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!

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.

TBT - Kadee Ad 1980

I was going through the October 1980 issue of RMC to get an article for someone, and while paging through I cam across this ad from Kadee. It really took me back to my earliest days in model railroading with the simple fascination of a working coupler like this. A huge leap from the X2f couplers I had on all my equipment.

Also interesting to note the style of the ad. Look at all that text! You never see anything like that today. A lot of information and salesmanship going on there, but times sure have changed in advertising!

Interesting to note this is the days before the Kadee patent ran out and no one but Kadee made these couplers. A point they mention. The interesting thing is that I (and many others) still feel they make the best version despite new competition. I think that only helped drive them into new products, lie the scale head coupler.

I like the line that you should use Kadee couplers because your friends are!

Free-mo pictures from NER Convention

I posted pictures of the Free-mo layout assembled at the NER NMRA Convention in Mahwah, NJ on my Flickr site. Click the link below to view the gallery.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskKefY2b

It was a good weekend. Set up went pretty well Thursday despite a few unplanned physical obstacles. We ran plenty of trains created with the ModuOps software which generates switch lists for the crews. Convention attendees as well as the Free-mo crew ran over 2 dozen schedules trains Friday and Saturday.

There was talk of maybe having Free-mo at the Syracuse convention next September, but that will probably depend on space available. But certainly it was well received again by the convention attendees. Going back the last few years we've had a Free-mo layout at the Laconia NH convention in 2013, the joint MER-NER Mt. Laurel convention in 2015, the Newport convention in 2017, and now this year in Mahwah NJ.

Simple Brake Holding CP Train RS-1 on Grade

For Canadian Pacific train RS-1, a local that leaves Newport (staging), it's first assignment is to switch cars at Lyndonville, which is an industrial park with a trailing point siding leading to a few industry spurs. I have a couple of temporary tracks in Lyndonville now, but want to add some more soon.

Due to the grade of the mainline coming out of Newport and progressing all the way to St. Johnsbury, Lyndonville has the main line on a grade, while the industrial park itself is flat. What this means is that CP RS-1 passes the switch for Lyndonville park and then backs its whole train into the siding and the park. It cannot leave any part of the train on the main line due to the grade.

This has worked OK as the operator can use the whole train to switch the training sidings, and work around keeping his caboose in the right spot. I thought about adding an extra unused siding where the caboose could be dropped. But it has always bothered me that the operator switches with the whole train, even with it being a short train.

I've seen various articles and pictures of different methods to hold a train on a grade, using ground throws, levers, Tortoise machines, etc. However I did not want to invest a lot of effort into something that would be used once per op session.

While doing some switching and using a wooden skewer to separate cars at the Kadee couplers, I thought that it would be easy enough to "assign" a skewer as a brake to hold the caboose and through cars on the main, and allow the train to pull forward, back into the park to do its work and then return back out to the main to pick up the waiting through cars and caboose.

It only took 5 minutes to implement the solution and the pictures are pretty self explanatory. I doubt I am the first to think of this specific idea, and sticking something like a pin into the track is something I have seen, but I like the ease and visibility of the "Hill Brake" skewer.

The caboose for RS-1 and the 1 through car wait on the main as the locomotive and Lyndonville cars will back down to the track in front to serve the local industries.
(Eventually there will be scenery and trees between the CP mainline and the MEC mainline above and behind. The CV/LVRC track is part of hidden staging)

Looking upgrade - the skewer nicely holds the train using the the Kadee coupler of the caboose. I put a little flag on the skewer so it would be more obvious what it's purpose is!

A close up of the Hill Brake skewer. It sits off to the side of the roadbed, easily accessed. Silver Sharpie marks the location of the holding hole as well as the spot to keep the skewer.

How I Spent My Summer

Well, Summer is officially over now and Fall is here. I realize I have not posted since May, so a whole season has passed. I must admit that I have been pretty tied up with other things and have not done much model railroading. But hopefully now things will settle down and progress will continue on the layout. Plus there are some events coming up I need to prepare for.

So much like going back to school, here is my How I Spent My Summer report, specifically from a model railroad perspective.

I wrapped up Spring finishing up a flatcar load project. Inspired the Kalmbach Freight Car projects book I picked up at Springfield, I worked on an open lumber load for a bulkhead flatcar. This used inexpensive wood strips purchased at Michaels, glued together and then "tied down" with EZ-Line.

This Walthers NAFX bulkhead flat was sitting unweathered and crying out for a nice load. It also allowed me to add some needed weight concealed within the load.

I also started some scenery work at Johnson, building up the landforms and putting in the Route 15 roadway. This has some basic scenery in place and next up will be finishing the road with striping. I'll post more on that once the scene is further along, but I did get a good head start before the summer hiatus. (You can see a bit of the work completed in one Op Session photo below).

