Back from RPM East with a Blunami

 I returned from the RPM East 2023. I had a good time. It was great to see model railroad friends and meet new ones. 

The meet was held in a local community college without an official hotel. I stayed at a hotel about 6 miles from the conference. I found that to be less than ideal as it was not easy to pop into the room to get stuff, take a nap,  or get a snack compared to when the meet is held in a hotel.  

The facility itself was quite modern, clean and bright. The clinic rooms, display area, and dealer space were scattered about the facility. So people had to wander about to attend the various events. There was an interesting central area with a library/lounge/cafe where people tended to congregate. But it did seem to lack a critical mass for easy socializing and networking. There were 200 people signed up, but I never got to see most of them. 

The room where I presented my clinic had several computer monitors scattered about the room with a series of tables. People could watch the presentation on the monitor nearest them. But, if I was pointing out something on the screen, they had to look at my screen. My laser pointer did not work on that screen, so I had to use my fingers to point out specific items. It worked, but definitely was not ideal. The set up also had excellent sound, so the videos I played were easily heard, if not too loud. 

I presented my clinic and attended two others. I tried to go to some other clinics but they were standing room only, so I hung out in the display room instead. The clinic rooms were probably too small for the great turnout that they had. 

The highlight for me was a chance to talk with George Bogatiuk of Soundtrax to learn about the Blunami system. I brought some of my battery locomotives with me to display at the meet with the intent to get some of his advice on packaging and how the Blunami might work. Alas, he was too busy to leave his table so we never got to examine my locomotives. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the demonstration set up he had. I had a chance to try the Blunami on an iPad. The ap worked much better than I expected. I decided to get one with a keep alive to evaluate on my O Scale General.

I know DCC brand is like a religion to some folks. But I keep an open mind and will try out anything that seems like an improvement. In my specific case, I am looking at the ease of programming offered by the Blunami and hoping to get better throttle response. I installed the Stanton radio decoders I have  in the metal boilers as the batteries and battery power supply take up all the available space on the tender. So the radio response can be spotty due to the receiver being in essentially a Faraday Cage. I am hoping the the Blunami solves that problem by allowing me to install the decoder on the tender deck with the keep alive in the boiler.

The display room had some nice models on exhibit. George Bogatiuk had his HO scale 4-4-0 locomotive there. He did a very nice job on it detailing and installing electronics. 

I was also impressed with Ted Culotta's exhibit of highly detailed freight car models. 

I departed on Saturday afternoon as I wanted to get to Mainline Hobby Supply in Blue Ridge Summit to talk with Brian Wolfe about some issues for MARPM. While I was there, I purchased a Blunami Sound decoder and keep alive. I hope to install them before the next op session. It is always great to visit that hobby shop. One of the best model train hobby shops in the U.S.

I stopped at the Greencastle Highland Train Station on my way to the Mainline Hobby Supply. I did not know this was a Virtual Railfan camera site. In addition, they have an Automatic Train Control System display in the window of the station to show a real time view of rail traffic on the former PRR, now NS, line. Sure enough, a southbound train was heading our way. So, I stuck around to photograph it.

On Sunday John Burchnal stopped by the Aquia Line to visit. He is in town for a family visit. It's a funny coincidence, as next weekend I will be a guest at his house in Cincinnati. I will be presenting a talk about military railroads to his local NMRA division.

I fired up the layout so we could run some trains and discovered that both of the locomotives I took to the RPM East meet suffered some kind of damage. The damage on the Fury was especially alarming as the valve gear popped out of the cylinder. Fortunately, it was an easy fix. This is why I don't like taking these models to shows. They are somewhat fragile. They don't like being lifted off the track and being exposed to vibrations on a long car ride. 

Whiton will need to have some insulators installed on the tender side frames as the wheels are shorting. It seems that the paint has worn off and the bare metal the side frame is touching the un-insulated side of the wheel sets. 

Daily Double

 

Today must be my lucky day as I received copies of two publications that have articles that I wrote.

The first was the cover story in the April-June 2022 issue of Military Miniature. The article is a scenario for a war game based on the fight at Dead Man's Corner in Normandy and D-Day plus 1.  The article did not include all the graphics I sent them including the situation map, which I am enclosing here. This might help if you read the article to understand where the various locations are in relation to each other. 

They also did not use all the photos I sent, So I enclosed one above.

The second piece was the lead chapter for Eric White's new book, ”Building What’s In a Photo” by Kalmbach Media. I like how they did the two page spread to start off the book. If you ever wondered who was probably the first ever railfan photographer you should read this chapter.

