Work Session on the DRGW

About one quarter of the overall layout

 I went to Charles Bassing’s DRGW layout today to participate in a work session. I had not been to his layout before. I only knew about it from Mark Gionet. Well, turns out I was really in the dark as this is probably the largest layout in Northern Virginia. Charles has been working on it since 2008. It’s pretty far along with benchwork and track. Now a crew of folks are helping build scenery. The railroad covers the Tennessee Pass and Royal Gorge regions from Pueblo, CO to Minturn, CO in the 1930-40s including standard and a fair amount of narrow gauge. This is an area that I am somewhat familiar with as I modeled Tennessee Pass in N scale about 20 years ago.

I was assigned rock carving jobs. First I helped add rock castings to some of the many vertical cliffs. They were using sculptamold as a means to “glue” the castings to the cliffs and to carve the areas between castings. Believe it not, this  was the first time I tried sculptamold. I found the my regular carving techniques didn’t work as usual when I use Water Putty. But, we made it work. 

. After lunch, Charlie asked me to finish the rocks around a tunnel portal. For that I used lightweight hydrocal. My usual carving techniques worked here and it came out nice. After that I went back to sculptamold on the cliffs.

Meanwhile, Nick Kalis was painting structure mockups, Steve, Mark and Charles worked on staining and painting the huge cliffs. By the end of the day, the cliffs looked great.

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Mark making some last minute corrections to rock castings

Mark begins staining rocks

Steve, Mark, Charles and Nick painting rocks

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Pueblo yard

Looking good. 

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Great rockwork

Holiday Open House

 We hosted a holiday open house today. This is become somewhat of an annual tradition. There was a good turnout. I didn’t put out a guest list, but at least 40 people were there at one time. There were several first time visitors. And I may have recruited some new operators.

Alicia made cookies and brownies. Marty and Christine McGuirk brought some cookies. Almost all were eaten too, saving me s lot of calories  

Several of the guests did the scavenger hunt which seems like they enjoyed. 

Yule log playing Christmas Carols. 

John Hancock

 This is a figure I have been working on for a possible 2026 show figure for the National Captial Model Soldier Society. It is a bust of John Hancock in 1/12th scale.  The figure is part of the theme of US 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I sculpted the figured digitally using Meshy and Blender. It is painted with acrylics and inks. I tried to use Rembrandt lighting with a main light to the figures lefthand above and a small fill light on the right. 

The signature name plate was cut on my laser. The base is a piece off rosewood salvaged by Rob Kempinski from trees damaged in a hurricane a few years ago.

I have also been painting a 75mm figure of BG Hermann Haupt. This is WIP.

Merry Christmas

 

November Update

 I spent most of November traveling to various locations so not much work on the layout. 

John poses by part of his large layout

November started with a Joint division NMRA meeting for the Potomac and James River sub-Divisions. I visited two layouts in the afternoon. John Swanson's PRR layout and Cam Green's new O Scale Maine Central. John has done a lot of work on his layout since my last visit. It is an impressive layout. 

Hand for scale shows that this is not HO scale. 

Cam has accomplished an amazing amount of work on his new O scale layout in a short time. People were surprised when he tore down his former HO, double deck layout to start this new project. But I like what I saw. It's a big layout that features a relatively simple plan with a mainline loop and a branch. But it looks more complex than that because there is also a wye and the loop has a large portion under the main level. The large O scale engines are impressive. It will be fun to watch this layout develop.

Arizona

The travel started when Alicia and I left for a week long visit to Northern Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and then golf at Sedona. I had never been to the Grand Canyon before. It was spectacular. I did find it a bit strange that the canyon is so deep and narrow at the bottom when viewed from the south rim visitor's center that it was hard to gauge the full depth. I contrast that with my earlier visit to Canyonlands, where more of the whole depth can be seen. I was also surprised to learn that the south rim is heavily forested. I didn't  expect that. It really is a beautiful site. I managed to catch the Grand Canyon Railroad as it arrived at the south rim while we were there. 

