Phill Express - Layout open for viewing and Ops sessions in October

 I will be participating in the NMRA Mid Eastern Region convention this fall, having my layout open for visitation and for operating sessions.

The Philly Express is October 16-19, 2025 and will be held in King of Prussia, a little northwest of Philadelphia. The convention hotel is the Crowne Plaza, and it is just under 1 hour from my home. I'll have the layout open to visitors traveling in on Thursday 12-4 and traveling home on Sunday 12-4.

I will also host 2 operating sessions, Thursday evening 6-10, and Saturday morning 9-12:30. This is a chance to run trains on the layout, with up to 6 operatoring positions available for each session.

The convention also has other open layouts, op sessions, clinics and excursions, It looks to be a good time! Here is a link to the convention web site to get all the details: https://phillyexpress.org/

Registration is open now at an early bird price, and there is an easy to use online registration process.

Op session information is at https://phillyexpress.org/ops/

If you are interested in joining in on one of the op sessions on my layout (or any of the other layouts), that is part of the registration process. I am activity 805 (Thursday) and 806 (Sat).

Hope to see you at the convention!

Updates

I have not really kept up with posting here on this blog, mainly because I post updates primarily to the Facebook group for the layout, Northeast Kingdom Model Railroad. Much progress has been made on the layout since the recent posts have been made here though. That said, not sure I really want to go through the effort of posting lots of updates here, it just takes more work to do, especially when photos are involved. And writing up text is work that could be directed towards model railroading activities. Not sure how others feel, but publishing and consuming content through a web site like this seems a little more "old school" It is easier to do things through an app on my phone to quickly share something out. Not sure if there is a "Blogger" app that would help in that regard.

Anyway, some updates.

Major scenery efforts were done in East St. Johnsbury and Gilman. Those areas are largely complete looking, although there is always more that could be done.

Track was laid for Lyndonville and sceniced around the edges, leaving the flat areas ready for development. This combined makes the whole peninsula look somewhat completed. 

I did a major scenery effort to Morrisville, including building out the Lamoille Grain structure. Work is underway on the engine house structure, and I need to plan the background structures that will go along the wall to finish this up to a relatively complete stage. But just getting this track ballasted and and scenery in place really transformed things. This along with getting scenery all around Johnson except for the spot where the future talc mll building will go really makes this also look very finished. 

A number of structures were done. The ET&HK Ide building progressed to a good state, although I do want to build out some of the attached buildings and address the underpass and lower building level at some point. Also the Caldbeck Cosgrove building was built out, at a reduced scale, although it still needs the roof top structure element. 

For November, I decided not to join in on the open house tour this year. I have had a very small turnout the past few years and with other things going on I just did not want to dedicate a day or two to being available to the few who might show up. Maybe next year...

I will be at the Syracuse train show Nov 1-2 participating with the Free-mo layout. First time going to this show, although I have been to an NER NMRA convention there a while back. Good rail fanning, but I am not sure I will get the time to do that as we'll be doing full ops on the Free-mo layout at the show both days.

In January I will be back at the Springfield show, again with Free-mo. Always a great time, lots of model railroad fun packed into 3 days.

Here are some quick pictures from around the layout just to show things.

Whitefield

Feed Mill kit I picked up at Springfield in 2020 - fitting it into Whitefield area

Beecher Falls - Ethan Allen with completed NSRC S1 and 44 Tonner

Gilman

St. Johnsbury - structures in progress for ET&HK Ide and Caldbeck Cosgrove

Lamoille Grain - Morrisville

Morisville

Johnson

East St. Johnsbury

East St, Johnsbury

Lyndonville

Open House on Sunday November 20. 2022

After a few years off, my layout will be open again for the annual MD-DE-PA-NJ model railroad open house schedule for November. Go to http://www.modelrailroadopenhouse.com/ to see the whole schedule.

I will be open on Sunday, November 20th, 2022, from 11:30am to 4:30pm.

Since last being open in 2019, there is a quite a bit of new scenery to see, primarily in Gilman at the paper mill and East St. Johnsbury around the Maple Grove Farms plant. Will try to take a few pictures and post here (I know, no posts for a year! Sorry about that!)

