ACWRRHS Invades Atlanta - Preview Trailer

Punch List

The backdrop is a key element of the depot scene

Repainted backdrop on Biscuit Run

The remaining tasks list to finish the road show is still pretty long, but it took a good hit Saturday after our work session. Paul Dolkos, Joel Salmons, Gerry Fitzgerald and new comer, Michael Spoor, participated in the session. Paul took on the task of building a covered barge. Andy Small had earlier agreed to build a well barge. So that should give us two barges for the river front. I also built a row boat to help clutter the waterfront. Joel finished the artillery revetment. Michael worked on installing the windows in the engine house. Gerry built the platform for the depot, installed the start of a pole line, drilled holes for the burned dock and added some more scenic details to Biscuit Rn.

 I worked on the shipyard warehouse. I also installed the sidewalk for the post office and sutler's store, finished the backdrop behind the depot including a forced perspective fence.  On Biscuit Run, I added the burned farm house, and added more trees.

I also decided to repaint the backdrop on Biscuit Run. As I studied the photos I realized the trees behind the burned farm house were too light.  Now the backdrop matches the foreground trees much better.  Finally I got out the airbrush and painted the shoreline and blended the scene with an overspray of various browns.

Michael installing the engine house

At this point Biscuit Run and the Depot sections are just about complete, with just some fine details remaining and the water.

Photos from 150th Chancellorsville Reenactment

Michael Spoor sent me these images from the 150th Chancellorsville Reenactment. He is a Sergeant with the U.S. Army and serves as a photographer for the Signal Corps. He was at the reenactment as an official photographer as his unit sent some soldiers to participate in the event.  Michael and his father are dedicated model railroaders.  His father is a leading expert on the CBQ and has a large layout in his Houston home.

19th Century Waybills or Switch Lists?

I have been doing some research on how railroads made switch lists and waybills in the early 19th century and how to apply that to a model railroad. 

From the sample waybills I have seen from 19th century RRs, they seem to cover less than carload shipping from a customer to the railroad. They seem to be receipts for shipping more than instructions for train crews and conductors. I have not seen any 19th century waybill that contains information on what railroad car the freight is carried on. This is considerably different from the way model railroaders use waybills.  

1889 Waybill Back

1889 Waybill Front

What I have not been able to find are examples of 19th century switch lists or car forwarding information.  This one from the Central Vermont in 1889 seems to be the closest to what we need. 



I have copies of the conductor reports used on the USMRR. I previously posted copies of these on my blog. These look like switch lists but appear to me to de done after the fact, hence the term "conductor's report." See this image for an example of a conductor report.




I have made my own copies of these and printed them on "antique" paper. For now we are using these as switch lists, but I wonder if this is correct. If you would like a copy you can download a pdf version at this link. 









This hand written version of the conductors report was used on the USMRR Aquia Line.


















I also have copies of the USMRR agents' report for the two terminals at each end of the line, Aquia and Falmouth. These list what cars were delivered and the contents.  See this image for an example.
Note how each car has a consignee. Occasionally you see a listing for "misc. goods," which may mean what now call less-than-car-load good.  

Also note the entry for "express" at the bottom of the form, train number 9, car 1253. That is probably for the Adams Express.  From this I gather they did not use their own cars, but used USMRR cars.  But photos exist of Adams Express cars on the USMRR, so this may be a peculiararity  of the Aquia line.



What I have not found is the paper work that would go with each car.  Any suggestions?

Marine Ways

Note the capstan for winching  the cradle out of the water and the boiler parts sitting on the river bank on the left. This is an example of a very crude marine shipway used by the Quartermaster near Chattanooga. (National Archives)

One of the points we want to illustrate with our McCook's landing - the new name for the Road Show layout - is the role that superior logistics had in enabling the Union victory. In transportation assets; steam boats and rail, the North enjoyed overwhelming advantages.

Although this is a model railroad, we should note that rivers played as much as a role, if not more than railroads in military logistics. To support the campaigns around Chattanooga the Union built shipyards near the front for steam ships and barges to supply the Army. For example they had shipyards at Chattanooga, and Kingsport on the Tennessee River.  There were also numerous shipyards along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Therefore we decided to depict a military shipyard on the layout.  It is probably the main industry on the layout, though supplies for the Army are also important. These images show examples of typical riverine shipyards. They were somewhat simple and crude, especially the photos of the marine way at Chattanooga.