Sedona is a spectacular mountain town that probably ranks number 1 of all the mountain towns I have been to in the US and Canada. (Note I have not been to Jasper or Banff which I suspect are more spectacular). We played some golf and I did a fair amount of bird watching both at the Grand Canyon and in the areas around Sedona such as Page Springs - see below. Hard to believe this is Arizona.

I did see a lot of cool birds on the trip.  These are two of my favorites, both taken at Page Springs. 

Northern Pygmy Owl

It was late in the day when I photographed this black phoebe. The resulting slow shutter speed left the wings in a blur, but the face is relatively sharp.

Yucatan, Mexico

We returned home for a few days to recover before I  flew to Merida, Yucatan with my brother, Rob, for the grand opening of JAMYBO, Professor Enrique Castaño's new bonsai garden. My brother was one of the guests of honor who participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony. There were folks from around the world at the event. 

One portion of Enrique's Bonsai Garden ay JAMYBO

Enrique (in the red shirt) listens to Herman on the right do a critiques of some of Enrique's trees. Enrique's garden has been described a probably the best collection of bonsai trees in Latin America, including species that are endemic to Yucatan. Enrique told us that he can't grow non-native species as the local ants eat them too quickly.

Two Crane Hawks near Merida

Enrique asked me to document the wildlife on his property for use in an application to the Mexican government for some type of nature preserve status.  Just what I needed, an excuse to take bird pictures.

 I also spent a day with a profession bird guide, Ramón Trinchan Guerra from Yucatan Bird Tours. He was an excellent guide.  Between Enrique's Garden and Ramon's hot spots, I saw 106 species of birds in the Yucatan, including two endemic species. Ramon got this photo of me taking pictures of the flamingoes that are common in this area. 

Prairie Warbler at Enrique's Garden

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Rob and I also played golf at the uber exclusive Yucatan Country Club (the most expensive round of golf I ever played), we visited the Mayan Ruins at Uxmal  (pronounced Oosh-mal), the beach at Sisal, and the Maya Museum in Merida. 

We also stopped by a nice hobby shop in Merida and met the owner and his sons. They were having a model show, so we got to see some  nice entries.  Everyone was super friendly. 

Arturo and his sons at the hobby shop. The fellow throwing the shaka hand signs is an American Civil War model specialist that lives in Merida. He had some nice ACW figures in the show.

Part of the juego de pelota maya  court at Uxmal

Main structure at Uxmal. 

Anuar (lower right) took us to an authentic Yucatan Restaurant. The food was interesting and very good.  Anuar is a bonsai artist but his main job is tracking and studying jaguars in the wild. He promised to take me out with him the next time I visit Yucatan. 

We had a great time with the bonsai folks. We even managed to get invited to more bonsai trips including the Czech Republic, Columbia, Ecuador and Brazil. All great birding spots too.

Kentucky

I got home late from from Mexico and immediately left the next morning to visit my son and his family in Kentucky for Thanksgiving. We had a great time playing with Ruka. She is growing so fast. 

Chase said, "Ruka is into planes now." So we took her to the Kentucky Museum of Aviation

Frosty sunrise on our way home

When I got home, I had a lot of catching up to do for Alkem Scale Models. 

October Update - the AI Invasion

Proto People

An example of prototype people I can 3D print for my layout

I have spent much of October involved in developing a range of figures suitable for the Aquia Line. This is because there are very few civil war era figures available in the market that are in non-combat poses. So I decided to make my own.

One of my long term objectives was to learn 3D sculpting software to sculpt and then print those figures for my railroad.  I considered Zbrush and Blender as possible software tools for this. Both have pretty steep learning curves so I delayed learning them. Zbrush is also very expensive, while Blender is free, open source. However, I learned about a new sculpting service called Meshy that greatly simplifies the process. Meshy uses AI functions to convert 2D images into STL files that can be 3D printed.  It is similar to the photogramatry process used in 3D scanning, but it uses AI to extrapolate a 2D image to 3D.  They charge a subscription fee, but it is not too expensive. 

