upper windows as this was a common look in most pictures I have in my time period. I used a very old piece of Holgate and Reynolds brick sheet to carefully cut pieces to fit into the arched windows. This was not easy and took a bit of filing and trimming to get right, Doing all 12 took most of the evening. As this is very thin sheet, my pieces actually are a little bigger to go over the openings and leave no gap. I brush painted these pieces with a more reddish color to show a different type of brick, and then used inexpensive craft store acrylic paint, a white and a tan mixed together, and wiped it on and off the pieces with a paper towel. The lower windows and door were painted a tarnished black and glued in place. I'll apply clear glazing to these windows and then "frost" it from behind with a flat finish. The large door I plan to model as a roll up door that will be partially open. I'll build a black box behind it and add some interior details. This will help hide the overall flat look of the building. and add interest.

More pictures on this work will be posted next time.

Additional buildings for the mill will be from steel, as well as a brick and steel combination I have seen. The angled paper loading tracks will be partially covered by steel structures as well to add more a 3 dimensional look to the overall flat structures. I have some Evergreen sheet ready to go for this.

I also have some room out front for another conventional (4 sided) building kit I want to use, and I'll add some wood chip piles to the far right. But that is future work. For now, I want to get this first building done and start planning the next one to be placed to the left of it. This flat will butt up against the walls of adjacent buildings, so I won't need any actual sides for this flat. And I do not think I will need any roof either because of the restricted sight lines and the upper level shelf above.

For reference, here is an older picture of the Groveton area, with the hidden trackage above slightly behind the scene.

Taken about 3 years ago, it will be nice to get some structures and scenery in place at Groveton!

TBT - 1980's Detail Parts

I was doing some cleaning up around the workbench and came across 2 items purchased a while ago to help with freight car detailing and modeling in the 1980's. Back then of course we did not have as many options with prototype specific freight cars and modifying existing kits was necessary to push towards more accurate models.

The first item addressed a need to duplicate what the real railroads have been doing over the past decade of the 1970's - removing roof walks from boxcars. Many older 40 and 50 foot boxcars had their ladders lowered and roof walks removed, so it was natural to model that as well if you were a "current" era modeler, which I was at the time.

But removing the roof walk of an Athearn boxcar left you with 4 rather large holes to fill in. Hence the introduction of "Roofwalk Plugs" by I believe CM Shops.

These 4 plugs fit nicely into the Athearn roof, and have a matching rib detail to help blend the roof.

Not a lot of use for these now as more accurate "modernized" 40' boxcars can be purchased in model form already without the roofwalk. Even some older models with roof walks have such small holes that plugging them is not a big deal. Not sure if you can even find this product any more, except buried deep in an older hobby shop perhaps.

Next up was a cool add on for hopper cars. It seems the capacity of some older cars with flat sides were increased with the addition of side panel extensions that protruded between the ribs, as shown here on this D&H model:

An older issue of Model Railroading had a cool picture of a Central Vermont hopper car with some of these panel extensions added, but not completely on every panel. It was a cool effect, and I know I wanted to model that.

To model that appearance, a company (maybe Tichy?) produced styrene panels that you could glue to the sides of existing Athearn rib side coal hoppers. Here a look at some of them I came across:

These parts fit in specific locations between the ribs of the coal hopper to duplicate the look of the D&H car shown above.

It was pretty neat coming across these older parts which really helped you create unique models that were otherwise unavailable. I doubt I'll be using these parts, although I believe in a box somewhere is the CV hopper replicating the look of the car that did not have all the panels. That would explain why I only came across some of the panels from the original detail part. So maybe I'll dig that out and finish it one day.

Wordless Wednesday #8

What's Up with Intermountain Trucks?

I can't imagine I'm the only one who has had this issue. I have some nice Intermountain cars that came ready-to-run. For some reason, and without any obvious cause, I have had a truck on more than one of these cars just fall apart. Looking closely I can see one of the truck side frames seems to have broken off from whatever helps hold the pin into the center section.

There does not appear to be any fix for this that I can figure out. Pressing the side frame back on does not hold it in place and gluing it is not really an option, and probably would cause tracking issues with half of the truck being rigid and the other half having some flexibility.

Anyone else have this issue and know what is going on?

A good truck still on the car, and this one where the side came of the center section. The pin on the side frame no longer holds the piece together.

I replaced the truck with another manufacturer.

Otherwise the trucks are great. Just until they disintegrate.

Op Session Stools, Crawford station platform

When I was getting ready for my first Op session last June, I wanted to make sure there were a few spots in the layout area where guys could get off their feet a bit. Sure, I have plenty of seating just outside the train room, but some guys working the yards would not get much of a chance to take a break, or even walk around too much. I know from my experience operating that it is nice to have a place to sit now and  then but still be at your "post".

