Mid December Update

Well it has been a "few" weeks since my last post. No doubt this time of the year 

is the busiest with the holidays and when you add in a vacation, time speeds up 

very quickly. Getting the layout prepared for the operating weekend can take a toll 

on you, especially when there is a big project in progress that requires completion 

for the session. Case in point the ABS Signal system install which began planning in June and ultimately wrapped up the week prior to the Interchange. It is always good to take a break, step back from your work, celebrate the accomplishments, and refocus for the next project. There is no need to get burned out on something that is a hobby... 

Anyways my break is over and I want to share some inspiring photos from my vacation and show what I have been up to the past few weeks with the St. Clair Sub. 

VACATION INSPIRATION

One of the most enjoyable things about Walt Disney World besides the fantastic 

family time is how the Disney Company has done a great job capturing Walt Disney's love of trains and how it is reflected around the property. Any modeler who needs inspiration should have no trouble getting a jolt from visiting the Parks and Resorts. 

Magic Kingdom:

Main Street USA Station @ The Magic Kingdom in full Christmas decor

Roger E. Broggie @ Fantasyland Station (Daytime)

Roger E. Broggie @ Fantasyland Station (Nighttime)

Roy O. Disney @ Fantasyland Station (Nighttime)

Absolutely the best themed bathrooms on property are in Fantasyland adjacent to the Station. They are themed like a three stall roundhouse in reference to the Casey Jr. train from Dumbo. 

Epcot:

My little boy absolutely loves the G scale garden railroad at the Germany Pavilion. 

I have posted many photos of this setup before, but it never gets old as there is 

always change / updates happening to the trains running, scenery, and structures. 

Hollywood Studios:

While there is not alot of railroad or train related items at Hollywood Studios I did want to focus on inspiration and ways to help immerse our visitors and operators more into the scenes we strive so hard to create. Case in point this photo of a large soundstage at this years Jingle Bell - Jingle Bam celebration. 

What I want you to notice is projections being cast onto the building.... It is falling snow that occasionally will blow around when the wind blows in live person. Additionally you can see the snow is beginning to pile up on building ledges. Remember this is a projection, but Disney does a great job immersing us and tricks our senses to think it is snowing in Central Florida. Obviously they have a large budget and cutting edge technology but this makes me think about the new Lightning / Thunder effect system released by Broadway Limited. Another example was while we rode "Living With The Land" boat ride at Epcot's The Land Pavilion. During the ride there is a scene with lighting and thunder. I told my wife - "yea we can do that on the layout" and it really peaked her interest. Immersing our guests / operators even deeper in the scene whether it be night operations with blue rope lights or lightning/thunder effects is another layer to our story. I believe we have just dipped our toe into deeper scene immersion. Not to mention the projector technology used for Christmas lights on homes and the show at Hollywood Studios could usher in really neat concepts like stars, fireworks, or weather effects on our backdrops and even trees / buildings in the scene. 

Just some thoughts from a guy re-inspired..... Anyone with me on this?

GRAYSTONE CEMENT 

Working with Kevin Klettke (Washington Northern Railroad - www.wnrr.net) and Dean Ferris we resurrected the logo of Graystone Cement out of Grays Harbor, WA. In doing so a new backstory was created for the company. Long story short Kevin did a fantastic job creating the logo and printing on adhesive film for use on buildings, equipment, and railcars. While it is not water slide decal thin, the setup is perfect for intended uses. 

Graystone recently established a terminal at Bay City for water/rail/truck operations. This terminal will allow the company to expand their footprint in the Great Lakes region. For this growth, new Trinity 3281 cubic hoppers were setup on lease from GE Capital. MAC Rail Services recently installed the newly printed logo plates onsite at Bay City. Decals for the NRLX marks are still on order at time of press.  

TCS WOWSOUND KIT

Over the weekend I completed install of a TCS WOW121 kit in a friends Atlas GP40.

Replacing the factory board with the motherboard and soldering all wires to it really makes sound install a snap. If only all of the manufacturers created their 21 pin decoders and boards to allow interchangeability.... Along with using all TCS sound products I also gave their SME LED's a try with good success. 

Photo above shows the motherboard installed in place of the factory board. Once the 

power pickup, motor, speaker, and lights are soldered to this board it is a matter or re-assembly and testing. TCS has a very well done website with install photos step by step and information/support for their products. Not to mention that for $129.95 MSRP getting a motherboard/keep-alive, decoder, and speaker as a kit is a very good deal. One vendor I use often for DCC supplies (Mountain SubdivisonHobbies), offered the kit fior $98.95, so even more savings for you the modeler. Shop around with competition in the sound market we have great choices and competitive prices.

AGGREGATE HOPPERS

Had a railfan send me photos of MCIS ortner and greenville hoppers on the Virginia Midland Railroad. 

This set of cars had been shopped at VMS for the upcoming aggregate season. We expect 2017 to be a big year for rock trains on the MCIS and we are preparing the fleet to meet our customers demand. Not only will webe handling rock for construction projects, but also handling rock for new power plant emission scrubbers. The cars got new doors, grab irons, FRA reflectors, and re-patched markings as necessary. Great work by the VMS team! The cars should be on home rails to make a nice homecoming in the Late December Update. 

The ortner fleet (100 cars) is mostly second hand with just a small fraction of the 

fleet actually in MCIS paint. Most of the cars are patched up from their 

former owners Wisconsin Central, CSXT, and Florida East Coast. 

Our greenville fleet (50 cars) is roughly half new builds in MCIS grey and half 

secondhand purchased from Wisconsin Central.