The cradles visible on the right have interesting round holes cut into their sides. The hull frame  is sitting on scaffolding which will be removed when the cradle is positioned for launching.  Photo of a US Army Quartermaster shipyard  near Chattanooga, TN.(National Archives)

Although a post war image on the upper Mississippi, this photo gives a good idea of how the cradles work on the marine railway.  Railways designed for ship maintenance have to be much more carefully built as they need to pull ships out as well as launch them. The stiff leg derrick crane on a stone foundation is another interesting feature. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/LaCrosseSteamboat

This photo shows how a horse is used to wind the capstan. Note the worn path in the ground where the horse walks to wind up the rope. Also note the blocks and tackle to connect to the ship to the capstan. (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/LaCrosseSteamboat)

This shipyard was located in Jeffersonville, IN near Louisville, but we plan to add a structure like this to our shipyard. The sign on the building is very cool. This building will be a flat, but there should be enough room to show some of the saw mill equipment inside the openings in the wall.  (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/LaCrosseSteamboat)

Scenery Continues...

Haupt inspects the new scenery

I did a couple hours of scenery work tonight. I added a second layer to Biscuit Run. This included various colors of ground foam, chopped up twigs, more patches of dirt and static grass. I added a few trees in the background too.  A few more, better detailed trees are required for the foreground.  Biscuit Run is almost done except for some trees, the burned dock, and what ever other details Gerry wants to add.

Wet scenery on the Shipyard section

I continued to the shipyard section where I added ballast and the base coat of texture.Then I worked on the trail along the foreground that leads to the site of the future marine shipways by adding static grass, twigs, and muddy ruts on the trail.

I really am enjoying building this green scenery. The winter colors on my layout were getting tiresome, though I think I do prefer the winter scenery overall.








Last week I received a sample of Microtrains N Scale ACW era cars. They are very finely done.

I must admit that after working primarily in O Scale for the past 4 years, I had trouble getting the N Scale wheel sets back in their trucks as some popped loose in shipment. But I eventually got them seated. I posed three of the box cars on one of my flat cars.

At some point, I plan to try a small N scale diorama with these items and some of the other cool stuff that GHQ, Atlas and other manufacturers offer in N Scale.

Cassette Staging, First Scenery and a New Name

Bridge over Biscuit Run just before entering staging

Gerry Fitzgerald came up for a work session today and we got a lot done.  Gerry painted the front panel of the staging yard, the fascia and valance with a fresh coat of Union Blue. We will have to touch the paint up one more time after the basic scenery is done, but the finished look of the painted surfaces really helps give the layout a professional look.

Removable Cassette

Entrance to staging needs to be hidden by trees.
The path was a happy accident made by dragging a finger through
wet scenery. 

While he was painting, I went about building a removable cassette staging track. I did this instead of just a fixed fiddle track because I realized that having to pick up the loco every time it came into staging to turn it around was not good for the loco. With this design we can pick up the whole train (4 cars plus loco) on the staging section and turn it around. If we want to add a few more cars, the loco can enter the layout while the additional cars are added to the end. The task of building the cassette was made easier by the fact that with battery power, there was no need to power the rail. We also used flex track to simplify things. We do plan to add a recharging track in the staging section to charge engine batteries.

Base coat of scenery

With the cassette glue drying, we started adding the base coat of scenery. Gerry sifted a big bucket of Utah dirt that we used for ballast and base scenery coat. Then we added a little ground foam to add some color.

After dinner, we hooked up the static grass machine and added a first coat of static grass. Then we cut in the dirt path on the Biscuit Run section, added a few Woodland Scenics trees as view blocks and the posts for an abandoned fence. The idea is that soldiers have removed the rails, but left the posts.

Finally we spent a bit of time fleshing out the story to the layout. So far we knew it was somewhere on the Tennessee River, but we want a better description for the show.

Here is a brief summary. Gerry will work on the full story.

It is the summer of 1864. Sherman is fighting south of Chattanooga toward Atlanta, but Atlanta hasn't fallen. This is a freelanced line that went west-south-west  from Nashville to Bentonville (a fictional town), a small steamship port on the Tennessee River. The town had started the line but had not finished it by the start of the war. The USMRR completed the line in 1863 to act as a back-up route to supply Nashville.  They named the port McCook's Landing in honor of Brigadier General Robert Latimer McCook, who died in 1862, allegedly shot by rebel guerrillas while he lay wounded in an ambulance (though the story is disputed by Confederates).