The work flow is  as follows

•     Find an image that I want to use as inspiration for a figure or set of figures. 
•     Clean up the image in Photoshop. 
•     Import the 2D image to Meshy and create an STL.
•     Clean up and or repair the STL file in Blender and  Meshmixer.  For example, add an arm that the AI may have omitted, or fix the insignia or hat style on a figure. I also embellish the facial and other details. 
•     Export a final STL that I can use in Chitubox to create the sliced file that can be used on a 3D printer.

 I am not going to bother going into detail on any of those steps as there are thousands of websites and Youtube videos that explain them. The bottom line is that this work flow saves me a lot of time in the sculpting phase of the process.

With this I have been able to produce 3D prints of actual people that I find in images taken on the actual Aquia Line. I have developed a range of these figures that I sell on my Alkem scale models web site https://alkemscalemodels.biz/proto-people

Story Telling 

Another one of my long term objectives is to use the USMRR Aquia Line as a setting and prop for telling stories in video or graphic novel format. I am not a big fan of  superhero graphic novels. But I do like more realistic and historical stories told in graphic format and they are fun to make. However, the possibility of making a video story has been enhanced with the use of some of the new AI video tools that are coming available. I have done a limited test of these and the results are promising, but not quite where they need to be yet to make a good video short. 

Here is a test video that I made using mostly Grok, but also some RunwayML. 

Unfortunately, RunwayML has been disappointing. Grok works better but has many limitations. So, for now, this objective will have to wait until the AI video generating software improves. 

NMRA MER Annual Convention

I attended the NMRA MER Annual convention in King of Prussia, PA, which is a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. The convention was fun, although a bit on the expensive side. The hotel was very nice and convenient to a lot of other attractions, such as the Audubon Center, where I went twice to bird watch.  I went to one op session, managed to attend one clinic and spent a good part of Saturday acting an an evaluator for the Model Contest.

The model contest was very well run. My team was very proficient and did a great job in evaluating the many models. I also entered a model in the contest, so I had to sit out that category.

I am happy to report that my model of the USMRR Machine shop won three awards,

•     First Place in On-Line Structure
•     The Charles Haldik Memorial Award for best model of a southern RR subject
•     Best in Show

I will be taking the machine shop to one more show, then I will be installing it on the USMRR Aquia Line. I should mention that I used figures from my new line to populate the model.

On my way home I stopped at 4 model railroad open houses. All were very nice. I met Bruce Friedman, who is an Alkem Scale Models customer and has an impressive modern prototype based railroad.  He was kind enough to demonstrate his contemporary US Army tank train on his layout. It is an amazing 70-car long train full of DODX cars hauling Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and a few other odds and ends.  

Bruce had this posted on the wall of his train room.

It was an interesting coincidence that his and my model railroads were featured in the same issue of Model Railroader. 

September Update

The month isn't over, but the first three weeks have been super busy, so I decided to do an update.

1. National Capital Model Soldier Society (NCMSS) Annual Show 

This was the 64th Annual show by the NCMSS. It was one of the most successful to date. This year had over 70 individual exhibitors in the competition with approximately 345 pieces on display, along with 179 general admission tickets sold. All  display categories were very well represented to include figures of all genres, ordnance, vehicles, aircraft, ships, Gundam and always impressive dioramas. 

 Highlights included the Judges’ Best of Show awarded to James Rice for his Fantasy Display and the People’s Choice Best of Show that went to Steve Pyle for the fourth year in a row. My brother and I received the show theme award "Celebrating 250 Years of the U.S. Military" for our "Train Busters" diorama. Jack Thompson won the Best Marine and Tony Stencil for the Best U.S. Infantryman. I entered several models and received 1 gold and 6 silver medals. 

I was busy as the chief judge for the ordanance category, so I did not participate in any of the clinics offered at the show. However, I did take the figure painting class offered by Jim Rice at the National Museum of of the US Army in the 2 days before the show.  In the class we worked on a bust of a Continental Infantry man. We focused on the skin and eye painting.  