In late June I held another Op Session. This included another new operator to break in. All in all it went well, although I still need to work out some wrinkles in the overall plan as we still did not get through a full schedule yet. Here are some pics:

Bill Howard held down duties at Morrisville and has a good handle on things now. Meanwhile Joe Hueber attended his first NEK Op Session, and is bringing the LVRC train through Johnson, where you can see a little preview of the scenery going in there.

Chris Conaway worked the Gilman local job, which had some new twists that worked out well, easing some of the pressure on the St. Johnsbury yard operators.

Phil Duba wa son hand again and worked the B&M Groveton local turn up to Whitefield. This job also had some new twists that I found worked very well. 

Bruce Barrett and Mark Fryzstacki again worked the St. Johnsbury yard and have become quite proficient in keeping things fluid. 

Throughout each month if the summer I was able to attend the Op Sessions at John Rahenkamp's large Clairmont, Lewistown & Western layout. I have been holding down the Bayview job and have taken and posted a number of pics and some video to the NEK Layout Facebook page.

This shot comes from early in the session as I am picking up empty coal hoppers to build the coal trains over in the yard to head back up to the PA coalfields for reloading. This view shows just a small number of the nice urban buildings John has built for the layout.

In July we returned to the White Mountains for some vacation time. I did not spend too much time seeking out the trains in this area as I have visited many times and have many pictures. However one rainy day we took a long ride up north and I came across the New Hampshire Central trackage above Whitefield, up to Groveton and North Stratford. It was interesting to see the freight car facility I visited some 17 years ago is now a trainload facility for propane tank cars (it was raining too hard to stop for pics there). I did get to see an idle NHC Geep in Groveton, and see some repair work in place on the old Groveton Station.

New Hampshire Central GP9 7324 (ex-NYC) sits idle along the mainline next to the empty area that once housed the large paper mill at Groveton. No active railroad activity here in this rainy Monday.
 

Directly opposite the GP9, the Groveton station shows some recent repairs in place on the roof. St. Lawrence & Atlantic trackage between Maine and Montreal (ex-Grand Trunk) is situated behind the station, while the NHC (ex-B&M) track is to the right of the station (where the GP9 was parked). I'm not sure what the overall plan is for this area or the station.

In August we took a trip down to Baltimore Inner Harbor. Not much left of train activity in the area we were, but did see 2 older railroad relics while taking a ride on the Water Taxi.

This older building along the waterfront still shows faded "Railroad" lettering between the 2nd and 3rd floors.

This old pier still has rail in place, which can be seen overhanging the wooden structure. Trees in the background are actually growing on the pier itself, which is not accessible (or too safe looking) for people, let alone rail cars!

Our final stop takes us to Florida. We visited relatives over Labor Day weekend (before the hurricane). Although we flew down, we did leave by taking the Trip-Rail train from Delray Beach back to Fort Lauderdale airport. While waiting for the Trial-Rail train, the Amtrak train 98, the northbound Silver Meteor out of Miami made a station stop. I thought this was cool as I had just recently put a Seaboard Air line boxcar with Silver Meteor lettering onto the layout (see post).

The northbound Amtrak 98 Silver Meteor stops at Delray Beach while we waited on the next southbound Trip-Rail commuter train. The Amtrak train arrived right as we were getting on the platform, so this was the best shot I could get.

So that concludes my Summer report. I'll be back to work on the layout for an open house in November, as well as doing some module work for the NER Newport Convention in November and the Springfield show in January. I also want to get in another Op Session. So there will be more to report in the coming weeks.

NEK Track Schematic

One of the requests I had from previous operating sessions was a track schematic that operators could refer to to better understand the layout and where locations are in relation to each other. I put together a basic schematic in a drawing program that I can post around the layout.

Not all tracks are shown, but passing sidings are included along with the 2 main yard areas.
The dashed lines represent hidden staging areas.

Hopefully this will be easy to understand. The somewhat unusual part of my layout is the representation of multiple "mainlines" of different railroads.

The top line represents the Maine Central Mountain Division between Portland and St. Johnsbury. Included is the Boston & Maine line between White River Jct. and Groveton, crossing the MEC at Whitefield.

The middle line represents the Canadian Pacific between Newport and East Deerfield. The Maine Central joins in via the A connector. Meanwhile the Lamoille Valley joins in via the B connector.

The Lamoille Valley is on the bottom line and runs between St. Johnsbury and St. Albans. The Central Vermont line runs between Richford and St. Albans and crosses the Lamoille Valley at Sheldon Jct.

Not shown here is the connector between Sheldon Jct. and Lyndonville. This would be the shorter dashed line at the bottom right connecting in via a switch by Lyndonville on the middle line. this is not used in actual operations but only as a way to have a loop for open houses.