I have 2 stools that are pushing 25 years old. They work great, but I really needed another 1 or 2 to augment these. Finding low cost, suitable stools was harder than I thought, so I made do with just these original 2, meaning no seats for a couple of the guys.

We were in Ikea this past weekend and I was happy to find a well made, inexpensive stool that fits the bill nicely. It is solid wood construction and comes home in a flat box that is easy to get in any car. It goes together in about 5 minutes using standard Ikea methods. And at $19 each, the price is hard to beat.

New Ikea stool on the left, and my much older one on the right. No cushioning on the new one, but still pretty comfortable. Adding a cushion wouldn't be tough. Both are just right for working the layout seated, which is about 48" off the floor here.

Part Number info should you be looking to grab one of these,

On the layout it self, I have been focusing on getting the area in Crawford prepared for the station which is nearly complete. I need to have a suitable base to raise the station to the proper level trackside, and also build out the asphalt platform area which extends to the left and right of the station.

This area has a foam base installed slightly below track level. I used some gator foam and styrene to build up a base for the station and provide support for the platform extensions. I let this dry thoroughly, then cut the first platform extension from styrene and used strips to get the height to match that of the plaster base of the station. Next up will be repeating this for the other side, then painting these to look like the asphalt seen in pictures circa 1980.

This side of the platform is installed, butted up against the plaster station base. As you can see, I needed to bring the height up quite a bit to match the prototype which is about even with the top of the railhead. A scenic base will be built up to the platform and the ballast will level out on the track side.  

Once in place, I will be able to build up the scenery around this, add the parking lot and large boulders, and bring this scene closer to complete.

Getting a look at things to come...The platform on this side will be shorter. I'll build that in the next work session. I placed a U18B here to get a feel for the overall look of things and the setback of the station compared to prototype photos. 

TBT - Roosevelt Paper 1998

Nearby where I live now, and also where I lived 18 years ago, is a Conrail branchline, that continues to see regular service. In the late 1990s a local paper company constructed a new warehouse along the existing rail line and Contrail crews cut in a new switch and long siding to allow boxcars of paper to be unloaded. This greatly added to the traffic base with the addition of 50' boxcars from paper producing lines like the Maine Central, Central Vermont, Canadian National and Wisconsin Central.

This new customer generated a little more railfan interest in the line when the warehouse came on line. I visited many times when the local would be in the area most weekdays in the late afternoon.

I have always thought this line would make a great shelf switching layout. Staging could represent Pavonia yard. Some interesting bridges are crossed and some preserved stations exist. In addition to this warehouse in Mt. Laurel is an industrial park in Hainesport with a number of customers. The end of the line in Mt. Holly has a runaround siding. A great subject for a Lance Mindheim style project.

My 1997 VW Jetta was not the only railfan vehicle on this day. A few others are on hand to watch the crew swap boxcars at the warehouse. The locomotives are on the switch.

A freshly painted GP38-2 is on the head end now as the train has traversed the line to Mt. Holly and is on its way back to Camden and Pavonia yard. The Roosevelt Paper warehouse is seen in the background. The spur diverts here and is switched now with train heading back.

The Operation Lifesaver unit is heading backing down the spur to pull the cars off the siding.

A portion of the very large paper warehouse is seen here. At any time the siding has up to a dozen 50' boxcars spotted at various doors.

The other unit on this local is a CR GP15-1.

A MEC and CV boxcar carry paper for the warehouse. These older cars soldiered on in their original owner paint schemes even though both railroads had been transformed into new entities (Guilford and New England Central).

Another MEC boxcar, this one the same series as the above waffle-side boxcar, but having been repainted into the Guilford all white scheme in the mid 1980s, sits next to a Canadian Nation CNA plug door boxcar.

The line is still active as Contrail Shared Assets, and sees both NS and CSX motive power. The warehouse still sees 50' boxcars, but less of them are as varied and colorful as they were in the 1990s. Mostly they are just a much simpler paint scheme with a good deal of graffiti.

I know I have written about this branch a couple times in previous posts (Click the Railfan Label at the top right of this page to see 2 other posts with newer pictures). I've been going through my older non-digital pictures and scanning them, so perhaps I'll post more from this line in the future.

The Roosevelt Paper warehouse. You can see 12 boxcars spotted this day, with room for about 4 more or so. Route 537 (Marne Highway) parallels the branch almost entirely from Camden (to the left/east) to Mt. Holly (to the right/west). 

Wordless Wednesday #7

Wordless Wednesday #6

Not done yet - getting close!

