Getting the Band Back Together

Rail fanning near Ogden 21st Street Yard

Last week I visited Utah for golfing with Alicia, rail fanning, layout work and operation sessions. The golf was great as the thinner air at 7,000 feet makes you feel like Rory McElroy. Alicia and I had a tournament over three rounds that was quite close. We split the first two matches, but I won the rubber match helped by making back-to-back birdies.

Steve Blodget's 1890's layout.

Milton Turn working the cement factory on Spangler's layout

The op sessions were part of Great Basin Getaway 2016. This is the 27th year they have hosted the event (usually every other year). As usual the Utah folks put on a great event. I operated on 3 layouts and visited 5 others.

One of the layout visits was to Steve Blodget. This was my second visit to his 1890's era layout. It is a gorgeous layout that almost no one outside of Utah has heard about. It is  a freelanced railroad set in the 1890s in central Utah.

Post lunch refreshments at Quinton Foster's
N Scale layout

In the op sessions, I was lucky to draw the Milton Turn on Rob Spangler's layout. That was a fun job with lots of switching in two towns.

I also operated on Quintin Foster's N Scale DRGW layout and Ted York's HO scale Cajon Pass layout, and had a great time at each.

Brian painting the base colors

Jake adding distant tree detail

I stayed with Brian Brendel for the last part of the week. We did some rail fanning and work on his layout, primarily backdrop painting.  As usual Michelle cooked some awesome cakes and pies. John Drye and Jake Brendel also joined us, completing the reunion of the February Altoona Railfan Group.



Brian had previously installed the hardboard skyboards and gave them a base coat of bright sky blue paint. I was there to paint the clouds and terrain. In order to expedite the process, I gave Brian and his son Jake a quick lesson in backdrop painting and put them to work. Brian added the base terrain color coats, while Jake painted the far line of distant trees. I added the clouds and closer trees with more detail. I also added some rock out crops, and other details as appropriate.

Overall, the detail on the backdrop will match the scenery techniques that Brian will use. His layout traverses some of the least populated and heavily forested areas of Virginia. He uses a tried and  tested technique that combines Woodland Scenics Foliage Clusters and Supertrees to simulate dense forests. Here is a sample shot from some previous work he has done.

We also discussed some revisions to the track plan that I will update.

Panorama of backdrop work so far. The room lighting was very uneven so getting a good shot was difficult.

That's a lot of locos!

Here are some railfan photos we got during the week.

Morning walk with the dogs-  7,000 steps, 12% grade
and two trains.

Brian lives a short distance from the UP Transcontinental main line, a great morning walk with the dogs.