Wordless Wednesday #261

Belchertown, MA. 23 October 1950. M Usenia photo, M. McGuirk collection. 

 

RPM EAST 2023

I'm heading up to Youngwood, PA tomorrow to attend the Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet (for more details on the meet see http://www.hansmanns.org/rpm_east/. 

I'll be premiering a new clinic - an overview of my HO scale Richford Branch, on Saturday morning. 

In preparation for the clinic I got enough of the Sheldon Junction river crossing done to take a photo. 

Hope to see some blog readers there - and if you're at the meet be sure to say hi! 

Wordless Wednesday #260

 

G. Dimond Photo, Millers Falls, MA, circa 1961

Wordless Wednesday #259

 

Missisquoi River Scene

The major area I have been working on in the last couple of months has been the Missisquoi River crossing at Sheldon Junction. This is the area between the store scene (above) and the swing gate opening. This has been a project beset by challenges and issues, but I think I'm past most of those now. It started with issues assembling the Central Valley truss bridge. The latest challenge was when suddenly locomotives lost power halfway across the bridge - after I'd gotten the bridge installed (of course, everything worked fine before I put in the landform scenery.)

After rewiring all the feeders last night in this section of the layout everything worked great - except on the bridge itself. After some work with the voltmeter I figured out the problem was a loose rail joiner at the point where the bridge joined the mainline. As a rule I don't like to solder rail joiners but I made an exception here. Just one more challenge in a string of issues that have made this project such a joy!  

When I started working on this scene I considered doing some sort of step-by-step. Frankly I’m so sick of working on it at this point I want to just get it done! 

The multi-span bridge obviously needed a pier in the center. The prototype was stone (the stone abutments by my era had been replaced with concrete ones). I started with a Chooch pier but it was not only too big it was a “challenge” to cut the resin. Are these things Kryptonite? So my poorly cut Chooch pier went into the trash and looked for another solution. 

I dug a Walthers plastic concrete pier out of a box. The Walthers part and some of that Chooch flexible peel and stick granite made a passable result. Some paint and weathering and all was good. 

After the considerable enjoyment of hobby time to build the bridge itself out of Central Valley Truss bridge kit components, I installed the bridge deck, and abutments and stacked (vertically and horizontally) pink foam, installed the abutments, carved the foam to shape, added Cripplebush rocks as rock outcroppings, and a base “earth” texture. 

I dug out some half finished trees to determine how many I needed and roughly where they look “right”. There’s one or two spots where none of the trees really fit - I may twist up a couple of wire trees to fill the gaps. 

Next steps are static grass and other textures to the “open” areas and spending a couple of evenings this week in front of the television with the glue pot to attach the Super tree sprigs to the tree armatures. 

Apologies for the lack of depth of field in these photos - they are truly grab shots with my phone. 

Wordless Wednesday #258

 

Bill Welch Freight Cars

Ted Culotta  is handling the late Bill Welch's modeling estate. So when I saw Ted at Timonium a few weeks ago I was thrilled when he presented me with two of Bill's completed models. They're shown here posed on the Richford Branch. Note like most of Bill's models I've seen these two are beautifully modeled - and wear pristine paint jobs. 

Currently these are in a display case alongside alongside other models from friends who have passed away - including Andy Sperandeo, Richard Hendrickson, Jack Ozanich, and Dick Elwell. I'm more than a little torn - should I weather these and run them as part of the operating fleet, or leave them as Bill built them?  

Wordless Wednesday #257

 

Dick Nelson photo, St. Albans, Vt., c. 1957

Wordless Wednesday #256

 

October, 1966. Alan Irwin photo

Riding the Head End

I was organizing and scanning some photos when I came across this favorite (click on photo to enlarge) that I obtained from Bob's Photos years ago. 

CV 2-8-0 #472 is working this local between Palmer and Monson, Mass. on a sunny March 12, 1955.  

What better place for the head end brakeman to keep an eye on things that atop the coal load in the first hopper? (A D&H car for those interested in such things). 

Modeling the October Scene - Now on Video

Progress proceeds slowly (very slowly!) on the  Missisiquoi River bridge project. I'm rapidly growing to loath the Central Valley bridge kit - but at least I'm making steady, if somewhat frustrating, progress. 

In the meantime, you may have noticed I've been on a bit of video kick lately - my offering today is a recording of my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic. I recorded it at my desk over the weekend and uploaded it to my YouTube channel. You can find the video by clicking on the link HERE

Ultimately I'd like to do a video step-by-step showing how I make scenery but that's currently beyond my technical abilities. 

Central Valley Bridge Assembly Tips

 

I want to get the scenery completed across the "front side" of the layout - that means I need to tackle two big projects on either side of the support pillar. One of these is Main Street, the second are the bridges crossing the Missisiquoi River immediately to the right of the Junction scene. I'm using Central Valley bridges for the river crossing - I put together a short video sharing some tips on assembling these somewhat finicky kits:

Available on my YouTube channel:

https://youtu.be/1PlVLtegLco