On Thursday, Jack Thompson visited the Aquia Line. Jack is a dedicated civil war historian, re-enactor, and model railroader.  Jack was an extra actor and historical consultant to the Gettysburg series of films.  He was also in the movie "Glory." 

He was a US Marine in real life. He is also an accomplished model builder. He builds1/22.3 scale model railroad equipment that he runs on a friend's outdoor layout. 

Here he is posing with the Union staff from the Gettysburg movie. Jack is on the right, Ken Burns is the on his right and in front. The other actors from the movie are also in the image. 

The next shot is a screen grab of him in the movie.

It was fun to share the railroad with a guy as knowledgable as Jack, especially when it comes to civil war era drill. 

Jack pointed out a mistake in how my squad is marching into Brooke. They normally marched in column four abreast, but I have my squad marching only in 3 abreast. Jack graciously volunteered to paint the figures that would be needed to make the scene more accurate.  So I gave him the figures to paint and he took them home with him.

Spun Casting

 Blair Mielnik visited the Aquia Line today to take possession of my spin caster set up. Since I got the 3D printer I haven't used the spin caster. It was taking up valuable garage space. Blair has plans to use it in casting narrow gauge cars and miniature soldiers. 

While he was here, he got a brief tour of the railroad. I was in the middle of adding the base scenery to Brooke. 

After he left I installed the foam and then covered it with some plaster impregnated gauze. Once that is dry tomorrow, I will paint the fascia and
the terrain.

I also used one of the warehouses from Aquia Landing to mock up the building that will go in the new space.  Hmm, perhaps two smaller two smaller buildings instead of one larger one might be better. The prototype image of Culpepper might provide some inspiration.

Mock up a a warehouse 

Prototype image of Culpepper during the ACW

The extension adds a fair amount of real estate to exploit

New Images of, and more visitors to the Aquia Line

 

I am working on a new article that will be an overview of my layout. I decided to shoot some new photos for the article.  Despite working on the railroad and photographing it for 13 years I still can find some new photo angles. This one is a sample of what you might see in the article. The composition is difficult to shoot due to the low ceiling above it. But using some photoshop to replace the sky yields this interesting image. This is one of the deepest scenes on the layout and highlights the use of forced perspective.

Sunday evening, Gary White and his girlfriend, Dru, stopped by to visit the layout.  Gary is a narrow gauge modeler with several narrow gauge model projects in the works. He purchased from me many of the WWI models I built for my book on military railroads. I hope he puts them to good use.  Dru is a farmer from Pennsylvania and brought us a dozen eggs from her farm. 

Amby to the Rescue

 If you read my blog, you know I hate wiring and electronics. In the panoply of model railroad tasks required to build a layout, I rank wiring and electronics rank at the bottom.  So I was delighted when Ambrose (aka Amby) Nangeroni offered to help finish build my telegraph system. Amby is an electrical engineer from Northeastern University. He has a lot of experience with model railroad electronics.  He said he was willing to work on building the components at his home to minimize possible exposure to COVID as he needs to be extra careful. 

I sent him copies of the documentation I had, plus a copy of the video of the prototype system in operation. He studied them before visiting and had some very interesting observations.  He also asked me some questions that required me to review the documentation as it was long enough ago for me to forget the details.

After I made that video mentioned above,  I had to send all the circuits back to Seth and Bill of https://www.modelrailroadcontrolsystems.com/telegraph-sounder-driver/ for some software revisions. That was about 2 years ago. They returned the updated parts to me and I promptly put them away. I had not worked on them since then.  

Today, Amby stopped by my house to see  the system as it stands and to better understand the design and application. 

It was a thrill to get the parts out of storage and  working again. Amby was very helpful in debugging some issues we had. A few wires had come loose while the parts travelled back and forth across the country. In addition, the antique sounder that I sent to Seth, got broken in the shipping process. The super fine 100 year-old paper-wrapped insulated coil wires broke. Seth sent me a replacement sounder as repairs to the old coil looked difficult. But the replacement sounder was not working. The reason was perplexing at first, but simple once Amby figured it out. All the contacts inside were corroded and needed some maintenance.

Once we sorted out the sounder, we were able to get the prototype station that I had assembled three years ago to work. We verified that the new software works too.  Amby now has all the circuits at his house and will work on assembling them as his schedule permits.  Here is a short video he shot at his house showing the original system in proper operating condition.

I plan to make the base plates. At first I used wood and laser cut plastic to make the panels. But I now will try to make 3D printed panels that will be painted to look like brass. I'm aiming for a brass builder's plate look, hopefully one that conjures up a 19th century vibe. 

