A New Addition to the Layout - Part X - Blending everything together and an unveiling

The Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet (MARPM) concluded just over a week ago. As an aside this meet is proving to be a wonderful time and I strongly suggest you consider joining us in 2025! (details for MARPM 2025 haven't been finalized, but it will most likely be in the same hotel as this year (located near BWI). Keep an eye on MARPM.org). 

I once again hosted an open house at my layout and did a "Layout Progress" clinic. This was the unveiling of sorts of the newly incorporated "Northern SNE" section. A couple of months ago my friend Bill Schultheiss offered to build something for the railroad. At first I'd planned to rework the steel girder bridge that had once carried SNE rails up in Massachusetts into a road bridge. But as Bill and I went back and forth on what he could build I mentioned the one thing every New England railroad needs - that I didn't have - was a covered bridge. So he took a couple of measurements and a few weeks later he brought a wonderful model of a classic New England covered bridge. Thanks Bill!

And the extremely short tail track at the stub end of the northern SNE section always bothered me - it was barely long enough to fit a 4-axle diesel and one car - but even my small steam locomotives with a car were too long for the siding - meaning I needed to splice a section of benchwork onto the left side of the town and add about 10" of track. At the same time I extended the road from the diner to the end of the added benchwork.

As I've mentioned before there was a 3 or 3.5 foot section of benchwork we added to connect the Northern SNE section to the existing layout. The track required some rework to get the everything to make sense. 

With the track down I used my new Proxxon foam cutting table to slice enough pieces of foam board to the same thickness as the roadbed, filled any gaps with lightweight joint compound and painted and added the initial layer of tile grout and sifted dirt. This "first layer" scenery is hardly show stopping but I was determined that no pink foam be visible! 

I showed the installation of an old structure that seemed a perfect fit for along the mill run in a previous post (HERE). I wasn't able to complete a couple of things in time for the open house. I had planned to finish a new mill building (another South River Models kit) - but frankly wasn't in the mood to work on it for a few weeks, then realized it was close to the open house and I had to get serious about cleaning up the layout room! 

I did two last minute things in preparation for the open house. The first was to roll a coat of paint on the fascia. I think this really helped blend the Northern SNE section into the rest of the layout. 

I also found myself staring at an open area across the street from Streeters Store. 

I considered placing the feed mill (that was included in the same kit as the store) in that spot - but it looked just a little too tight. Besides, the fact that the feed mill is on a slope would have required some benchwork/fascia modifications and I didn't want to make a whole new mess!

What I needed was something that was quick to build that could then either be redetailed or replaced with something else in the future without feeling like a waste of effort. A little Scupltamold to level some undulations in the ground, brown paint, and a few spoonfuls of tile grout and sifted dirt, along with a small shed and a couple of pulpwood loads, and a pulpwood yard was born. 

Still to come is the aforementioned new mill building as well as a freight house for the large open area to the right of the passenger station. And of course, a lot of grass and other textures. 

MARPM 2022 Open House

The current state of the Richford Branch

Well, the Mid Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (MARPM) meet is in the books. 

And that was but one part of a whirlwind of stuff going on both in "real life" and model railroading over the last month. 

I managed to:

• Get a fair amount of scenery to "Phase 1" completion on the layout
• Stic Harris came by the week before the meet to at long last wire up the turntable and get some lighting installed in a couple of buildings. 
• Clean up the basement and layout (an almost overwhelming task considering the fact that I haven't had any kind of formal layout visits since pre-Covid!
• Finished up my Getting Real column for Model Railroad Hobbyist
• And that doesn't even include cleaning the garage, fall yard work, etc...!!!

I had a great time at the meet itself taking in some great clinics, looking at some great models in the display room, and reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I even managed to run over to the Great Scale Model Train Show at Timonium and purchase a couple of goodies. 

I gave my Building and Researching Prototype Structures clinic on Saturday afternoon. It seemed well attended although I didn't get a head count. 

