Dixie Rail 2026

Op Session 29

I hosted Op Session Number 29 on 11 July. Five visitors from Williamsburg, Mat Thompson, Ed Rappe, Jim Taverna, Alan Balma and Rich Feller  attended. Local, Marty McGuirk filled in the final spot. The session went pretty well. I did note some problems. Engine Fury, which is normally the work horse, seemed to lose some pulling power. It was slipping on the grades in the tunnels. So we swapped it for Whiton, and Whiton ran fine. I need to check Furywhen I get a chance

On Wednesday, I departed Alexandria for Atlanta to attend DixieRail 2026 as a guest of Scott Dunlap, an old friend. I got to operate on three layouts, Jim Travis, Howard Goodwin and Mark Bridgewater. They were lots of fun. 

Jim's layout spans three rooms of his large basement. It's a large loop with several industries. I ran mostly through trains, with one that required some switching. Jim's wife Kim gave me a tour of the structures she built and detailed. They were very nice. 

Howard's layout was two stub staging yards in the garage that feed  a J shaped loop in the basement. The trains are not too long, but there is a lot of activity. 

Mark's layout is only 20 months old, but it has the making of a top layout in the country. It is a 2500 square foot mushroom layout with two branch lines that are on separate decks. The mainline is about 600 feet with 7 passing sidings. The mainline is operational with some of the branches also working. Mark has built several fine layouts in the past, so I have great hopes for this one.

On Sunday, I headed up to Chattanooga stopping at 5 more model railroads.

The first was Bill Heb’s. This in a N scale layout that spans several rooms in his basement. The theme is the B&O in Ohio. The highlight of the layout is an automated transfer table as a staging yard. It is quite impressive.

Second was David Godwin's HO scale Georgia Central RR. It also spans several rooms in his basement with two decks plus a large peninsula in one room to house a large passenger terminal.

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Next I visited Phil Stead's On3 DRGW. I was there 13 years ago. He has basically finished the layout. He has 13 engines, dozens of cars, and a fully sceniced layout that goes from flat drylands to mountain peaks. One of his helpers told me it is the largest On3 layout in the US. His wife painted the back drops too.

After Phil I stopped at the Tate Depot Museum where there are 2 layouts on display. Both are excellent. The Depot is a non profit organization that maintains the layouts and opens them to the public as a tourist attraction for the county. In return, the county covers most of the expenses. In addition to public sessions, the club also has their own work and operation meetings. 

The final layout was Steve Austin's On30 masterpiece. Steve expanded the layout by about 40% since I was last there. It is a highly detailed modeling tour du force. Steve probably has every detail part ever created in O scale. 

I am now in Chattanooga for the NMRA National Convention and Train Show.

June Update

 

Fast Rope- US Navy and Marines Enforce Blockade

June was a busy month with a wonderful 10-day trip to central Europe wedged between work on  several modeling projects.  Since it's the Fourth of July let's start with that.

1. Writing the Declaration of Independence Diorama

Ferris' painting

This will be a shadow box diorama depicting Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams as they edit the declaration of independence 250 years ago.  It is based on Jean Leon Gerome Ferris' painting, but I modified the composition for better arrangement in a 3D shadow box diorama.

It features from right to left, Adams (right, who became the second President of the USA), Jefferson (in the center who became the 3rd US president and was 6'2" tall) and Ben Franklin (who was 70 years old at the time). Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston were also members of the Committee of Five that helped draft it, but for some reason don't get as much fame even though they were both very influential people in the early history of the United States.

Mock-up of the shadow pox 

Adams had pushed for Jefferson to take the lead on writing. Jefferson had a certain literary grace, and, more importantly, he wasn’t yet tarnished by too much speaking in the contentious congressional debates. “You can write ten times better than I can,” Adams told him.

So Jefferson got to work in a boarding house a few blocks from the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), putting pen to paper between June 11 and 28. His desk was a simple wooden box with paper and quill pens that he held on his lap, a 18th century laptop.

