Woodstock Model Train Show

Sunday, January 5th, Woodstock Model Train Show And Sale.  The Woodstock Model Train Show takes place in the Oxford Auditorium and the Mutual/Market Building Buildings, on the Woodstock Fairgrounds at 875 Nellis Street, in Woodstock.  The show runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m..

Ponderosa Pines

spray painted and ground foamed

Oh look pine trees in my garden, actually astilbe flower spikes.  It's a simple job to spray paint the tops green and sprinkle on shades of green ground foam.  Only problem is you have to wait a whole year to get another batch.

Astilbes in the snow

As can be seen, the shape of the flower can vary quite a bit.

The end of our first year

By the look of their faces and all the smiles, the first year ends on a happy note.

Power Plant Road

Work continues near the power plant. An access road and bridge add needed scenic elements to part of a long straight run of track. John and Trent have made a difficult road installation believable with a stepped rock embankment and twisting road.

 

two tier bank up to the road

Foothills of Miller

Work continues in the lumber town of Miller, as Rod so aptly put it "it's amazing how fast things change from week to week". Matt and Don (there may have been others I didn't see) applied plaster cloth to the new foothill area in a new method, at least to me. Instead of the messy dunk and smear pieces of plaster cloth one at a time, they cut and laid pieces of plaster cloth to the forms (cut and shaped layers of ceiling tile) then sprayed it with water and brush blended it into shape. They also incorporated two dirt roads into the hills to connect to the, yet unpainted, roads on the backdrop. This is yet another way of adding small details to help make the overall scene believable.

Wellington construction

With the track at Wellington loosely laid out for a couple of weeks now, we started to install it in place.  Starting with the yard ladder, a series of #4 left hand switches (thanks for prepping them John) were placed at an angle to the bench work so that the radius of the turnout lined up with each yard track.  Two #6 turnouts were connected to the yard feeder to make the three track mainline through town ( this is where the station will go). Other turnouts were set where sidings might be, depending on structures they will serve. The east end of the track work was attached to the upper mainline, thus making the last connection to the mainline. As this is the highest area of bench work, the track arrangement was kept simple for us short people.

looking at the yard end

to the east end

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Almost everyone was present for our last Tuesday of 2013. Our first year has brought amazing results.  Almost all of the track work is down and a lot of it is ballasted.  Can you believe it, a gallon of ballast is all gone.  Many structures have been brought in and many more are completed or being worked on by our members.  We have used a bag of hydrocal and more is needed.  Some of the backdrop is painted and isolated areas have scenery applied.  Even with Christmas just around the corner, and everyone in the holiday spirit, we still managed to get some work done.  The yard and most of the mainline was installed at Wellington, hills worked on at Miller, more scenery applied to the branch line, gaps in the scenery base filled in and work around the power plant continued.

Looking forward to next year is exciting. We will be testing our track and wiring.  Installing the DCC system. Scenery, scenery, scenery, this will make our railroad come alive.  Structures and sidings will be installed and details added. We may even start running trains!

I would like to thank our crew for all their work, ideas and insight, and wish everyone Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

CN LNG Test

CN was in a test program with a twin SD40-2w set, with a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tank tender, between the two locos. The units would run on 100 percent diesel from idle to notch 3 .. then gradually increase LNG in the prime mover to a 90 / 10 percent mix of LNG and diesel at full throttle. This was between Edmonton Alberta's Walker Yard (where I work as a locomotive engineer) and Lac La Biche in northern Alberta .. Per Ken King.

Backdrop blending

Backdrop blending at its best by Tom Johnson on his Logansport & Indiana Northern, a part of InRail. From a post in MRH, thanks for letting us use your photos Tom. View more photos in MRH.