Once my clinic was completed I headed back home to make final preps for the open house on Sunday. For example, I remembered on the drive home that I had taken every piece of rolling stock off the layout. So I spent 30 minutes Sunday morning setting up a display train... I also needed to finish cleaning the track - and with all the scenery work I'd been doing there was a fair amount of dirt on the rails... 

I'd heard Iain Rice had passed away a week or so before the meet. So it seemed appropriate to have this locomotive on display. 

I didn't take any photos of people looking at the layout - but according to our guest book we had about 15 folks stop by - exceeding my expectations (we are, after all, located more than 70 miles from the hotel where the meet was held!) 

I really enjoyed visiting with everyone who stopped by here and the folks I spoke with at the meet. 

And thanks to Stic Harris for all his help both before and during the open house! 

LaFramboise Implement dealer needs some tractors and other farm equipment to display! 

The next goal is to keep the layout in its current state until after the next open house - scheduled for November 19. 

I'm pleased with how well the cannery fits in this spot (compared with the feed mill). 

MARPM Open House - October 16, 2022

The Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (MARPM) has posted the official line up of layout open houses. You'll note that somehow I've managed to get the Richford Branch included amongst a lineup of truly stunning and spectacular model railroad layouts in our area. 

The layouts in the northern Virginia area are open (mostly) on Sunday, October 16. 

In preparation for the open house I've made a list of things I need to complete as well as a list of things I'd like to complete. I may post the list here with some thoughts on preparing for an open house.  But even if I don't if you're planning to attend MARPM and are in the area please feel free to stop by and inspect progress (or lack thereof!). 

Weekend Report

Had a fun-filled model railroad weekend. Started off early Saturday morning, when about three dozen modelers from Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania gathered at the club house in our neighborhood to listen to Steve King and his two-part Timetable and Train Order clinic. 
After the clinic the crowd broke for lunch, and I hightailed it the block or so to our house to prepare for an open house for those same clinic attendees. 
The open house went well. I got comments, some obviously tongue-in-cheek, others not, about why I didn't fill the other 2/3rds or so of the basement with railroad. Obviously, those folks haven't been reading this blog for any length of time. Or perhaps my reasoning (SEE HERE) wasn't as obvious to them as it is to me? 
Highlight for me was having Lance "approve" of my execution of his design - and he agreed the addition of the East Berkshire scene in place of a staging yard was an improvement. 
So good things, all around. 
After the open house I kept working on the standing seam roof on the implement dealer. I'll have a more detailed follow up on that project sometime later this week. 
Sunday morning involved some household chores, but by mid afternoon I was able to head downstairs and work some more on the roof, and even started blocking in some basic backdrop painting (primarily a horizon line and some far distant hills. 
One thing I learned from the last layout is backdrops are much easier to deal with, both in the creation and photographing of them, if they are kept very subtle, and the horizon line is kept extremely low (you can barely see the penciled-in horizon line in the photo on the right). Then I blocked in the distant hills and some clouds (see below). At this point it seems like the horizon is taller than it should be, but when foreground scenery elements are added the visible horizon line will be lower than it might appear at this early stage. 

I went as far as using a couple of average height trees to ensure the horizon wasn't taller than the trees in most places, and spent a fair amount of time looking at the layout from an HO scale persons eye level to ensure the hills weren't extending above the top of structures and the like.
More to follow. And, if this doesn't work out, it's a simple matter to erase it with a coat of blue paint!

MER Convention Op Session - A couple of photos

Although I failed miserably to take any photos during the open house and op session this weekend Chuck Diljak, who did a fine job as White River Yardmaster, was kind enough to send a couple of  pictures he took during the op session.
Here's the WRJ Assistant YM, Joe Calderone during a break in the action at White River Junction. That yard is entirely too empty and he looks far too relaxed and smiling ..... we'll have to do something about that next time he visits.
A northbound extra through freight (behind a CN F7) runs through a crowded Everett as the Mill Turn works the town.

MER Open House and Layout Status Report

Running at track speed north of Williams Creek. 

 Just completed a very busy model railroad weekend as part of the NMRA MidEastern Region convention. Not only did I serve as clinic chairman for the convention, I gave a clinic on my railroad and also opened the layout up for two days of open houses and one guest operating session for convention attendees. 