Amby also has some ideas on how to run the cables from the stations back to the dispatcher. He recommended prefabricated  CAT6 cable with plugs and sockets, vice the terminal strips I was thinking about using. 

In retrospect, I should have designed each station to connect to a data bus as opposed to individual CAT6 wires from each station to the dispatcher.  That way we could run just one pair or wires to east station. Each panel would need a data bus interface, and there would need to be some kind of bus controller, but I suspect such circuits are available off the shelf. It might be possible to add that feature on to the existing system.  If anyone has any suggestions on how to do that, please let me know.

Last week Paul Dolkos and Ted York visited the Aquia line. Ted was in town to receive an award for a photograph he took, and Paul has showing him around.

 The stunning image depicts wild mustangs in an action shot. They look to me like they are fighting. You can see Ted's photo here https://www.worldphotographiccup.org/wpc_gallery/finalists-2022/

In case you don't know, Ted also has a fantastic HO model railroad depicting the Santa Fe over Cajon Pass. I have operated on Ted's layout a couple times and it is a hoot.

Mike and Mike

 Last Saturday a group of us from Northern Virginia made road trip to the Richmond suburbs to see and run some trains on Mike Pulaski's layout. He is building a nice HO scale double deck layout  depicting a freelance railroad set in upstate New York. Mike agreed to let me shoot some hand held iPhone video of the visit and the progress on his layout. 

On Sunday Mike Spoor stopped by the Aquia Line. He needed some help with the battery installation we did last year in one of his locomotives and box cars. This time, we removed the plug-in socket between the box car with the battery and the locomotive. I hardwired the two cars together. To make turning the battery on and off easier, I removed one of the side doors and reinstalled it with a piece of tape. That way he can open the door to get access to the magnetic reed switch that controls on and off that is inside the boxcar.

Tonight I finally got the final coat of scenery on the  model for the Alexandria's Museum of Freedom. Tomorrow I'll do the final touch up and it will be ready to d be delivered. I will also take some photos when it is ready.  I am looking forward to doing some modeling on my own projects. This museum project was a lot of work. 

The Continuing Saga of the LED lights

 In my effort to upgrade the lighting in my layout, I decided to replace the set of florescent 18-inch under cabinet lights that were above the curved track at Brooke with LEDs. My initial intent was to replace the florescent fixtures with equivalent LEDs. But while shopping at the local Lowes store I noticed a string of 16 feet of LED lights with adhesive backing. The box said they put out 4000 lumens.  The price seemed good, so I thought I would try them. Alas, when I checked out, the price mysteriously doubled with some kind of cryptic note printed on the receipt about "full retail price was charged for this item."  I went to return them, but the line was too long. So I took them home and decided to give them a try.

Removing the existing lights was both satisfying and difficult to do without damaging the existing scenery. But, I was able to do it with only a few swear words and lots of awkward bending and reaching. 

My wife helped me install the LED strip. They were fairly easy to install. I just hope that the double sided adhesive tape they provide will stand the test of time.  

When we plugged them in, we both were impressed by the bright, even light. Alicia said, "you need to put these on the other curved section of the fascia too." Maybe I will, but not right away. I want to see how these hold up. 

On June 29th Bill Sornsin and his family stopped by to see the layout while on a a vacation to the east coast. Bill has a huge GN layout back at his house in Seattle.  Bill's family was not as enthusiastic about trains as he, but it was a hot day and they appreciated the air-conditioned basement after a morning of walking around the sweltering city. The city is built on a swamp, after all.  Bill's younger son, Nick, did learn how to run an engine, couple and uncouple cars. So he is now qualified to run on the USMRR.

The Man that Shot Bernie's Valance

Who really shot Bernie's valance?

Paul visiting the new section with COVID mask

Today marks the first time since lockdown I had a visitor to the Aquia Line. Up to now, any social visits we hosted took place on our front porch with appropriate distances maintained.  But, today Paul Dolkos stopped by to borrow some scenery items and to check on the layout progress. Our COVID Response Coordinator,  Alicia, AKA CINCHOUSE, deemed it acceptable that Paul could enter the house if we were all masked and did not get too close.


Paul got a chance to look at the new stuff, run some trains, and comment on additional planned expansion.  But, the big question of the day was about an extension of a valance above Stare's Tunnel.   On the left  is the view I am trying to restrict.  When folks enter the door to the front room, if they look right, they see the bright lights over the new part of the layout. This is something that always bugged me, even before the expansion.