Because you can not tell, the backdrop starts behind the round yellow sign on the left of the road.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The cold didn't deter our members and even after weeks of the same, or ballasters were hard at work. A base for the Lincoln city buildings was put down and the work on the branch line scenery continued. The saw mill at Miller was test fit with the log pond and company houses were positioned. Jim had previously brought in a corner module scene he had built and the backbrop was painted to match it as good as possible.

base for city buildings installed

log pond and saw mill fitted

log ramp will need to be reworked for the pond

company houses

hill supports test fitted

base coat of paint and first stone casting installed

Jim brought in this corner module

backbrop painted between power plant and corner

trying to match in corner module, a couple of rock castings will help

Car Float Apron

Don test fits the car float apron in Miller Harbour

Grout scenery experiment

I had a part bag of dark brown grout, so I though I would try it for some scenery. First I mixed it about half and half with ready to use drywall compound and added water to make it like soup. Then using old dried up wipes I dipped them into it and applied them to the layout. These went on quite well, blended well, and dried a pleasing light brown. Next I made up straight grout and dipped the wipes into it. The mixture, even though quite soupy, went on the wipes too dry and did not stick to the wipes very well, it was hard to apply to the layout, them did not blend or stick to each other well, seemed to shrink,and dried a dark brown, so I will not try that again.

fifty fifty mixture nice light brown

Straight grout, not suited to this application, although nice rugged texture

CPR train order hoop

I was given a train order hoop by my son-in-law's parents. The station master would hold it up with a train order attached and the engineer of the passing train would catch the hoop in his arm, remove the order and drop the hoop to the ground for the station master to retrieve .

The hoop with the order



Engine 8150









Zorra Station with a different train passing















Track Evaluation Car

Photo by Don Pearce was taken at the CN yard in Woodstock.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Tom's casting den

It was good to see Tom's knee felt good enough for him to come to the meeting, we sure need the castings. Bill was also there to get some building kits to assemble and paint, always nice to have extra help. Rod and Glen continued ballasting and Jim and Trent added more scenery to the power plant area, in front of the area of the backdrop I had paint earlier. The rest of the crew started planing the city area for Lincoln.





Ralph adds more plaster cloth

Don ponders the city layout

Don and Doug arrange the town of Lincoln with Rick and Cliff adding input

Power plant area

Cool, Clear Water



Piece of paper rolled up to show how to curl and place the strip

After painting an open top, water tank and weathering it, cut a strip of clear acetate slightly narrower than the height of the tank and about twice as long as the circumference.   Curl it up and place it inside the tank.  This will form a shelf on which to place a circle of acetate the diameter of the inside of the tank, for the top of the water.   Then cover the surface with Gallery Glass which will dry to a clear rippled surface.



Circle of acetate on top of curled up strip



Dispatcher by Gary

Gary PEMBLETON at work at CN as a dispatcher. B-2 was the territory between Kingston and Cornwall on the afternoon shift.  Thanks for use of the picture Gary.

Fascia town labels

This is a post for the future. When we get to running the layout we could make up new town signs which would have  E.   (town name).   W.  on them.  The railroad would run from east at Elsewhere to west at Wellington (I love the logic).  Knowing the towns are named alphabetically, if you  are done switching say Lincoln and have a car for Heron's Landing you would know you have to head 'E' or east. Here is a picture posted by Richard Harden in MRH of his town of Hardwood on his CNW Peninsula Div. of what the signs would look like. Thanks to Richard for the use of his photo.

Handy painting tool by Jim Long

Jim uses an old chair coaster as a container to mix small amounts of paint. It is heavy enough not to get knocked over and easy to clean. (editors note, watch out what chair you sit on at Jim's house as it may be wobbly).

John's Ticket

Look at the ticket John's wife found in their yard.

Spotlight on Trent

It is nice that we have some young members in our group. He is always eager to learn and help out (except vacuuming). Trent has a small N scale railroad at home and hopes to apply things he learns at the Huff and Puff.

Jim Long helping Trent with scenerey

Trent has added and painted rocks to the wall and is adding grass along the track

Trent can be proud of his new skills.  I know he likes the vines on the tunnel portal

Tuesday at the Huff and Puff

New buildings were brought in, track work continued and of course ballasting.  Scenery is also being added, it seems like everything is coming together.

Jim Long built and painted this unnamed building

Jim Long built and painted the new power plant and sub. station

Coal mine in place

I added a stone wall at Jutland

After three nights and a group effort new track work is in at Lincoln

Doug, Don and Matt have the track in at Miller