Likewise, the connection between Portland staging and E. Deerfield staging is not shown. Again this is strictly for creating a second loop for open house running and is not relevant to operations.

This should be another helpful addition to the various operator aids. I look forward to finding out how useful it is for the operators, and to see what feedback and suggestions they have.

Woodsville Terminal

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

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

Highball Graphics set FL-1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morrisville Turnouts Complete

I finished off the work on the installation of the 2 turnouts in Morrisville that will provide an additional passing siding (see previous post). After having the track in and wired, and after doing some test runs, I needed to get turnout controls in place. The rest of Morrisville has front edge mounted Caboose Industry ground throws, but doing the same would be nearly impossible given the existing track and scenery.

During an Op Session, last year before the new turnouts were installed, Bill Howard(in white) has the ground throw controls right at his finger tips along the front edge of Morrisville. One new turnout is where the caboose is, but on the second track from the right pictured. No way to to run a throw rod there now, so undercount control became necessary. The other turnout is about where the CV brown boxcar is next to the silo.

So I figured the best bet was to put in Tortoise machines. A benefit to automated control vs. manual throws is that whenever a turnout needs to be thrown, both need to throw in order to have a clear path. That meant I could simply have 1 control for the operator.

I had read somewhere a while back that mounting Tortoise machines on a longer piece of wood can assist in getting the throw adjusted. By lining up the machine's rod with the throw bar and then putting a single screw towards the rear of the piece of wood into the subroadbed above, you have the ability to slightly move the turnout left and right to get the throw just right. This avoids needing to keep removing screws and repositioning.

I found this this method worked great and I wish I had done it on the other installs I had where seeing the top and bottom at the same time is not possible. Of course having someone assist also can help, but much easier to just drive a couple wood screws then try to screw the actual machine in over your head!

This is pretty good picture of the method. I mounted the Tortoise to the thin birch plywood panel. Note - I needed a second piece  (in this case scrap poplar) to prevent the small screws from protruding through, but using one thicker piece would have worked as well. I positioned the throw rod up through the throw bar and kept the Tortoise edge even with the throw bar so there was no bend to the rod. I set the one screw at the far left, then tested the throw. Pivoting the the plywood allied for a minor adjustment to the left to right throw, and once I had it working well, I set the second screw closer to the Tortoise to lock it in place.

With that work out of the way, I mounted a single DPDT switch for the operator to throw both turnouts. Oddly enough, this is the only DPDT I have on the layout as all other controls are either DCC or touch panel. It was a simple matter of getting the right wires matched up to have both turnouts throw the proper direction, and power was provided by a leftover 9 volt wall wart power supply mounted in this area.

I found just the right spot for the DPDT switch. Inside the Morrisville shelf area I had this angled piece. I simply drilled a whole for the switch and mounted it. The good thing is that it is directly below where the turnouts are, and nothing protrudes off of the fascia or into the aisle way.

With that work completed, I test ran sone trains and threw the switches to make sure all was well. 

On a related note, I have been thinking about adding a new train to the Morrisville operations. I currently have some fictional Woodville Terminal cars in the yard representing a fictional connection to the Lamoille Valley with this short line that used to be part of Mike Confalone's layout. It gave me a way to logically get these custom painted/decaled cars onto the layout. I thought about instead of staging these cars, I establish a transfer train for the Woodsville Terminal to deliver cars first to Morrisville, and return with anything going back to the WTRC. 

I put together a small train that I can stage beyond Sheldon Jct. using CV power for now, and ran it up to Morrisville. Here is a quick video of me using that train to back through the new turnouts and test things out.

With the track changes now compete, it is time to prepare for and schedule the next Ops Session!

Springfield Report

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

Here are some assorted pictures and commentary from the weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking forward to next year!

Morrisville Turnout Work

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am adding a turnout in Morrisville at the suggestion of my operating crew. It will provide a second (and longer) runaround/passing track, as well as give access to the south side of the mainline from the eastern approach. In watching operations and trying some moves my self, I agreed the suggestion had merit.

My main concern with making this change though was how long would this take to get completed, and how long until I could schedule the next Op Session? One thing was certain though, nothing would get done unless I actually started the work!

With the required curved turnout in hand, I found I had a little time to get started with this the other night. I knew I would not finish this up in one session, but it seemed best to get started and chip away at the overall work.

I cut the rail with a Dremel tool, then pulled up the flex track. I cleaned up the surface of the Homasote roadbed. As there was no good subroadbed under the area that the new turnout would lead to, I cut out a section of scenery. This was only a piece of foam with some scenic material on top, so it wasn't too tough to remove.

Track on the LVRC mainline as well as the parallel grain siding has been removed, and a new hole  opened up to add subroadbed. Luckily a cross piece was right under this are to help support new subroadbed.