Wordless Wednesday #5

Wiring work on the Modules

Having just completed a long weekend of Free-mo, I wanted to take care of a few things on my modules while it is still fresh in my mind. I don't have a plan yet for the next Free-mo event, but I want to make sure a few issues and upgrades are taken care of before that occurs.

I have clamped plastic throttle holders to my module to make a place for them to reside without adding a permanent projection from the side fascia, which is something to avoid on modules as much as possible. This would be easily damaged in transit or set up. I noticed Bill Grosse had taken the idea a step further on his modules and mounted his plastic holders to a thin piece of wood which is then clamped on to the module. This is a good idea and makes for a sturdier mount of the throttle holder. I decided to upgrade my pair to match what Bill has done, also painting them in the standard NJ Free-mo fascia color.

The throttle holder "block" can now be firmly clamped to the side of the module.

I have 2 clamp-on extensions for my module, one that serves as the shortline interchange off of the yard, and a one that can be used off of the mainline when no module is connected past mine. This allows a locomotive set, or loco and car to use the run around of the passing siding. While these were painted to match the fascia, the roadbed remained gray homasote. I decided to give these a spray from my favorite track color, Rustoleum Camouflage Brown, a great very flat railroad color. I'll also spray the track and rerailers. This will help them stand out a little less.

The Homabed is now darker to match the track placed on there after clamping to the module.

Free-mo as a national group recently decided to modify the standards for the wiring, converting from RJ connectors and trailer plug connectors to Anderson Power Poles, and also adding a DCC common bus line. I have had dual RJ and PP connectors for a few years, but decided this would be a good time to remove the older connectors and have just Power Pole, along with adding the DCC common and converting the accessory bus from trailer plugs.

The module is clamped onto the table top above my pool table in the "non-model railroad" portion of the basement.

 A great thing about the modules is being able to move them, turn them on their side, etc., when work needs to be done, as shown above. Here you can see my main bus, the loconet cable, the terminal strips at the ends, and one of the non-manual turnouts controlled by a Tortoise and a DCC/pushbutton control module developed by a New England Free-mo member.

Accesory Bus, DCC/Track power bus , and the DCC Common bus with their Power Pole connectors

You may be wondering about the wire colors (a lot of red there) and the Power Pole Connector colors shown. No standards exist for wire colors or Power Pole Connector colors. This may seem odd, but it becomes apparent that it is unfeasible once you take into account that a module left and right will change when you get to the other end. A black wire to the left rail will become a black wire to the right rail on the other end when you are facing the end. So I am using different colors where possible within my module to assist me, but in reality once wiring is done and working, you never need to mess with it on a module.

I am still working on this and also plan 2 other changes. First, I picked up some Cobalt intelligent turnout controllers in Springfield and I want to test it out on one of the module turnouts to see if it will allow me to convert it back from the ground throws. Although the ground throws continue to work, they are subject to damage from moving the modules, and also detract from taking realistic photos on the module. I need to make sure I can control the Cobalt from push buttons mounted on both sides of the module.

The other change I want to make is to isolate my module trackage from the DCC bus and include a circuit breaker. This way if a short circuit occurs (usually from running a turnout), I will not take out the whole DCC block and stop everyone else from running. This is the same as what you want to accomplish on a layout with separate power districts. Having 10 turnouts on my module usually means someone (like me) will forget to throw a turnout now and again, especially when they are switching and a someone starts to talk during a show. I'll be running a separate bus for the DCC, and tap into it for powering the circuit breaker. My existing track bus will be connected only to the circuit breaker, and I'll insulate the track ends to isolate my module trackage. So 2 more Power Pole Connectors on the intra-module joints only. More on this as work progresses.

Meanwhile work continues on the Crawford Notch station. I'll post about that soon, plus a few other small projects. And hopefully I'll have an Operating Session to report on in late March.

Springfield Wrap Up

A great weekend up at the Springfield show. The weather was much warmer than any time I have been there before. I needed to buy a D&H T-shirt to wear Sunday as it was so warm in the building. The crowds were pretty good and I talked to a number of new and also familiar folks about Free-mo and model railroading.

I posted pictures I took of the Free-mo layout up on Flickr. Go to the link below to see them all (76).

https://flic.kr/s/aHsktHAXzn

Woodstown Jct. setup and ready to receive visitors - people and trains!

Saw some cool stuff at the show, picked up a few things of course, but mainly enjoyed operating on the Free-mo layout and talking to people. I know I probably missed a few of you who visited however. We ran operating sessions both days, and it was quite a run I had on Sunday when I went from Italy Yard down the branch to Woodstown, about 200 feet. I switched towns along the way and decided to terminate in Woodstown rather than head back as it took me an hour to do that part of the run. Very cool!

