jeff train: Trips

Sýnir færslur með efnisorðinu Trips. Sýna allar færslur

sunnudagur, 3. maí 2015

Operating the Virginia Midland

Yesterday had a great time operating Steve King's Virginia Midland in Germantown, Md.
For many years we've gently kidded Steve for the �uh, "lack" of VM painted locomotives. In fact he ran the railroad for many years with a fleet of undecorated locos, which he jokingly refers to as the "Appalachian Stealth" scheme.
There is one VM-painted Appalachian Lines locomotive on the roster, shown here.
Over the last few months Steve has gotten 46 locomotives painted in the VM's own olive green scheme.
There's even a little bit of scenery on the railroad.
I was too busy having a great time running trains to do a lot of photo, but I did manage to get a photo in one of the staging yards showing the original VM "paint scheme" (on the left), the Appalachian Lines unit, and the two VM units in the original VM second generation scheme.
Steve operates the railroad using Timetable & Train Order, which he is an expert at.
A great time with good friends.

miðvikudagur, 30. júlí 2014

Wordless Wednesday #55 - Vacation's Over - back to working on the railroad starting next week

mánudagur, 11. nóvember 2013

FineScale Expo 2013 - Trip Report

Stic Harris and I hit the road early....very early...Friday morning for Pittsfield, Mass. and the 2013 FineScale Expo. Three days and 1000+ miles on my car later and I'm back in Virginia.
This is the second Expo I've attended and while it was fun my impression was there wasn't the same frantic level of buying and selling going on in the dealer room. The clinics, while interesting and excellent seemed to be a lot of repeats from last year - some variety would have been nice.
Was the show worth it? I think so. The main reason we went was to see some friends. We had a nice visit with Don Janes and George Dutka....Don being more interested in Stic's hockey career than his model railroading.....and we both dropped a few sheckles in the dealer room. I did hold true to my mantra to only buy things I know will fit on the railroad - and my big purchases were a new country store from BEST Trains and a Winchendon Machine Co. kit from Laser Modeling 3. I already have spots picked out on the railroad for both of these buildings.
I rounded out my purchasing with some odds and ends - Northeastern has a new line of doors and window castings that are smaller windows more typical of New England buildings, so I ended up with a variety of those parts, and I also bought some metal details from BEST Trains.

Our main reason for going was to visit Dick Elwell's spectacular Hoosac Valley - one of my favorite layouts of all time. I've seen Dick at a few shows over the last few years, but hadn't been able to get to see the railroad since shortly after he'd moved a then finished railroad into a new house about 12 years ago.
We left the hotel early enough to be there when Dick opened the doors at 10:00. Actually, we got to Adams early enough that we had time to photograph a couple of the wonderful old mill buildings that are all over the place in that part of New England.

Although the railroad is basically finished, Dick is all excited about his latest project - a new paper mill complex that is in the early construction stages. I was flabbergasted, and more than a little humbled, that when I walked into the basement the first thing Dick did was reach onto his side table and produce my paper mill articles from MR .... and he proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about the article!

We also visited Bob Van Gelder's South River & Millville (left), and Bill Duffe's Boston & Maine (below) before hitting the road for a long, dark, but otherwise uneventful drive home.

Here's a photo from each of those layouts - more to follow in future posts I'm sure.
All in all a great weekend with good friends.

fimmtudagur, 1. ágúst 2013

"Sea Trial #2" Test Session Scheduled

I've looked over the calendar and chosen September 15th for the second "Sea Trial" test session. This time we'll try running the passenger trains - and hopefully the timetable, train sheets, and train cards will all match! (something that didn't exactly happen back in May!)

That same weekend will see the first ever Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet in Stafford, Va., which is about 30 miles south of us. Even though Norm Wolf, who's organizing the meet, didn't ask me to present a clinic, I'll go ahead and plug the event here. See http//www.marpm.org/ for more details.

The next model railroad event where I will be presenting a clinic is the Mid-Eastern Region, NMRA Annual Convention in Rockville, Md., the weekend of October 10-13, 2013. I'll be doing my clinic on Friday, October 11 at 2:30. As clinic chairman for the event I've tried to put together a decent line-up of clinicians - I'll let you decide if that's the case. Schedule, and convention information can found on the convention web site - https://home.comcast.net/~candp2013/

We will also be having two open house sessions as part of the self-drive layout tours, one Saturday morning from 9:00-12:00, the other on Sunday October 13, time to be announced.
We are also hosting an operating session on Saturday afternoon. Attendance at the op session is first-come first serve and you can sign up for the op session when you register for the convention.
So, it looks like we'll have a busy fall.
If you're looking for me, I'll be in the basement working the railroad!

mánudagur, 5. desember 2011

Garden State Road Trip

Naturally I had to kick off the trip report with some CV RS-11s!

St Johnsbury, Vt., on Mike McNamara's HO railroad.

Just back from an enjoyable weekend tour through the New Jersey countryside with Bernie Kempinski. We started out early Saturday morning, heading north towards the Garden State. After paying homage to the governors of both Maryland and Delaware (it takes about 15 minutes and $9 to get through Delaware � Maryland is almost as expensive but at least you�re in the state longer) we arrived at Mike McNamara�s �Northeast Kingdom� HO layout. Mike models the railroads in an around St. Johnsbury, Vt., in 1980. Lots of colorful engines and freight cars. Mike was a great host and we had a good time looking at his layout, taking some pictures, and shooting some videos of trains in action.