The town had a small shipyard and various other structures before the war.  It was not burned by the either side, except for the railroad bridge and some farms of suspected guerrillas along the river. The USMRR rebuilt the bridge with a standard design, expanded the wharves and warehouses, and added earthworks with artillery.

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville

This weekend marks the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville. There will be a series of events including a battle reenactment on some of the actual historic battle ground. More info about the event can be found here. I do not plan to attend due to other commitments.



I also learned recently of a new book coming about about the Army of the Potomac winter encampment along the USMRR Aquia Line. The book is called,  "Valley Forge" 1863: 93 Days That Saved America" by Al Connor. I have not read the book but reviews of lectures based on the book indicate that Connor describes the rebuilding of the Army over the winter under General Hooker as the key component to ultimate success of the Army of the Potomac. I look forward to reading it.

ProRail 2013

On Wednesday I drove to Northwest New Jersey to attend ProRail 2013. ProRail is a group of layout owners that focus on prototypical operations. They hold an annual get together at varying cities to operate layouts. It started with Chicago and Kansas City and has spread to other US cities. There are many such groups in the US and Canada. They spread by word of mouth. Chances are if you have a serious operating layout, you know of this or some other round-robin operating group.

For Prorail 2013 I operated on Tom Piccirillo's  O scale Somerset County Traction Company, Harold Wertheim's HO Scale Erie, Perry Squire's HO Scale Pittsburg, Shawmut and Northern and had a brief run on John Rodger's On2 Sandy River and Rangely Lakes RR. All of these layouts are basement filling empires with exquisite scenery, good running trains and interesting operations.

A special shout out to Perry Squire's PS&N layout which ran flawlessly with excellent sound.  It is especially amazing given that he runs tiny 1920s era steam engines.  For example, check out this video clip of a 0-6-0 operating in St Mary's yard on his layout.

Tom's layout also ran extremely well utilizing overhead catenary wire for power! Here is a link with more info on Tom's layout. This layout is also complete, an amazing accomplishment given the size and detail he has included.

Tom stands near the ferry terminal at Lambertville.

Port Jervis Yard on Wertheim's Layout

Harold Wertheim's layout has been featured in several national magazines. It is a vast layout spanning multiple levels and rooms. It absorbed 20 plus operators with no trouble. A highlight of this visit was a chance to chat with Harold. He is now 91 years old and doing great. Keep it up!


John's Rodger's layout is a relatively new

(L-R) Dave Adams, Jim Kern, John Rodgers

project and he has made amazing progress. His layout features a fine collection of brass On2 engines and cars as well as a standard gauge Maine Central RR that interchanges with the SR&RLs.

Like most O-scalers John has a complete metal shop with lathe and milling machines. Tom Piccirillo has an even more extensive shop, but that is somewhat to be expected as he is the President of Micro-Mark, a hobby tool specialist company. I guess you can't be an O Scaler without a metal shop.

One of the best parts of a weekend like this is the socializing that occurs in the hotel and over meals. It was great to catch up with many friends.  It is amazing how friendly and generous model railroaders can be.

I was especially gratified to hear many people say they enjoy this blog. If you are a regular reader, please join the list of followers and don't be shy to comment.

I delivered the coal dock model to Ted Pamperin. He was very happy with it. Several others commented on how much they liked it and I got orders for a couple more.

I am showing Milt how to use the throttle 

Finally thanks to all the hosts and helpers for running a great weekend.

My Prorail weekend was bookended by visitors to my layout.

On Tuesday, Milt Martin from Austin, TX,  and my brother Rob visited the layout. Milt is not a model railroader, as he enjoys car restoring and collecting guns. He had a chance to try the layout.  He said he may try some model trains after the visit. Lets hope we have a new convert.

Marshall with Whiton pushing cars on the nose.

On Sunday, Marshall Stull from Michigan visited. He is building a small HO Scale layout depicting Illinois Central in the Mound City, IL area. You can find more about it here.

