Standard WM Tool House

This small Tool House is being constructed from basswood strips, board and batten sheet, and a Grandt Line door casting.  Below is the tool house shelter as of 11/30/13.  It occupies a space of 4-1/2 by 3-1/4 inches and will have rails leading into it for a hand pump car.

Ackerman Passenger Shelter

This small Passenger shelter is being constructed from basswood strips and board and batten sheet.  Below is the shelter as of today.  It occupies a space of 3-1/2 by 2-1/4 inches.

Structures for the layout

I have started construction of some structures for the Western Maryland end of the railroad.  Here are the first three I am working on.  As  progress on each structure I will update these three posts until they are finished.  In other words each post will deal with the construction of one structure and will contain all the posts for that structure.

The "one-module" challenge by Joe Fugate as published in the May 2013 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Have you been planning that dream layout for years? How's it coming?

Still stuck in analysis paralysis? Or maybe you've started construction, but can't seem to finish anything?

We modelers can dream big, but we do struggle making good on our aspirations.  Time for the "one-module" challenge!

Rather than aim for the stars, let's deliberately set the scope small so it's possible to finish in weeks or months instead of years.

Pick a subject/scene that interests you, but chose something that fits into a single module of no more than 6 feet in length. Then build it to completion at your workbench:

• All track work finished and wired, with turnouts fully functional
• All the scenery done, including ground cover, trees and water
• All the structures done, including any bridges and trackside details

Aim for a completely finished module that's operational. Granted, there may not be a lot of operation on just one module, but it's finished!

If you take up the challenge, it may be more work than you thought, and may take longer than expected. But by working at your workbench, you can turn the module over, for example,

to mount any Tortoises or to run the wires - making otherwise tedious work into something that's halfway pleasant. You will tend to do better work at your workbench and be more satisfied

with the result.

Once you have this module, now add a 1x12 at each end with some staging tracks and now run trains through your finished scene!

Next, do a second module. Add this module to the other one, and move the staging to the end. Now you can run trains a little farther through finished scenes and things have gotten more interesting.

And notice - you have a finished-looking, operational layout in record time. Yes, it's small, but it's a complete layout!

So how about building your whole layout in this way, one section at a time? At any stage you can point to it with pride and have a complete layout. I think using this sectional approach has a lot going for it, as opposed to the more traditional approach that can take years before you see any real progress or can get your "running trains" fix. Or worse, the entire layout project will languish once you realize the massive scope of the project.

Turn the whole dream layout building process inside out and start tiny instead, with something you might actually be able to finish in less than a year! And then just do it over and over … and quit at any point with a "complete" layout.

Anyone up for the "one module" challenge?

Middle Eastern Region of the NMRA Convention

Here are some photos of two of the three modular layouts on display at the convention hotel.

Below is a very well done O Scale layout.  Rail is handlaid and is code 100 which is pretty small for O Scale.

 

The following photos are of a rather large HO layout.  And yes two of these photos are of a castle.  I have never seen a castle on a layout and it is very detailed and well done.  In keeping with that theme the next two photos are a country village in England and one of the trains running was a British prototype I believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modeling Baltimore Transit - Sparrows Point - Bethlehem Steel - Bay Shore Park - Penn Station - Western Maryland Railway - Pennsylvania Railroad

Baltimore Transit Route 26 crossing Bear Creek into Sparrows Point and Bethlehem Steel Plant.

As a young boy I would visit my aunt and uncle who lived in the Bethlehem Steel company town at Sparrows Point a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland.  To travel back and forth to Baltimore we generally used the streetcar and route 26.  My uncle worked in the mill at the "Point".   I loved to ride the older Baltimore cars rather than the new PCC cars like we had at my home in Washington, DC.  I also loved to walk the two blocks to the chain link fence surrounding the giant blast furnaces.  One thing I never visited was Bay Shore Park as it was gone by the time I was seven.

"Other East Baltimore lines were sideshows to the main event: the heavy blue-collar No. 26 Sparrows Point line serving the big Bethlehem Steel mill and shipyard complex at "The Point" and it's bedroom communities of Dundalk and Turners Station.  The mill was first developed in the remote southeastern corner of Baltimore's harbor in the later 1880s.  In the mill's early days, workers either lived in the company town of Sparrows Point or rode to work on Pennsylvania Railroad local trains.  The streetcar line across the flatlands and the wide Bear Creek estuary was completed in 1903; three years later it was extended beyond to Fort Howard and the Bay Shore Park."(Baltimore Streetcars-the Postwar Years by Herbert H. Harwood)

The Streetcar line ran under the roller coaster at Bay Shore Park.  This John Miller designed coaster was built by Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1920.  The coaster ran until the park's closing in 1947,

CTC information. Below are two links to a nice explanation of how CTC will work on my layout.

Kansas City Subdivision CTC Demo

Kansas City Subdivision CTC Demo part 2

Please note that this guys' design does not include the Code Button.  It would be below the levers and must be pressed to cause the signals and turnouts to change provided that the change is not prohibited by track conditions.

See below my design.  The code button is the lowest switch on the board.

Photos of Layout Tour sponsered by Mainline Hobby of Blue Ridge Summit, PA on 9/21/2013

Western Maryland Railway - Blue Ridge Div.  Brian Wolfe

I was only able to visit three of the many layout sites that were available on Saturday and on Sunday. 

This HO layout represents the Western Maryland Railway from Hagerstown, MD to York, PA in September 1970.  It occupies a 30 x 45 basement, with a crew lounge, workshop, and dispatcher's office.

 

Waynecastle Central - Waynesboro Model Railroad Club.

This club has a large HO layout on the first floor, an N scale, a two rail O Scale, and a three rail O Gauge layouts on the second floor.  Something for everyone.  Generally open to the public at Christmas.

HO Under Renovation

 N Scale

O Scale (2 rail) & O Gauge (3 rail)

The O Gauge layout features operational signals both three color and PRR position light signals.

Note Green Signal

Note Red Signal

 

 Note PRR Stop signal

National Pike & Western Railroad - Dwight Sprecer

An HO layout based on the Western Maryland, Baltimore & Ohio, and the Norfolk & Western. This 470 sq. ft. layout features a 15 stall roundhouse, a shop area, and an Intermodal Facility.