It was great having so many new people join with modules. Others from NJ and a new group out of Albany, plus a fantastic Bridge module from Ontario joined in this year making for a spectacular layout. The show director was quite pleased with the layout and people's reaction to it, and we have the same space available again next year. James Koretsky of NE Free-mo did a great job with the plan, which fit the space perfectly. And Fred Hessler and Bob Hall, also of NE Free-mo did a great job coordinating an operating plan that offered plenty of trains to run and industries to switch.

My friend Anton assisted with my modules and also brought some of his road power to run. Some of his nicely weathered Canadian units were operated Sunday with a good deal of natural sunlight coming through a  roof sky light making for some great photo opportunities.

My GRS GP40-2W (ex-CN) and Anton's CN GP40-2Wget some sunlight on the bridge at Woodstown Jct.

We did experience some issues with short circuits within our power district. This brought to mind my desire to isolate my module from the bus and install a circuit breaker. This way if I am the one causing a short I won't impact others in the power district. So while the modules are out and it is on my mind I will spend a little time working on that, along with getting the rest of the Power Pole changeover done to match the revised Free-mo specs.

So sorry if I did miss any of you looking for me, but glad to meet and say hi to those that read the blog and were at the show.

If anyone has any specific questions, post a comment here and I'll respond.

Who needs a Pepsi?

TBT - Free-mo module

Getting the module together for the trip up to Springfield got me thinking about when I started to build it and everywhere it has been. It has also led to new friendships and good times with modelers and folks I otherwise would not have met. I am certainly glad I embarked on this project. So here is a Throwback Thursday look at my Woodstown Junction Free-mo module.

It started with an issue of Railroad Model Craftsman in 2008 where Free-mo was explained and demonstrated, including construction ideas. This looked like a great way to do modular railroading, something I had participated with in the past with traditional style modules in the 1980s. Back then, an HO version of what N-trak was doing was all the rage. That group fell apart after a few years and modules built by me and some friends were disassembled.

I certainly did not need a new model railroad project as I was fully involved with my home layout. But this looked like something that could augment that and allow me to participate in other events besides home layout tours and open houses. I've always enjoyed the idea of modular layouts coming together at shows and events, and this new (to me) style had a lot going for it with a more prototypical look to things, and no difficult backdrop to deal with.

So I embarked on a design inspired by a prototype scene in Calais, Maine, the end of a Maine Central branch, I am not sure how I came upon that idea exactly, but it probably was from studying some pictures and seeing a view much like the picture below. The arrangement of track seemed like it would fit nicely into the parameters of a module, and offer operating potential even without other modules attached.

This early picture shows construction progress in early 2009, shortly after I started building. Here the track is in with basic wiring. It was just about ready for it's debut at an NMRA Division Meet, demonstrating Free-mo to a group who had never seen it before.

Initially I completed just 2 sections of the module set before starting on the shorter bridge scene section.

That the module was something that could provide operations when set up by itself was important as I was the lone pioneer in the New Jersey area with Free-mo. It would be a few years before more modules came on-line in our area, so it was great to have what was essentially a self contained portable layout. It certainly would have been easier (and maybe wiser!) to start with the traditional 2x4 module with maybe a single siding, but luckily things worked out well construction-wise and the module has performed well.

Since that debut in May of 2009, the module has been to 23 events, traveling nearly 5000 miles and getting looked at by thousands of people. Pretty cool when you step back and think about it!

When the modules were 2 years old they had their first chance to connect to other Free-mo modules, traveling down to Timonium to integrate into the Capitol Free-mo group's layout. This was certainly a moment of truth to see just how well a Free-mo module built in a vacuum might hook up with other modules from other builders. Luckily there were no issues and the module performed well. A testament to the Free-mo standard that I could build this and have it work so well right away.

The modules have attended multiple NMRA Regional conventions, public train shows such as Timonium and Springfield, numerous NMRA Division Meets and a few public displays. The modules have also participated in numerous formal operating sessions. 

My module is somewhere around 80% complete. I still have a little more scenery work I'd like to do and finalize some structures. Certainly if I did not also have a home layout I would have completed these things long ago. But the fact that the module is operationally sound and relatively complete looking has not let these things deter from my enjoyment. I look forward to many more adventures with these modules!

The bridge section, getting an initial scenery base in 2011. This bridge has survived a complete collapse when the module fell over and flattened out the bridge. I was able to rebuild it, but it is a reminder that dealing with modules requires extra care. This is often why I turn down assistance from those who want to help me carry the modules in and out from events. I would love their help, but it is easy to damage things and I don't want anyone to feel awful if something goes wrong! 

To get a full look back at all my posts that included Free-mo, click on the 'Free-mo' link at the right under Labels to filter just for those posts.