Using a scrap of 3/4" plywood, I traced out a subroadbed piece using the newly opened up hole. I clamped a support up from the cross piece below, and then leveled out the new piece. On the yard side, I had a small piece of support for the existing roadbed to tie into.

With a solid base I can now add sections of Homa-bed (2 pieces here were used to make sure the height was correct). this will support the new track off the curved turnout, as well as the track going back in for the grain elevator.

This took about 1 hour to get done, but was a crucial first step. Next time I can drop in the Homa-bed and get the turnout locations situated. Holes will be drilled for the Tortoise switch machines and I can cut new flex track pieces to tie it all together. After soldering the rail in and adding the track power feeder wires, I'll have done enough to support testing trains and restoring operations. This will be without turnout controls of course. Another session to get the Tortoise machines installed, wired and a control throw installed, and I'll be ready to schedule the next Op session. I wait until after a trial run with the next Op Session before starting repairs to the scenery.

I think the takeaway form this is to break down work that might seem daunting and time consuming into smaller sub projects that can be accomplished in smaller segments of time. It was unlikely I would find the multiple consecutive hours do this work completely in one shot. But tackling it in 3-4 sessions was very do-able.

Groveton NH Video

Happy New Year! Thanks to all those who take the time to check out my blog and see the latest on my layout. I enjoy putting information and pictures up here, and I hope it is useful and entertaining for most!

A week ago I used my iPhone to capture a few video clips of train action in Groveton NH. It doesn't encompass the full scope of operations that train 4301 performs, but I thought it would be neat to see some of the action up close as well as see the overall area and how it has progressed to date. I think it turned out to be a neat little operation within the overall scope of the layout.

While heading up to Boston on the Acela, I had fun editing the video and also adding some audio over top the video action. Using some audio clips from various sources as well as some of my own railfan video, I merged together a finished video which I think is more fun than just plain video. The Kato RS2, custom painted for BM #1501, does not have sound of its own at this point.

The video is up on YouTube, and you can view it below. If for some reason you can't see or play it, here is a direct link: https://youtu.be/MOeA7pdvf3Q

I would suggest viewing it larger than the small window below however. There is a Full Screen button at the lower right of the video.

I hope you enjoy!

Listening to my operators

Through the 5 operating sessions I have held so far I have received some good feedback on the layout and the operations. Some suggestions have been easy to address, like train sequence, which I have done through schedule changes in each subsequent session. Others have been more "infrastructure" related, involving track. Sometimes this has been addressed by explaining something about the layout and the prototype operation, and that has resolved the issue (like running from Whitefield to Crawford Notch to use a passing siding).

However one suggestion has been mentioned a couple of times by different people, so I am thinking it may have merit. Interestingly enough it involves a location where I freelanced the track plan instead of following the prototype. The prototype usually gets it right, so this comes as no surprise.

In the Morrisville yard I provided a passing siding to assist in breaking down and building trains. It works, but it could be easier if the siding was longer and also if it was not one of the yard tracks. With a limited number of yard tracks, it becomes tough to tie up the mainline and the siding and still have room to move power onto and off trains and also maneuver the yard locomotive.

I have watched these operations and also did some test running after the last session to see how things work. My conclusion was that the suggestion to drop in a pair of turnouts to create a second passing siding would really help things.

The siding to Lamoille Grain parallels the main line (left). The turnout installed is the start of the yard ladder and also one end of the existing passing siding. As suggested, dropping turnouts as shown will allow a second, longer, passing siding on the other side of the main. 

Adding the curved turnout on the main will involve removing a piece if the ballasted main line and a little scenery, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I will need to do some roadbed transition as the siding height is 1/8" lower than the main. The regular turnout on the siding will be even easier, a simple drop in for a cut out track section.

All the turnouts in this area are controlled by ground throws mounted at the layout edge (see earlier post on this). However doing it the same way for these 2 would require some major work that would damage scenery. I think the better solution will be to use Tortoise switch machines. For one, it will not require ripping out and rebuilding some scenery. But also throwing one turnout really requires the other to also be thrown. This is easy to do having one control throw both machines. I'lll just have to determine the best place to add the control. It will be my only Tortoise not controlled by DCC or a Touch Toggle!

Of course, checking my supply of turnouts on hand (I still have to finish track in North Stratford and Lyndonville) reveals that I have a #7 curved turnout, right hand even, but what I really need is a #7.5 for the 28" inner radius curve. And I could use a #5 or #6 left hand turnout for the siding, and all I have are right hand turnouts. Figures! 

As the overhead shows, I need a less sharp curved turnout and a left hand (not right hand) turnout on the grain siding. Of course, I don't have these on hand!

So time to pick up the 2 turnouts I need and then see if I can get this installed without too much down time. I have the layout restaged and ready for another op session, so I'll have to see if I want to wait until this is done, or have the op session first and then come back and do track work.