I gave Marshall a switch list asked had him do an op session on the Road Show. He spent about 45 minutes working the layout. He used the front draw bar on the engine to do some switching as he started where Chuck, Keith and Jack left off last Monday and the engine was facing east with a cut of cars behind.   I did not tell Marshall about the rule regarding  the front coupler bar, so he went ahead and used it. It worked well. It tends to have trouble on tight curves, or long cuts of cars, but on this layout works pretty well.

Overall the road show layout worked well, though we noted that the engine derailed on the west crossover. This is the second instance of a derailment there. In examining it we concluded that the guard rail to the frog was not long enough. I added a section of guard rail to extend it and it worked flawlessly after that.

ProRail 2013 Test Operation Session

The live steam railroad uses 7 1/4 inch track to simulate a 2 foot narrow
gauge prototype. So it is about one third scale, big enough to ride in
the locos and cars.

This evening Paul Dolkos, John King, Chuck Hitchcock, Keith Jordan and Jack Ozanich visited the layout.  They are in town for  ProRail 2013. The actual ProRail is taking place in New Jersey next weekend, but a few folks came to Washington for preliminary operation sessions on some of our local layouts.   I will be heading to NJ on Wednesday to participate too.

All the visitors  but Jack Ozanich had been here before. It was Chuck Hitchcock's suggestion to use the magnetic pins in the couplers way back in April 2010.

All these men have extensive model railroads, most are nationally, perhaps internationally known.  Keith and Jack actually have two.  Keith has a website for one of his layouts, the Patch,  here/ The Patch is similar in scope to our Civil War RR Road Show.

Jack has a wonderful HO layout in his basement, and a magnificent live steam railroad outside on his fifty acre wooded lot.  The photos at the left, which I took in 2003,  show some scenes on his outdoor layout.

The round house is fully operational with elevated tracks for maintenance on the locos.  Jack has operating sessions on his outdoor layout where they use the railroad to haul fire wood to the house for heat.  Jack is a retired railroad locomotive engineer. He is also a civil war history enthusiast.

The turntable is fully operational, as are the engine house stalls.

This trestle is about 10 feet high at the deepest

Watching the intro video

Back in Virginia - After watching an introductory video on the Aquia line and a layout tour, I put them to work operating the Road Show Layout.

I had made up some paperwork earlier and pre-staged a five car train on Biscuit Run. The paperwork is based on actual USMRR documents.

The first paperwork used on the layout. We'll save it for prosperity.

Chuck took over as conductor, with Keith as the engineer, and Jack as the brakeman.

The three man crew worked quite well. The paper work was new to Chuck and it took him some time to get used to it. By acting as conductor he was able to study and concentrate on the paperwork and decide how to do the switching. I made the switch problem a little harder as they had some sorting to do and had to do a facing point pick up.
To set the stage, I provided some telegraph messages that annulled the schedule and told them to run extra from Biscuit Run to Columbus Landing.

The schedule was annulled due to notional enemy activity cutting a bridge further down the line. But the switching problem will be more interesting if we have scheduled trains to consider while working the terminal.

Jack did a great job as brakemen with the link and pins. He got the hang of it right away.

The Stanton throttle is a little quirky, but Keith got used to it quickly. After about 15 minutes they were operating like the real pros they are.  It was very entertaining for Paul, John and I to watch them work. All in all a good session. The layout provided these very experienced operators about 30 minutes of fun.  It bodes well for future op session on the road show.

The crew hard at work

A few other lessons learned from this session. The operators really need to reach into the layout to work the link and pin couplers. So it will not be a good idea to put delicate models between them and the tracks. The steamboat comes immediately to mind. If we do add the steamboat, it should be removable for operation sessions. A low lying barge may be a better model for that reason.  Before the session, we should give the operators a short lesson on how to use the various items. The link and pins, throttle, switch stands and even the paperwork are very different from what most model railroad operators are used to. Perhaps a short video might be a good way to avoid us having to say the same thing over and over as visitors try the layout. The three man crew worked well, but a two man crew could also work. Since you need two hands to do the link and pins, you need a place to put the paperwork, if you will be conductor and brakeman. The engineer should probably not take a second task. So a minimum crew will be an engineer and conductor/brakeman.

Carpenter Tools - O Scale kit

This type of classic work bench is still used by carpenters.

Alkem Scale models has released the O scale carpenter tool set as a stand alone kit.  We developed this kit for this Civil War layout, but these tools can be used in any carpenter's tool box from the 19th century until today.   They are perfect for detailing any wood shop scene.