When Jefferson finished, he handed copies to Franklin and Adams for review and editing.

In the original draft, Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable…”

This phrasing placed liberty’s foundation squarely in the realm of religion and natural law. It had theological weight and lofty moral power. But to Franklin the appeal to divine authority invited theological disputation. Ever the rationalist, he suggestred using the language of Enlightenment reason.

Franklin crossed out “sacred and undeniable” and scribbled something new: “self-evident.”

In 1776, Benjamin Franklin was 37 years older than Jefferson, and had sat through more committee meetings and wrestled with more politics than Adams and Jefferson combined. He understood that to rally a continent and pass muster with the prickly delegates of the Continental Congress, the Declaration’s truths needed to be stated plainly, not preached.

“Self-evident” drew on the language of 17th-century philosophers like Descartes and 18th-century thinkers like John Locke. It suggested these were not mere articles of religious faith, but truths discernible by reason and shared human experience.

The edits weren’t over. Congress itself would spend all day July 3rd and most of July 4th revising the document—cutting nearly a quarter of it, including Jefferson’s scathing denunciation of the slave trade, ironic since Jefferson, a Virginian, himself was a slave owner. .

But Franklin’s change remained. Self-evident survived. It threaded the needle between moral conviction and rational persuasion, giving the line a universalism that has carried through centuries.

2. Fast Rope : US Navy and Marines Enforce Blockade

Inspired by recent events, I converted my existing container ship model from the PoLA layout  into a diorama depicting US Marine fast roping to the top of the containers. 

The helicopter is a MH-60S from a Chinese company MRY-SFW, which stands for Mr. Yao's Super Fantasy World. It is 3D printed. The model is very nicely detailed. But there are some layer lines visible. They were very hard to remove due to all the rivet detail. I used several coats of leveling primer to try to hide them. 

The other major problem was that the 3D printed clear parts had a frosted appearance with visible layers. I tried polishing them, but did not have good luck. So I ordered a Hasegawa UH-60 as it has a the same windows and doors as the USN MH-60S. I had to carefully trim and sand the clear parts from the injection molded kit  to fit the 3D printed model. I was lucky it worked out.

The figures are 3D sculpts. The fast roping marines I sculpted. The other marines came from a vendor on Myminifactory.  The ropes are steel piano wire placed into holes drilled into the containers. They I added curled up sections of cord to simulate the excess rope that typically hangs from the helos. The helo is rather high as it has to avoid the ship cranes. That puts a lot of torque on the wires, even though the model weighs about 3 ounces.

I used Liquidtex acrylic heavy gel and acrylic pouring medium for the water surface.  I added a backdrop to help protect the fragile helicopter during handling and transport. I also made foam support to secure the helicopter while the diorama is in transit. Hopefully that will minimize vibrations. 

3. Boudica Bust

I had a commissioned model for the Long Island Figure club. They requested a bust of Boudica, Queen of the Iceni. They plan to sell the bust to raise money for their club. I printed about 30 busts for them.

5. John Adams Bust

I also did a digital sculpt of a bust for John Adams. Part of the founding fathers busts series.Not sure when I will get a chance to paint it. Sculpting the curly hair was a lot of fun. 

6. Polish National IPMS Show

Rob taking with the owner of Lukgraph.
Rob bought the huge Grumman Goose model

We had a chance to visit the Polish National IPMS show in Warsaw. It was a nice meet. About as big as the Northern Virgina IPMS meet. There were a lot of nice models on display. I also purchased a model a 230mm mortar built by Skoda, but used by the Poles in WW2. Alas, the weapon was spectaculary ineffective. One report mentioned they only had 75 rounds for all their mortar.  The Germans captured it and reused it in Norway. 

We saw some amazing paper models. Here is one example. 

This is a neat idea of a scuba diver trying to help a manta ray with a fishing net .

