Upcoming Talks and a Sneak Peek at a New Project

 I will be presenting two talks at the start of May about railroading in the Civil War.

The first is at the Carolinas RPM Meet on May 3-4 in Greensboro NC. You can get more information about the meet at https://cmrgreensboro.org/calendar/rpm-carolinas-may2025/

The second talk is the same topic at the Chesapeake Forum in Easton, MD on May 7th. You can get more information about it at https://chesapeakeforum.org/course/railroads-of-the-civil-war/  Note, they are charging a fee for admission. 

Next, I started working on a new project for my model railroad. I started off by getting a supply of scale lumber. Any guesses on what it might be?

Hint, I discussed this project on my blog before. It is a structure.

April Update- Northern Virginia Modelers Classic

 

Vietnam War Theme Diorama

I attended the Northern Virginia IPMS Modelers Classic today in Fairfax, VA. This is the annual show hosted by the Northern Virginia IPMS chapter. It was a fun show. I got to meet a lot of interesting people and perhaps I will be engaging in some new projects.

Larry Valett, who is the skipper of the Washington Ship Modelers Society, mentioned a new project for the Mount Airy Museum. He is a point of contact for that museum too. I had donated a bunch of my HO civil war era cars to this museum in the past. They are now gearing up for a new exhibit honoring the 250 anniversary of the US Military. I may be contributing some models to that. It depends on what they want.  We also discussed having the ship model society coming to visit the Aquia Line.

Don (l), Charles (r)

Next, I had a nice chat with Don Hakenson and Charles V. Mauro. They are northern Virginia locals that have published books on the history of civil war in the Northern Virginia region.  In fact, it was Mauro's book that informed me about Nettie Barnes and her pig. I actually cited his book in an earlier post here. So, I was pleasantly surprised to meet him. I invited them for a visit to the Aquia Line.

I also got to meet Tom Jett, who is the chairman of the IPMS National Show scheduled for this summer in Hampton , VA. We discussed a possible collaboration in building a 1/35th scale flat car for an armor project he is working on.

High Road to Rome Diorama

The National Capital Model Soldier Society was also present in force. Darci and Dave staffed a table where we had figures on exhibit including the High Road to Road diorama. Our club members handled judging of the figures for the Modelers Classic.

I brought 6 models to the show in five different categories. I am pleased to say that I received two  second and two third place awards. I also received the Special Show Theme Award for my diorama depicting a scene from the Vietnam movie, "Full Metal Jacket." I actually built this diorama in 2022, but it fit the theme of the meet, so I decided to display it. The actual award was an interesting full color print on a piece of aluminum. I really liked it.

Richmond Open 2025 IPMS Show

 

My 1/76th scale WWI tank on Macaw flat car got a First Place award in the small armor category

I attended the Richmond Open 2025 sponsored by the Richmond IPMS club on Feb 21, 2025. It was a big show at the Old Dominon Race Track facility with about 900 models entered and over 1,000 people attending.

Sci-fi and Gundam was one of the most popular categories. The younger people really seem to like this theme. Aircraft were also popular.

Our model figure club, The National Capital Model Soldier Society,  was tasked to judge figures, which we did.  There were so many entries in sci-fi and fantasy that the table was jammed with models. It was hard to fully examine them for judging with moving many of them. But we did the best we could. 

I entered some models in the contest and received two first place, one second and one third awards. Note this show does first-second-third vice gold-silver-bronze. 

My WWI tank on flat car was a model I built several years ago for my book on military railroads. The flat car was completely scratch built except for the trucks and wheel sets. The tank had to be modified for rail transport mode. The figure is by W^D models. They were a source for some of the best 1/76th scale model figures. Alas, the owner retired and has not sold off his masters.

Alien- Ripley's Last Battle shadow box diorama got a third place award in Dioramas

Avalynne and Orien got a second place in non-historical busts

King Konrad won a first place in 90mm and greater figures. The is a100mm flat figure, I made the shadowbox using my laser cutter to depict the Palantine Chapel in Aachen, Germany 

February Update- Road Trip

 I've been on the road for much of February so I didn't have too much time to work on the layout. 

I started the month with a road trip to Nags Head and Wanchese, NC.

There I took a one day boat trip to look for pelagic birds, i.e. birds that live predominantly at sea. We journeyed about 20 miles off shore in choppy weather on a 60-ft long charter boat. The weather was too rough for good photography, but we did see quite a few birds. I got a decent photo of a puffin and a dovekie.

I also stopped by the Wright Brothers National Monument. I toured the museum. I did not realize how much research and development the Wright Brothers did . They had their own wind tunnel and developed their own engine. The whole effort was much more involved than I knew. 

Replica Wright Flyer on display

Puffin about 20 miles off shore.

Florida scrub jay

I left NC and drove to my brother's house in Melbourne, FL. I spent a week there with him doing some bid watching and getting ready for JAXCON, 2025. A highlight was finding several rare and endangered Florida Scrub Jays near my niece's house near Rockledge, FL. I spent a morning at Merritt Island Wildlife Preserve. Then I met some old friends, Clark Folwer and his wife Debbie Heystek,  in Titusville  for lunch.