I finished the figure after the class. I painted him as a member of the 1st Virginia Regiment at Valley Forge.

The class was very informative. I learned several lessons on using acrylic paint a figure especially on painting texture, and skin tones using verdaccio base coat. Jim has an award winning style. It was interesting to learn how he approaches achieves it. 

2. MARPM 2025

The next weekend was MARPM 2025. This is an event totally run by volunteers with me as the director. It was also a successful meet. The largest we have had yet. 

We had about 36 clinics, 10 open houses and 3 operation sessions. There were 3 layouts on display at the show including a large O scale layout organized by Dave Vaughn, and one medium size HO layout by John Drye, and several highly detailed models by Scot Wahl. There were several vendors on site and one manufacturer.  

The raffle was also a big hit.  It was a lot of fun, but there was little time to rest because the next weekend was...

3. ACWRRHS Annual Meet

Continuing the busy month, the American Civil War Railroad Historical Society held its annual meeting in northern Delaware on the 18-20th. The meet featured visits to the Hagley Museum, Fort Delaware, Old Town New Castle, several presentations at the hotel, and the inaugural op session on DC Cebula's Delaware Central layout. We capped off the weekend with a group dinner at the colonial era Jessup Tavern in New Castle. 

The Hagley Museum was truly amazing. I never fully realized how gun powder was made in the black powder era, so the visit was very informative for me. My main priority was to visit the operating machine shop at the museum. The docent there was very pleased to have visitors that were so interested in his presentation. We had a very detailed presentation on the tools in the shop.

On the next day we took a ferry over to Fort Delaware. This stone and brick fort was built before the Civil war to protect the Delaware River approach to Philadelphia. The fort was used was a prison for confederates during the civil war. It is now a state part that has been partially restored.   Many of the rooms were equipped with details from the civil war era. I took dozens of photos for detailing ideas.

The mail room at the fort

On the day we visited there were several volunteer docents in period uniforms to answer questions.  The volunteer at the left was very authentic looking. 

 

These trousers caught my eye. Note how dirty they are even after being laundered.

 It was well worth a visit. 

August Update

It has been whirlwind of activity since my last update. I have been traveling, birding, building models, and trying to stay healthy. Here is a summary of the modeling activity. My Facebook feed has more pictures of my travels if you are interested.

The Machine Shop

I finished the machine shop. I installed it on a portable base to take it to some shows before I install it on the layout. I took a few quick photos, but I plan do take more later after I get it installed on the layout. 

I brought it to the IPMS National Convention. They didn't have a category for models like this, so I entered it in the Miscellaneous Category. It did not get a National award, but it did get a couple peer awards.  

My favorite view looking into the line of machine tools

It will be on display at MARPM 2025 and the ACWRRHS Annual Meeting, both of which take place in September. 

Avenging Varus

This is a small diorama I worked on in the past few weeks.  These are the first figure models I have painted in several months. This diorama depicts a scene from the battle of Idistasvisto, 16AD, when the Roman Empire sought and achieved revenge on the German tribes that participated in the Teutoberger Wald battle.

All the figures are 3d prints that I made. The Romans are from Minormous and are about 75mm scale. The dying German warrior is a print from Reconquer  Designs that I scaled up from 28mm. I did a little bit of conversion work on the German to make his fit the scene better. 

I will be showing this at the National Capital Model Soldier Society Annual Show  next week. 

Lotus Diorama 

I built this diorama for the Lotus Club of Washington. They will auction it for charity. I started with a prepainted and assembled die cast model. 

I weathered it for a more realistic appearance. The road is a piece of foam covered with a thin layer of Durham’s Water Putty. 

Roger Sekera

I am saddened to report that Roger Sekera died while in hospice care. He suffered a stroke and heart stoppage while on a cruise in the Atlantic and could not recover.  It was just a few months ago that I spent a few days with he and his wife Sue.  I will miss him.