Wordless Wednesday #31

 

Wordless Wednesday #29

Annual Open House Dates for November

Just a quick note about the annual open house dates for this year. My layout will be open as part of the overall NJ/PA/DE/MD open house schedule (see http://www.modelrailroadopenhouse.com for full schedule).

I'll be open on Sunday November 10th from 12:30pm to 4:30pm.

I'll also be open Saturday November 16th from 12:30pm to 4:30pm.

There are other NJ layouts open as well, plus ones in PA, so use the open house web site to plan your route.

Hope to see you!

Recent work has included adding trees along the backdrop of Whitefield.

Things look a lot better now with trees in place!

No much posting,,,,

Sorry for the lack of posting here. It is not due to inactivity on the layout or model railroading in general. I just find it much easier to throw out an update on my Facebook layout page, than to take the time to post here. I will admit that this blog is a little easier to search and write longer form, but it definitely requires setting aside a segment of time to prepare and upload pictures, and then do the writing. So probably will not be as much here regularly, but I will try to post now and again.

Recent work has been on getting North Stratford started. Until recently it has been a shelf only, good for storage and initiating/terminating the MEC TY/YT trains to St. Johnsbury and back. I have now gotten all the track in place and run to Beecher Falls and the Ethan Allen plant to be serviced by the North Stratford Railway (using a little license here on the timeframe of when MEC operated to N. Stratford and when NSRC was in operation).

ABOVE: The start of North Stratford comes through the wall of the closet on the elevated shelf above Groveton. I added some scenery to disguise this opening. I have also been working on a Sheepscot kit, acquired in early 1990s, for a Maine Central freight house. Here I am checking the placement. I have since moved the spur in front to make more space for the loading dock (not built yet).Behind the depot is the MEC main line, and behind that are the Grand Trunk tracks.

ABOVE: The corner of the shelf section, I have the station I built earlier this year in place to represent the Grand Trunk's North Stratford station. The 2 tracks here represent the GT. The one closest to the wall will be non operational. I plan to stage freight cars there to help hide the transition to the photo backdrop. The very corner itself will get disguised with some trees. The closer track is operational and will be used as the interchange between MEC and GT.

The 2 tracks in front of the depot represent the MEC Line up to Beecher Falls and a passing siding.

ABOVE: The end of the shelf will terminate with 2 tracks serving the Ethan Allen Furniture plant. The rear track will be inside the factory (a shallow building flat) while the front track will be for overflow car storage. The NSRC will need to switch cars for the plant, pulling loads out of the building and spotting empty 40' boxcars inside. The loaded cars will then need to be delivered to the GT/MEC interchange.  A true short line operation! Below is part of the paper mill building mock up for Gilman VT, served by the MEC.

As of right now, all track is in place, wired and painted and weathered. I did test runs and applied CRC 2-26. The turnouts (6 total) have ground throws installed, pulled out to the front edge. I also installed magnetic uncoupling ramps to make things easier on the operators. The height makes them hard to see from a scenic perspective, and should reduce needing to reach in to manually uncouple. I tried to strategically place the magnets so they can serve multiple purposes using delayed uncoupling.

I need to update my paperwork for the NSRC train (which has never run yet) and the MEC TY-2 train, which will need to assemble its cars into a train instead of just pulling out from what was essentially a staging track.

ABOVE: Overview of the corner of the layout, with the paper mill in Groveton NH seen below, and North Stratford NH above. To the right is Beecher Falls. I had to pull out all the buildings in Groveton to do the wiring above. Really, it makes sense to do the upper levels first before the lower levels, but alls well in the end!

I'll probably hold off on any scenery until I get another Op session in and run up top to see how things go. But it won't take much really to get scenery in most areas. It will just be dirt and static grass mainly. There will be a need for trees near the station and out to the Ethan Allen plant. And then the plant structure itself. We'll see how that goes as I do need a number of trees in other parts of the layout to get them looking more finished.

Homabed

A question came up on a comment about obtaining Homabed, as I mention it own some posts and it shows up in photos.

July 15, 2003 - Homabed on top of spline in Hardwick Vermont. Homasote section to left is staging for Richford VT.