Everett in all of its mocked-up glory....

Of course, the weeks prior to the convention open houses were spent mostly in the basement getting the layout ready. As anyone who has hd their layout on a tour can attest, often times more progress is made in the month before the open house than the six months before!  

Current state of the "front door." It's getting there - many structures to scratchbuild.
Completing this scene is very high on the agenda for the winter! 

I started with a long list of things I'd like to get done - I'd say I managed to finish about 75% of them. I wanted the trains to run fairly reliably, and for the most part succeeded. For my part I made a real effort to get rid of all the visible foam, plaster and plywood by covering it with a coat of earth-colored latex paint. I also got a fair amount of track painted and ballasted. It's amazing how much those two simple things blended everything on the railroad together. 

While I wanted to get the "Foreign road" power we've been operating replaced with CV/SNE/CN etc... power I wasn't quite as successful at that!

We did have issues with some recently ballasted track - and one particularly troublesome set of Proto 2000 FAs. All these issues were fixed  "on the fly" during the open house. I'm more than a little thrilled to report that we had zero issues with the wireless throttles over two days of almost constant running. 

The "back aisle" had been raw plaster, plywood, and pink foam the week before the open house. Some paint, ground foam, and some extra trees made it look presentable if not "Finished."

My crew (Stic Harris, Jeff McGuirk, Ben Hom, Norm Wolf and Bob Warren) did a great job. My parents manned the upstairs. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I didn't get any photos of people gawking at the layout, but here's a few pictures showing how the railroad looks today. 

With the layout up and running it's time to turn my attention to some actual modeling projects. More on those to come in the weeks/months ahead. 

"Yes, I know the station hangs over the edge of the benchwork!" Don't know how many times I had to say that! One thing we didn't get done was the alterations to the benchwork at Essex Junction that will accommodate the station. 

Open house!

We had about 40 local NMRA members come by and visit over four hours 
during the open house Saturday. I enjoyed having a chance to see old friends, and make new ones and got a kick out of seeing the reaction to some of my rather unusual construction methods. 
      The layout performed well without any issues - I was really pleased especially considering how "temporary" some of the wiring is at this point! I actually laid some track the in the morning and wired it in time for the open house!  I really shouldn't have done that, but I wanted to be able to run the entire length of both sides of the peninsula. I had a list of 10 things I wanted to get done for the open house - issues with one turnout cost me more than a day of troubleshooting which blew the timeline so I didn't get the fascia painted (item no. 10). I considered painting it on Saturday morning, but cooler heads prevailed when I had visions of visitors leaving with splotches of fascia color on their clothes!

Jeff McGuirk (in bright green shirt) chats with Potomac Division members
at the September 17 open house. 

     Jeff (my oldest son, in the green shirt in the photo) came up from Virginia Beach for this event. He helped clean up before the open house and was a great help during the proceedings - he mostly ran the trains and I talked, and talked, and talked. Which apparently isn't really a problem for me . . .
     Everyone who saw the previous layout footprint found the new arrangement to be a real improvement. I'd estimate we had as many as 25 people in the basement at one point. It seemed cramped but not overly crowded - of course I'll never have half that number for an op session. But I concluded the day secure in the knowledge that 8-12 member crew will be very comfortable in the space.
     I reviewed some options for the mill stream arrangement with a few folks, including Dave Emery who's an expert on New England mills. We did come up with a workable arrangement for the Lamson & Goodnow kit but I'm still considering using the Atlas Middlesex building since it seems a little larger, more modern, and might fit the space better.
     I also talked through some decisions that need to be made for the "yard" area - which is still an expanse of open benchwork. Stay tuned to this blog for more details on how that area will shape up in the next few months. 
     The decision to change the layout has been worth the blood and sweat to pull it off. Since the entire layout is actually cleared off I should take a series of pictures as a "walking" tour (Dave showed me some cool pics he took with his "extreme wide angle" setting) and record what it looks like at this point - about nine months to the day after I started construction!