See the new Alkem Scale Models web site here for more pictures and details. For you can order them direct from this blog by clicking the Paypal shopping cart below.

The hanging rack is included in the tool kit.

O Scale Tool Kit $19.99

The kit includes 3 hammers, 2 hand axes, 4 spoke shaves, 1 shave horse, 2 bow saws, 5 hand saws, 6 clamps, 2 tongs, 8 chisels, 2 dividers, 3 try squares, 2 drill braces, 1 tool box, 1 work bench, 1 set of shelves, 1 tool rack, and 2 saw horses. Shed not included.

USMRR Timetable for ET&Ga RR 1864

I recently found this image of a time table for the USMRR operated section of the East Tennesse and Georgia Railroad. There is a lot of information contained on this image and it is worth studying.

Note the Western and Atlantic trains listed on the timetable. The Special instructions are very interesting. The link for the high resolution image is here.

Half a million on the 150th Anniversary

This week marks two milestones for the USMRR Aquia Lines.

First, the beginning of April marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the arched truss bridge at Potomac Creek. I don't know the exact date, so this will do.

Also, this weekend the blog saw it's 500,000 page view.  Thanks to all those that visited. I hope you found it worth while. Let's try for another half million.

Thurmond Coal Dock

I finished the pilot model of the Thurmond Coal Dock in HO Scale. Actually, that is not true, I still need to add the Fairbanks Morse sign and a wooden small shed on the trackside, but otherwise it is done.

I have not decided if I will sell this as a kit. There is still a fair amount of work to go from the pilot model stage to a sellable kit. The instruction book is probably as much work as developing the kit. We will see what kind of demand there is from C&O modelers.  This pilot model will go to a client in who is modeling the C&O New River Subdivision in the steam era.

The Fairbanks Morse sign will be added to this wall.

Don't have a cow!

But bull oxen are ok.  I assembled and painted two  40mm scale oxen from Trident Designs. They are nice castings and they painted up pretty easily using primarily my airbrush. They work out to be fairly large oxen in 1/48th scale. These, along with a few others,  are destined to pull a heavy wagon on the layout, but for now they are cavorting in the paddock near the water mill.











I've been using my airbrush and Vallejo paints a lot lately. I had been thinking about getting them better organized. So today I made two racks to hold them. I laser cut 1/8th inch plywood for most of the parts and glued them with yellow glue. I used some strip wood to stiffen the rack.  The bottles fit snug, so I can pick up the  racks and move them when I need them without the paints falling out. One rack holds airbrush paint, while the other hold brush paints.

While the two projects above were fun, the majority of my modeling time this weekend was spent building a pilot model of HO Scale coal dock based on the prototype at Thurmond, WV. I am evaluating whether this should be a kit.  This image shows it with all the photo etch parts assembled. Still a few more parts to add, then paint. 

The War Came by Train - 1863

The B&O Railroad Museum had a ceremony today to officially open the third year of their five-year exhibition on the Civil War called "The War Came by Train." Courtney Wilson, the Executive Director of the B&O Railroad Museum, mentioned that interest in the civil war and this exhibit has lead to a resurgence in interest in the museum. They get more than a quarter million visitors a year.

This year the museum jointly celebrated with the state of West Virginia, which is also celebrating its Sesquicentennial -  150th Anniversary of Statehood.  Several officials from West Virginia were on hand for the ceremony. Dan Toomey and Richard Wolfe gave brief speeches about the significance of the B&O in the formation of the state of West Virginia. Here were some interesting facts they mentioned.

• The reverse side of the West Virginia state seal has an image of a B&O Railroad train.
• The first Union soldier killed in action by a Confederate soldier happened in what is now West Virginia at a fight over a bridge on the B&O.  
• The eastern panhandle of West Virginia, the part of the state that gives it such a distinctive shape, was a result of the Union government wanting to keep the B&O RR in the new state of West Virginia and out of the rebelling state of Virginia. Whether West Virginia could remain a state was disputed by Virginia after the war and was settled by the US Supreme Court.

The West Virginia folks brought along representatives from several gourmet shops and business in West Virginia with samples of their food and beverages.

In the gallery the rail gun models I built for the museum and the ones I loaned were on display. If you visit the museum, which I recommend, please give them a look.

The caption on the card is incorrect- this is a 1:32nd scale model on loan.