I first ordered Homabed in the early 1990s when it was made by B.O. Manufacturing in New York. Later it moved to California Roadbed company. I believe CA Roadbed is out of business.

April 10, 2009 - Homabed installed on my Woodstown Jct. Free-mo module 

But good news! A new source of Homabed is Cascade Rail Supply. You can get to it easily using homabed.com. They have been around for a few years now, and I have heard positive things about their product, although I have not had the need to order myself (I still have a little Homabed supply to use when needed). They also seem to have a much larger catalog of products.

Cascade Rail Supply - https://cascaderailsupply.com

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.

Open House Sunday November 11, 12pm-5pm

Just a quick note that my layout is included in the NJ-PA-DE-MD open house schedule again this year. I am open on Sunday, 11/11, from 12 to 5. See the full listing with maps at the web site http://modelrailroadopenhouse.com

Here are a few pics of things I completed since last year. This is not everything, just some of the highlights.

I'm looking forward to seeing you!

I've enjoyed finally getting to work on this road scene for Whitefield. Two buildings here have interior details with lighting. Just getting started overall, but nice to move on from the exposed foam!

For whatever reason, this scene in Hardwick was never finished and remained in brown painted foam board for the past 12 years or so. I decided to at least add a basic ground covering to the area and re-install a weathered version of the old creamery building. This will no longer be active, but I plan to use the half the track as a team, track, and later add a simple unloading platform for transferring boxcar loads to trucks.

I noted this scene ion a previous post, but it too now has a finished look, making all of Hardwick now looking much more complete.

This side of the Whitefield diamond was done earlier and also brings a greater level of completeness to the layout. The other half is getting started as seen in the first photo with the road and buildings going in.

Over ibn Johnson I completed the background and roadway. Not seen is the area in front where I did paint the exposed plywood and foam a solid color. I still need to build the talc mill and then finish the scenery, but this now looks a lot better overall.

Not really changed, but I did cleanup a few details here. Still real happy with this initial scene when you first enter the layout area.

Fall scenery work

I've spent bits and pieces of time during the summer and early fall doing some light scenery projects. I also finished off the New England Farmhouse kit, minus some details once I determine the exact layout placement.

Here is a look a the finished farmhouse from Mount Blue Model Co. And a link to their website.

http://www.mountbluemodelco.com/structures.htm

I have an open house coning up on November 11th (see http://modelrailroadopenhouse.com for a full schedule). With that n mind I've turned my attention to trying to add some scenery into places where it will help make the layout look more finished.

One conspicuous area is the pulpwood loading siding in Whitefield, right along the edge of the layout. I put in dirt, stone and ground cover to finish what was started on the other side of the diamond earlier this year.

Basic ground cover and sone piles of pulpwood go a long way to ,making things look more finished. In that big open area, I'll drop in a piece of foam painted an earth color, until I work out the final scenic treatment.

For the look of bark that comes off the pulpwood, I use tea leaves, emptied from inexpensive tea bags.

Over on the other side of the layout, the Hardwick scene on the Lamoille Valley had scenery put in well over 10 years ago. It even has some details added including figures, vehicles, telephone poles, etc. But as I never worked out the final idea for the quarry and the area between that and the church, I never finished off the scene.

To the left of the church, I placed some structures and vehicles, but this is just painted foam. I wanted to make a more elaborate quarry scene, so I held off doing much else here.

I decided that investing a few hours into making this scene look complete, even if it may not be my final idea for this scene, would go a long way to making this how section look complete. I decided to simply add a gravel parking area where trucks would be turned and stored, plus a small shanty. The rest of the quarry would be further down, somewhat obscured by trees.

It was fun bringing this scene to life, adding the utility poles and wires, and stage a few vehicles. I need to get some appropriate dump trucks but for now I'm happy with the results.

At first I did not have that pine tree at the area where the road leads into the gravel lot. But after adding it it really helped the scene, adding some vertical element to this area.

I have more things to do in the next couple weeks before the open house. I also had a light fixture fail, so that is next up to fix. 

The Good, the Bad...and...the Lightning?

