C&O Modelers Visit

Ted and Dave discussing the intricacies of the double slip switch. Yes they goofed the first time they
tried it. Every one does, including me.

This weekend the C&O Historical Society held its 2012 annual meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Alexandria, VA. Even though it was only one mile from my house, I was not able to attend. I have many friends in the C&O Historical Society and I would have liked to hook up with them, but I just couldn't make the schedule fit. Nonetheless, five of them visited my layout on Sunday morning. Ted Pamperin, Dave Olesen, Tony Licese, Gerry Fitzgerald and Bob Tegtmeier (Bob is modeling the LNE but has an interest in the C&O) spent the better part of the day visiting, operating and then running the laser to make a kit. Ted, Dave, Bob and Tony are from New Jersey while Gerry is a regular from Charlottesville, VA. Ted, Dave and Tony are all building steam era layouts depicting the C&O.

Link and pin couplers, man are you kidding me!

Ted and Dave were good sports and jumped right in to operate the Aquia Line. They ran  a train across the layout switching cars and using the turntable. They are experienced operators and were up to speed in no time. They even had fun using the link and pins couplers.

Bob, Tony and Gerry also got some throttle time on McCallum.  We observed that boxcar 1224 was have trouble derailing when backing. After some debugging we determined that its trucks and wheel sets were binding. I replaced the trucks with new free rolling ones and the car ran fine. I think I need to move the cast metal truck project to the front burner so I can refit some of the fleet with new trucks.

Tony gets some throttle time. Tony is a dispatcher for NS (formerly Conrail)

Ted demonstrated his 3D video camera. That was a cool toy. I may have to get one of them. It really worked well. The drawback is you need a 3D TV to view the videos.

S Scale Alleghany Depot

After the op session, we fired up the laser and worked on making an HO scale model of the Alleghany depot. I had previously built a model of this structure in S scale for a custom client. So today we converted it to HO and cut three kits. It took a good amount to effort to do it, but with Ted, Dave and Tony's support and encouragement, we nearly got it completely finished. One more night with the laser and the parts will be ready. This had been a task on my do list for some time, so it was good to bang it out. If there is interest, I may make this an Alkem Scale Models kit.

Gerry stuck around for dinner. Afterwards, we had some more discussions about the ACW Road show. We think we are converging on a design We will probably opt for something simple but we are still in the design phase. More on that later.