A journal following the history, design, construction and operation of Bernard Kempinski's O Scale model railroad depicting the U. S. Military Railroad (USMRR) Aquia-Falmouth line in 1863, and other model railroad projects.
©Bernard Kempinski All text and images, except as noted, on this blog are copyrighted by the author and may not be used without permission.
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August 20, 2009

Group Work Session


We had a great work session tonight with 7 guest helpers showing up to help push the USMRR AC&F along. Marty McGuirk, Norm Wolf, John Drye, Jeff and Christian Peck, Mark Kempinski showed up to work, while my twin brother, Rob Kempinski visiting from Florida, regaled us with tales of his two under par golf round he shot earlier that day. I was there to witness it. Lets just say that Alicia and I lost more balls than holes to offset Rob's under par round.




From Left to Right, John Drye, Jeff Peck, Mark Kempinski, Marty McGuirk. Norm skipped out before we could snap his picture.


Left to right: Me, Mark and Rob - all three Kempinski boys standing by the future big bridge scene.

To keep things organized I had sent out an email message earlier with job assignments, so everyone knew what to do. All was ready for them to jump to work. After a quick pizza dinner, Marty checked all track for missing spikes, Norm installed windows on the freight house building, Jeff disassembled some benchwork left over from the N Scale layout, JD worked on painting figures and Mark rebuilt the benchwork to accommodate the big bridge over Potomac Run. Christian played Call of Duty 4 on the XBox360 while Rob observed the action. I continued to add spline sections near Stonemans Station while helping answer everyones' questions. And lets not forget Alicia made chocolate chip-coconut macaroon cookies as a treat. They were excellent.


The bridge over Potomac Creek is looking like it will be one of the signature scenes. The actual bridge is 400 feet long and 80 feet tall. Mine at 48 inches long and 12 inches tall will be about half that in scale. We built a quick mock up with a 2x4, a 1x2 and some foam abutments. Mark and I decided that a truss about 2.5 to 3 inches tall will look about right. In the time period I am
modeling the bridge was a triple arch truss,
not a stick type trestle. The 2x4 mock-up here is too tall and makes the bridge look too squat.









On Wednesday, Dr Steve Clarson visited from Cincinnati and had a chance to check progress on the layout before he and I went to John Drye's house for a work session on his N Scale layout.


2 comments:

  1. Sorry about the "early" departure - it was almost 9p when I left and there was still a ton of traffic on my 60 mile adventure down I-95.
    I had a fun time & hope to have a small work crew visit my layout someday in the not-so-distant future... thanks & hope to make another session.

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  2. Thanks for coming. Your 60 mile drive takes you right past the RR we are modeling! We were discussing a road trip to check out the remains of the original stone abutments for the old trestle.

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