I've been fairly busy with summer activities for the past few months. That has meant not too much has gotten done on the layout. But hopefully things will get back into swing as we move into the fall

I did complete my kit of the Grand Trunk station I plan to use for North Stratford. Although I started the kit in January, and quickly made progress on the walls, windows, foundation and platform, I got hung up a bit on the roof and this sat a while. After finally getting the cardboard roof form cut, bent and fully built as a single piece, I painted and braced it and got it installed on the building. This finally allowed me to start the slow and tedious process of shingling the roof. I used peel and stick strips that I pre-painted. I actually ran out of shingles and had to get more to finish it off. Once done, I did some extra painting of the roof to break up the overall darkness. So that was good progress to get something completely finished.

The finished station. Lots of shingles!

This is the approximate position of the station on the layout, the upper shelf representing North Stratford and Beecher Falls. This is an elevated photo view as this shelf is closer to 66 inches off the floor. With the station in place,  I'd like to work on getting the track in up here. The far track against the wall will be the Grand Trunk. I plan for this GT mainline track to be non-operational and will in fact stage extra freight cars here to help the transition to the photo backdrop. The curving track will be the North Stratford line to Beecher Falls. It interchanges with the Maine Central to the left.

Another good thing that happened was during one evening when I had some time to tend to some small layout tasks, cleaning things up, etc. I decided it would be a great time to run a train around the layout while I worked, as it realistically had been many months since a train moved.

As many can attest, trains and rail that sit for a while tend to have issues with electrical conductivity. As I have treated my rail and loco wheels with CRC-26 a while back, I wondered if it maybe had been too long to get the same results I had been seeing for well over a year when trains last ran.

I pulled the CP local out of staging and ran it into St. Johnsbury. The sound-equipped RS10 did not have any issues moving smoothly over the rails while maintaining the sounds of the MLW Alco prime mover. This was indeed very good!

But I cannot say I did not run into an issue. It just wasn't with the train, the rail, the sound, or anything I would have expected. As I routed the CP train onto MEC rails and started to head towards Whitefield, I noticed I needed to align the turnouts in Whitefield to the MEC main line.

These turnouts are controlled by the excellent Berrett Hill Touch Toggles. The problem was that as I touched the glass over these toggles, nothing happened. I tried all 6 in Whitefield and found only 2 worked with 4 non-responsive. A quick check of my 19 toggles on the St. Johnsbury panel confirmed that they were all working well. So what was up with the Whitefield panel?

I took the panel off at Whitefield and examined things. With nothing obvious I started doing some testing. I quickly learned that the 2 working turnouts were attached to a 2 output panel, while the 4 not working were attached to a separate 4 output panel. I tried moving the toggles and turnout connectors around (easy to do as everything is plug and play with these boards), and found that indeed the issue was with the 4 output panel only. Why would this panel suddenly stop working? This was the bad, certainly.

Luckily I have a separate 8 output panel I have not used yet, so I swapped out the 2 and 4 output panels and reattached everything to the 8 output panel. Testing went well, so I re-installed the panel.

Here I am swapping the Touch Toggle leads from the panel (the orange/red/brown wires) from the 4+2 output panels on the right, to the 8 output panel on the left. The wires to the turnouts are attached to the blue connectors, which were also a simple matter of removing and plugging in to the new board. So at least this process was easy, a little good with the bad.

Here is the Whitefield panel re-installed and working properly. I took the time to drill and install 2 screws which make for a better solution than velcro strips. Now the panel is solidly in place, and working well!

As I worked I thought what might be the root cause. Unless the board just up and died, the only other thing I could think of was a recent lightning strike. A few weeks back we had a pretty active storm while we were at home, and one lightning strike seemed very close. The next day I noticed that our outside lighting wasn't working. I finally traced it to the one GFI outlet in the basement that was tripping the breaker in the circuit box. After replacing the GFI outlet, everything was back to normal. I don't really know how this happened, and nothing else was at all affected other than the GFI outlet.

So perhaps this 4 output board also was compromised by the strike? The board is plugged into a power supply and that goes to a line that is always turned off except when I am in the basement working on the layout. That line has other power supplies on it, like the DCC power supplies. Nothing else (so far) seems to have been affected. But like the GFI outlet perhaps one item in a connected chain could take the brunt of a surge?

Not sure. But anyway, there's my update, the good, the bad and the lightning!