So as you can see a little vacation from the layout was needed and now back in the 

modeling groove.  On my list to Santa I had asked for the Tsunami2 PNP EMD Diesel 

decoder for my SD45-2 repower to SD40-3 installs. We will have to see if I get my wish or a lump of coal.... But even if its coal, I can crush it up for hopper loads.

I hope everyone has the opportunity to spend time with family and friends this holiday season. Don't forget to spend some time at the workbench or on the layout. 

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! 

GM

Mid October Update

October is well in progress, with Halloween just around the corner. So what modeling have I been up to? Layout time has been limited to working on my Sugar Beet Plant kitbash project.  Wordless Wednesday #35 showcases the main power plant / Cogen boiler structure. I have been planning this industry for sometime and collected eight Walthers kits to use as part sources. I hope to have photos for end of month update showing the progress complete so far. Along with kitbashing, I also visited  a local show and layout so let's get into the pictures shall we.

Texas Western Model Railroad Club Show

     TWMRC banner at entry table.

The second year for this show which I absolutely love attending because it has reasonable admission ($6), free parking, vendors of all sorts, they improved from last year, and it's in Fort Worth!!

I picked up some great bargains for $100 

  - 6 Norscot Heavy Equipment Pieces

  - Built / weathered building for Gerhard malt or cereal plant.

    Building roughed in for Malt or Cereal Plant @ Gerhard. A lot of neat kitbashed character in shape, paint, weathering, and covered track area.

  Lower level was all vendors, I liked this change over last year.

                         On3

                 O gauge - Tinplate

                        N scale

           NTGRC - G scale setup

Additionally there were layout open houses and clinics that you could attend.

Don Murphey's St. Louis, Atlantic, and Pacific

Last week I had the opportunity to visit I Don's layout to discuss future operating strategies and see the great work he already had in place. This was my first opportunity to see the RailOp car forwarding systerm in use. The layout is 26x40 with a 450' double track mainline run. Provided is a synopsis of the layout (courtesy of the DFW Interchange Website):

East meets west and north meets south on the St. Louis, Atlantic, and Pacific. This railroad recalls Don's experience with St. Louis Union Station and its passenger trains. Over 30 railroads operated passenger and freight trains through this area in the steam to diesel transition era. Focal point of this 26' x 40' foot railroad is a 15 track Union Station. Complicated throat trackage utilizing single and double slip switches to route the trains to their assigned tracks. Don has carefully engineered his track and cars to allow long trains to back into the depot. Visitors will be able to return to the days when exotic train names such as Zephyr, Eagle, Rocket, Firefly, and Chief were common in railroading, In addition to Union Station, a 450 foot double track main line winds around the room. A suburban depot reminiscent of Tower Grove, Missouri is another feature, along with extensive steam and diesel facilities. Freight operations center around several on line towns. Don’s wife helps with scenery work and 60% of the scenery is complete, including several well detailed scenes. Era is elastic, including both steam and modern diesel power. This is an opportunity to see a railroad where passenger trains and terminal operations are king.

  Overall room view from entrance.

       St. Louis yard and loco servicing

            St. Louis Union Terminal 

              Kansas City Industries

                Jefferson City, MO

                   Kirkwood, MO 

This layout was a lot of fun to railfan and operate on. Beings I do not model steam, early diesel, or passenger ops this gave me a great opportunity to experience and understand more of this side of the hobby. Definitely a great side effect of making friends in the hobby is getting to experience a model railroad that is not your own. Personally I feel it that it adds a greater depth of knowledge which can be translated and used to further my own model railroad.

Have a great month.

GM

Donuts & Diesels

In the past month my son and I have begun the Saturday tradition of having donuts at Krispy Kreme and then chasing diesels between Roanoke and Denton, TX. Today the skies were clear, light breeze, 85 degrees..perfect Texas summer morning.

           UP SD70M #4702 on point

Running northeast out of Fort Worth is the UP Choctaw Sub which sees at least 15-20 trains a day (conservative estimate) including automtotive, unit trains of all types, manifest, Roanoke Local, and BNSF trackage rights freights (usually a H-TULTPL or H-TPLTUL).

Today we had really good timing to catch two northbound and one southbound UP manifests after finishing up our sweet breakfast. 

              Donut deliciousness

Following trains along the US377 corridor is pretty easy since the tracks basically parallel the road from Haltom City to Denton, but to really follow along we always start out north of Roanoke since traffic is pretty light, stop lights are widely spaced, and speed limit will let you get ahead of the train running 45mph normally.

     Inspiration for weathering job using oil paints and turpentine..

   The ubiquitous general service tankcar in three different shades of black... Er grayish I mean.

 A lot of North American railroading at its finest in these 17 miles of railroad. 

  EMD leading as God intended. (Joe. A.)

As we wrapped up our follow along of the manifest we met it a grade crossing just south of Denton. A friendly wave to the crew with us distanced back safely at the crossing in our truck got us three short horn toots after the train had finished its grade crossing warning.

As it rolled by I took photos of some neat cars in the train - what great modelling opportunities as each car is unique and probably no two alike except for a brand new build.

        Coal gons now scrap gons

  Possibly new Trunity Jumbo builds coming out of Mexico.

Canadian Wheat Board cars - catch them while you can.

   Plate F - 60' Boxcar a favorite of mine

  Unique tagged car bringing up the rear.

Coming home from this chase we encountered another northbound with a "Border Sandwich" power consist leading Up-CN-UP-KCSM-UP. 

It is nice to get out and enjoy prototype railroading. While this is my hobby, sharing the experience with my wife and kids is important and something I would recommend to anyone. After all railroading American style is one of the unique things that makes our Country great and keeps our economy strong.

GM