May Update

 May was a busy month with several projects in the works. And to make things even busier, I went on an 11 day to trip to Japan.

Show Figure

To accompany the bust of John Hancock for the NCMSS Show figure I created two more sculpts, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The Franklin figure will be available for sale by the NMCSS. I haven't had a chance to paint them yet. I want to also do a figure of John Adams.

I also created two sculpts for a client of Honus Wagner.

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Shizuoka Model Show

While we were in Japan we attended the Shizuoka Model Show. It is probably the biggest model show in Japan. There were two main halls and two smaller rooms for displays. While not as big as a National IPMS or NMRA Convention, it was still packed with lots of cool models and people. We met folks from Taiwan, Shanghai, Singapore, Japan and some from the USA. Gundam and Anime were at least half of the models on display. But this Honda pit row diorama was one of my favorites.

I didn't buy anything at the show. I did pick up some laster cut models of Japanese castle and a five level pagoda at a department store. I also purchased a Shinkansen Train set in N scale at a very nice hobby shop in Kyoto for my friend Brian. That was all my suitcase could handle.

Speaking of Shinkansen, we bought Japan Rail Passes for 7 days. So we rode lots of JR trains including the Shinkansen several times. I posted a video to youtube showing some of the trains we rode and the sights we saw.

Model Projects

The pile driver model for my layout is still not done. But, I have been working on an another project to take to the IPMS Nationals. I also am working on a new ACW N Scale module to debut at the NMRA National Convention.  Here is a hint on what the IPMS model will be. 

NoVa IPMS Model Classic 2026

I attended the NOVA IPMS Model Classic on Saturday after what has been a whirlwind of 5 weeks of travel and activity for mostly family activities plus a nasty cold. I had just returned from a week at Disney World with my daughter and her family. 

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I entered 9 models in 5 different categories. I am happy to report that I received several awards, while  fellow members of the National Capital Model Soldier Society also did very well. I received:

• 1st place for my 75mm model of Herman Haupt in the figure 90mm and less Category
• 1st place for Acinad and Koda in the Mounted Figure Category. This model also got a peer award from the Fort Wayne IPMS,
• 1st Place for the USMRR Engine House and Shop in the Miscellaneous and Railway Models Category. 
• 2nd Place for Inquisitor Mizar in the Bust Category
• 2nd Place for Avenging Varus in the Miscellaneous Diorama Category.
• My bust of the 1st Virginia infantry at Valley Forge got a peer award from Fort Wayne IPMS.

The USMRR Engine House and Shop also received the Best Miscellaneous Model Award, which put it in contention for Best in Show. However, that award went to Zack Becker, fellow member of the National Capital Model Soldier Society, for his dual busts of revolutionary war figures called "250." 
Zack also received some other awards but I did not get the full list.

Jim Ritchey, another member of National Capital Model Soldier Society, received first place for his Sicilian Pirate in the over 90mm category.

Darcy Hoffman ran the National Capital Model Soldier Society table where we debuted the 2026 Show Figure of John Hancock and had some sales. It will be interesting to see how others paint the figure.

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Brion Boyles was at the show displaying his incredible model of the 1/40th scale CSS Shiloh, a fictional model of a gunboat that served in the Confederate Navy set in his version of an alternate universe where the South did not lose the Civil War.  The model is both a fully- operational RC boat and incredibly detailed. 

Machine Shop Pictures

Strong light through the window wall to create realistic shadows on the carpenter workbenches

 I have not installed the machine shop in its final location. This was a good time to take some photos of the interior, while I still can maneuver the structure for the best angles and light. Nonetheless, it was tricky to take these shots as I had to balance light on the interior to see the detail, but not too much light to look unrealistic. 

All of these figures except JB Clough are ones I digitally sculpted. 

COL Haupt (superintendent) , JB Clough (chief engineer) and MG Burnside (Commander)  visit the Machine shop

I removed the roof on the right side to add light
and added a small LED light in the 
foreground