Mid week update July 30th

Progress has been slow this week because of chores around the house and other things.  I've got a little done but this has turned into alot more than I thought.  The track is totally done and wired and the turnouts in Orange have switch machines attached and wired to push buttons.  Unfun things like cutting and painting facia are about all that remain.  But since those items i just listed are unfun, I drift off to other items like backdrops and a untreated tie load.

I did some research on printing out backdrops on your own.  I was going to take the pics myself but my camera (about 10 years old) is less functioning than my I-phone one.  So, I found some high resolution pics I could use on the web.  Used a mirror image on a few and I have several pics I can use on the lower level on the branch line.

I also experimented with a untreated tie load and found some pics on the web of them in gons.  So, I used a piece of blue foam and cut it to the size of the gon. This takes up most of the space in the gon.   I then cut up match sticks to tie size(gon width).  I cut several different notches in the foam to represent uneven ties.  Paint the foam a tan color and then glue in the ties.

This untreated tie gon turned out well.  I need this for my untreated tie loading facility in Orange.

The load out of the gondola.

Examples of the printed backdrops.  This trackage is in front of my work desk and is very thin.  The hole in the wall leads to the helix in the garage.

Examples of the quality of the prints.  Some lights in this area might help.  It's on the "to do" list.  Printed out some different ones tonight.

My travels Saturday took me through my favorite railfanning spot since I was a young kid.  Doswell, VA always has engines sitting in the yard area.  Buckingham Branch has their engines here now and is typical for a short line like the VMID.  

These "plugin" receptacles are a nice added feature that can be easily added to the Midland. 

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The 2015 Mid Atlantic RPM Meet is in the books

The 3rd annual MARPM Meet is in the books and one again it was a great success.  We added more hands on clinics and even more speaker this year.   Some of the speakers/clinicians included some of the celebrities of the hobby such as Scott Mason, Lance Mindheim, Paul Dolkos and Butch Eyler.  Looking forward to the 4th annual one next year, same time. same place.  Here are some pictures from over the weekend. (I forgot to get pictures of my models!)

2015 MARPM pictures

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2014 Mid Atlantic RPM Meet this past weekend

Sorry no updates on the layout in this post but I do have several pictures from the Mid Atlantic RPM meet.   


My pictures are only from Friday's models that were displayed. I did not get the chance to get more pictures on Saturday. I'm a co-founder and overall it was a great meet in our second year. Over 250 models displayed and 18 dioramas/structures were displayed. 

http://www.pbase.com/vamidlandrr/2014_mid_atlantic_rpm_meet_fredericksburg_va

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Mid December Update

Christmas is real close and it's that time when model railroading starts to begins to take off.  A lot of young kids will get their start in the next few weeks in this great hobby.  My oldest son worried me to death about putting a train around the tree this year.  He will be 11 next week. We have not put the train up in a couple of years but he saw it in the attic when we were getting out the rest of the Christmas decorations.  So I definitely got it down to put under the tree.  It's a Lionel North Pole Express and we have extra track and cars for it.  An actual oval under the tree.  After getting the wiring fixed on the track, it worked well.  Him and sister have played with it just about everyday since its been working.  They do occasionally run trains on the layout.  I definitely need to get them involved more!

I also finished up some aggregate cars for a customer of mine:

MCTR 1472 getting it's finishing touches

2 bay Greenville hoppers by Walthers are a favorite of mine.

VMID #281 prepares them for interchange.

A railfan grab on the street.

VMID #281 continues to switch the aggregate cars.

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2016 Mid Atlantic RPM Meet is in the books!

We just finished up the annual Mid Atlantic RPM Meet this past Friday and Saturday.  It was a great time with great models, vendors, friends, speakers, layouts and food.  I want to thanks our fearless Norm Wolf for put on a top notch meet.  Also thanks to Bob Sprague, Butch Eyler, and Daylene Wolf for their dedicated work.  These guys and gal are wonderful to work with!  Looking forward to the next one on September 22/23 2017.

Here are all my pics:2016 MARPM meet pictures

Butch Eyler's incredible weathering 

Butch Eyler's

Peter Koehler-Pfotenhauer

My RF&P stuff

Some more of my stuff

and more of my stuff

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Mid May Post

This year has been different for me in a few aspects.  For the last 16 years, I've coached track and my spring time modeling had been very non-existent.  I gave up coaching last year and I have seem to continue that non-modeling trend.  I'm sure a lot of people have been in the boat this time of year.  There are many excuses: nice weather, yard work and longer days.  I'm guilty of all them.  I also have 3 kids: 6, 8 &10 so they get a lot of my time also. So now you know why I have not been modeling much or posting on this blog!  But, don't fear, most of my modeling gets done in the next few months.  So stay tuned.  I've also want to get a video out.  Here are a few other things:

• My locomotive sold this past week.  Took long than I thought but still a great loco for the price.
• I sent off one of my NCE controllers to get wireless installed.  It should be here in a week or two.  Very excited to finally get a wireless controller for the layout.   
• I need to hookup the NCE antenna to the layout so I can have the wireless controller ready to use when it gets here.  This weekend seems to be low key, so maybe today?

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