Lifeboat from Maersk Alabama at Navy UDT-Seal Museum

On Thursday we took a drive to the  National Navy UDT-Seal Museum in Fort Pierce.  The museum is small but has a good collection of artifacts especially small arms and scuba gear used by the UDT-Seals from WW2 to current. Outside they have a collection of small boats from various eras. I was especially intrigued by the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama that the Seals rescued from Somlai pirates.  

We attended JAXCON for one day. The show was well attended with over 600 models on display. I entered several models and picked up two gold, 5 silver and a bronze medal. There were several models that I liked. Unfortunately, there were not enough people to act as judges. I was very busy as I judged half of the armor models and almost all the figures (except for the ones I entered).  I later learned that several models did not get judged, which was disappointing for the people that missed out. When I judge I like to provide feedback to the entires. 

This Mustang was awarded best in show at JAXCON 2025

Light house at Ponce Inlet

I left JAXCON and met Alicia at her mom's condo in Daytona Beach. Alicia's childhood  friend, Debbie, and her husband, Dave, were staying with Anne. We visited Ponce Inlet for some wildlife viewing. We saw a manta ray, several dolphins, and many birds. 

Incredibly cute Borrowing Owl

On Monday we dropped Alicia's mom off at Melbourne airport and then spent an another day with Rob and Terry. We played some golf and did a little birdwatching at Viera Wildlife Preserve. On Tuesday we drove to Homestead, Fl with stops to see Alicia's friend Denise in West Palm Beach, a quick birding stop at Valley View State Park where we spotted several burrowing owls, and finally a visit with my college friend, Eric Carr, in Fort Lauderdale.  It is amazing how the area has become one giant megapolis from West Palm Beach to Homestead. 

We spent the next morning touring the Everglades National Park. We saw a good number of birds, though not as many as I expected, but lots of alligators and fish. The waters of the everglades are just teaming with fish. Seems like everywhere you look you see fish. It was like looking in an aquarium. 

They have a whole wing of the REV Institute  museum dedicated to Porsche

Next stop was Naples, Fl to visit Alicia's brother and sister-in-law. They bought a nice condo in Naples. The following day we toured the REV Institute museum in Naples. It is an excellent museum filled with rare and historic cars. If you like cars, it is well worth a stop.

We continued north to Clearwater, Florida to visit our friends Joe and Carol Post. The next morning Carol took us to Sand Key Park to do some bird watching. It was very windy and cloudy, but I did get an interesting photo of a laughing gull with a small catfish. 

We headed back to Daytona with a stop at Lake Apopka to do the famous wildlife drive. The weather was cool and very cloudy. We saw over a thousand birds and even spotted some lifers. 

Purple Gallinule

We played one more round of golf. Then headed home to Virginia. In all I was gone for 18 days. It was a great trip.  As far as bird watching, I got a lot of photos, and picked up 8 lifers in Florida and 11 in North Carolina.  Alas, we didn't visit any model railroads.

USMRR Dot Code

 I recently had some questions about the UMSRR Dot Code. There used to be two websites with good information about them. Alas, one of the sites is now gone. However, I was able to download this file from their website before it went dark. 

 The other website is still around at http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/tele.html 

That site contains several quotes by Walt Mathers. Walt was an expert on Civil War telegraphy. Alas, Walt passed away a few years ago. He describes a dot code used on telegraphs on that webpage.

 I did have some correspondence with him before he passed about the USMRR Dot code. Unfortunately, his answers to my questions were not very clear. Here is an excerpt from a message I received from him. Note that the 3rd, 4th and 5th paragraph describe a dot code, despite him saying that a dot code wasn't used in the first paragraph.

"To the best of my knowledge, neither the USMT or their Confederate counterpart used a two-element dot code.  American Morse system, of four elements, was used on land lines.  While the 1852 Berlin code, of two elements, was used on the 1858 trans-Atlantic cable, and the Bain code, of two elements, was absorbed by a successful law suit brought about by Morse, the land-line, or Morse code (actually invented by Alfred Vail but that's another story), was used.

The Union army's chief signal officer, Albert James Myer, who had been a Bain two-element operator on the NY line as a youngster, developed a simple code that could be used on an electric telegraph magnet using single blows to represent a dot, i.e. a single blow representing the numeral "one" ... and two quick blows on the sending instrument (to signify a "two".  

This code, which superseded Myer's original four-element code of numerals (one through four with five being used to end a word, two for a sentence and three to finish off a message), could be used with flag and torch or as a homographic code of using one's limbs.  

So, instead of using dots, dash, extended (or sustained) dashes and spaces between dots such as the letters "Oh" "Rah" or Cee" with the Morse system, a signal operator could use combinations of single or couplet blows of dots upon the sending instrument's anvil.

Neither US or CS landline telegraphers have ever been documented as using a dot code in the field.  Did others, such as army signalists use it in a pinch on electric lines?  We just don't know.  If documentation does surface we'll let you know.  Re-enactors do effectively use it to good effect to communicate over their distant event wires."

I found this document on another website, but I did not record where I found it. It contains some additional information on dot code and operating procedures used by the telegraphers. 

Myer's system is described in this document. http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pdf/lgmanualofsignals.pdf It seems to apply primarily to flag and torch signals, but he does briefly mention electrical signaling in the document. 

From this message traffic it appears that using dot code on electrical telegraph  was used by re-enactor telegraphers, but perhaps not very likely by actual civil war telegraphers.