After lunch � at a local pizza joint, where surprisingly no one was named �Tony� (for the record, we did ask . . .) we headed north. Lola, the GPS in my wife�s Honda Accord, decided to take us on a circular tour through downtown Princeton � but at least we saw a horse in the middle of the road.

When we arrived in Newton we checked into the hotel and Tony Koester picked us up and took us on a tour through the northern New Jersey countryside. Tony pointed out all the old railroad archaeological artifacts and abandoned right-of-way. It was very interesting, but difficult to see in the dark.

From L to R: Bernie, Perry Squier, and Tony Koester.

The St. Mary's Penn., scene on Perry's P&S is a great example

of prototype modeling.

We stopped first at Perry Squier�s house. After meeting �Richie� � a rather large (and hungry) horse, we went to the basement to look at Perry�s Pittsburg & Shawmut. Set in 1923 this is a very nicely done coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I especially liked Perry�s signature scene of St. Mary�s Penn. I also think Perry has done a wonderful job modeling what many consider the �Golden Age� of railroading � the era just before the �super power steam� of the early 1920s.

I really liked how Perry's layout fit the space.

From Perry�s we headed to Ted Pamprin�s Chesapeake & Ohio. Set deep in the New River Gorge in West Virginia I especially wanted to see for myself how Ted�s leafless trees look in person when covering a large mountainside. I�m happy to report they look just fine. Ted had some great tips on landform modeling, including using leveling sand, secured with this thin adhesive, for basic ground cover. Neat layout � his Thurmond, W.V. scene is right on � and looks great.

Ted Pamprin's HO Chesapeake & Ohio New River Sub.

Ted's Supertree-filled mountainsides look great!

A look at Thurmond, W. Va.

After a very nice dinner (although the wait was so long Bernie was able to do an impromptu version of his USMRR clinic on his iPad while we waited in the bar!) we headed over to Tony�s for an tour/indoctrination on his Nickel Plate. This is a BIG layout � having edited the article on the track plan back in my MR days this was the first time I�d seen the layout basically in place (I visited Tony a few years ago before he had finished most of the basic infrastructure. The NKP Clover Leaf is a big project � very impressive. I�d classify it as �industrial strength� model railroading � everything � locomotives, throttles, freight cars, wheelsets, etc . . . has to be done in bulk. It�s really quite a project, and I admire Tony for his dedication to bring his favorite railroad to life in his basement, and appreciate the chance to operate on it - I had a great time.

Go faster, Bernie, this is supposed to
be a "Fast Freight" route!

Frankfort Yard on Tony's NKP.
Yes, this yard is 60 feet long!

While we completely enjoyed the operating session, I, for one, left secure in the knowledge that style of layout was just not right � for me, anyway. Seeing Mike�s, Perry�s, and Ted�s layouts confirmed, to me at least, that I really prefer the single deck layout arranged with a �panoramic� view over the multi-deck, long mainline at the expense of all else approach. I felt completely vindicated in my decision to remove the upper deck from my own railroad. I�m also continually tempted by an earlier era than I presently model � then I realize how much inventory I have on hand and think I should stick with the 1940s/50s era.

Overall, a great trip that left us motivated to work on our own railroads. Now that I have a few weeks at home, the weather is cold outside, the days are short, and it�s time to get something done on the Central Vermont!

miðvikudagur, 2. nóvember 2011

Trip Report - MER 2011 Convention, Cary, NC

I rolled back into town Sunday evening after spending a very enjoyable three days at the NMRA Mid East Regional Convention in Cary, NC. Model railroad conventions can run hot or cold, and I've been to plenty of regional conventions over the years - and frankly some of them have been awful. But not this one.

First of all, the show went off without a hitch - the hotel (Embassy Suites) was excellent - even the food in the on-site restaurant was pretty good and reasonably priced. The clinic lineup was outstanding - they ran four rooms from 8:00 until 11:00 pm for three days - quite a feat! the weather on the drive down was great, but by Friday the skies had clouded over and it was pretty windy and rainy so I stayed inside most of Friday. Judging from the audience size in the clinic rooms so did most of the other attendees!

Bruce DeYoung gave two excellent clinics - one of slate roofs and the other on "Modeling tricks and tips" - here's Bruce showing one of his tips - a great way to spread ballast:

Danial Fisher is a structural engineer who specializes in steel-framed buildings. He gave an "extra fare" clinic on modeling steel framed structures. For $12 I got a GREAT handout and a small kit to build a steel-frame shed (or addition to an older building. Dan displayed this model, which is a Walther's Car shop with complete framing and bracing added to represent a steel-framed building with brick curtain walls. Sorry for the quality of these photos - I took them with my iPhone in the clinic room! Apparently, Dan's factory manufactures droids!:

I did get out of the hotel for a little while. I had lunch with Mike Brestel and John Roberts on Saturday, and then headed over to check out Bruce Faulkner's N scale CSX layout. To give some sense of this project, Bruce's layout is about the same size as mine but is double-deck in N scale. He has a CTC signaling system installed, but is only now really starting to make progress on the scenery. It looks like a great railroad to operate and I may need to get a few of the locals from this area to make it our next operating road trip.

Here's Bruce:

And here's a view of his main classification yard:

All in an all, an excellent weekend seeing old friends and making new ones!