I took a few photos of the mocked up valance and showed my friends via text. They were of mixed opinions. Brian Brendel in particular voted down the idea.  Alicia initially liked it, then changed her mind and then swapped back to her original opinion. So Paul's opinion would be the deciding vote. He said, "do it."  So Bernie's valance will survive the bullet wound. I mounted it by tension only, so if I need to, I can easily remove it.

New valance section painted and installed. It restricts the view of the lights above Stares tunnel as you enter the room, but opens up as you walk in.  I'd like to say the curve was carefully calculated, but I just eyeballed it.

View of the valance from inside the layout room is unobtrusive. 

One thing I am noticing on the layout is that I need to do a thorough cleaning. My track and wheels are dirty. Not surprising as it has been at least 9 months since I ran the layout. Even the scenery seems to have a fine coat of dust. I think the dust source was either the new plaster scenery, or the disk sander in the work shop or both. I have a dust evacuator for the sander, but sometimes I am too lazy to hook it up and put on hearing protection. The dust evacuator isn't too loud, but the air whistling through the disk sander is very loud. I cleaned the wheels of Haupt and Fury, but a complete maintenance session is needed.  I probably should wait until all the building is done though.

Farewell Jack

Jack (in the turntable pit) holding court. Sadly, three folks in this image have now passed on.

Last week, noted rail, prototype and model, Jack Ozanich passed away. It was rather sudden as he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer just a few weeks before passing.

I first met Jack at an op session in Michigan in 2003 at Bruce Chubb's layout.  I was assigned a tower operator job at that session. So, I pretty much stayed in one place the whole time. After a while, I heard a man running a train on the other side of the peninsula where I was sitting. The man was making diesel engine sound effects with his mouth, much like a kid would when playing with a toy train. So I looked up,  and who rounds the curve, but Jack with his train. I had to chuckle to myself as here was a professional railroader that drove an engine for his career just having a grand time with model trains.

Jack was a great guy. He was somewhat of a legend in model railroad circles because he ran his HO and live steam layouts like  prototype railroads. His op sessions did not take meal breaks and could run for multiple days. I had two chances to operate the HO layout.  During a session, he would patrol the layout and provide on the spot corrections (also known as ass chewings) to  people that were screwing up.  I was lucky in that I escaped his ass chewings. He did try to get me one time for leaving a car while I switched, but when I explained what I was doing, he said, "awww, OK."

However, Jack made up for that by giving me an ass chewing on my own railroad. He showed up late for an afternoon op session and was taking his time filling out his log book, while his train was over an hour late. He chewed me out for rushing him. He being my guest, I didn't have the heart to tell him, the Aquia Line  is a Union railroad but not a union railroad. He could have been dismissed on the spot.

Jack was very interested in the Civil War among other subjects, and he was always very supportive of my attempt to model the Civil War. He participated in two op sessions on my Civil War layouts, one on the road show and one on the Aquia Line.  You can see him in the video at the right at about the 5:25 minute mark.

We operated together on several other railroads over the years. He was funny, full of energy and just a blast to hang out with. He will be missed.

Guest Post - Dufour's Memories

In May 1863, Mr.  Jules Ignace Mantel Dufour, an executive from the B&M Railroad visited the Aquia Line. He was on a weeks long tour of railroads on the east coast to see how the war was affecting them. It is curious that an executive from the B&M would visit Herman Haupt's railroad, as Haupt was currently engaged in a legal and financial fight with the B&M over the Hoosac Tunnel (It was actually the B&A, but work with me on this.)  Nonetheless, the visit was cordial and Mr J.I.M. Dufour actually picked up the tab for the dining out.  Mr Dufour brought a photographer with him, who took several wet plate images of the USMRR railroad. Alas the images were presumed lost.

Last month,  Jim Dufour, a descendant of J.I.M. Dufour, found the wet plate negatives in a chest in the family's barn. It's no coincidence that Jim Dufour is a B&M Modeler and also did a tour of east coast model railroads in 2019, including the Aquia Line. So Jim sent me copies of the images he found, after he expertly colorized them.

These rare images show the section of the Aquia Line that is currently under re-construction. They are photographic artifacts of what is now "history."

Jim also sent a copy of a video clip that he made of his own layout. The cinematography section of the USMRR Construction Corps did a little image enhancement work on the video as a proof of principle. You can see the before and after video below.

2019 NMRA National Convention and Train Show

West bound stack train creeping through Echo Canyon due to track work further west

The Jackson River scene on Brian's layout
 got a lot of positive comments

Whew, what a week. My wife and I traveled to Utah for vacation that included the NMRA National Convention and Train Show.

Actually, I didn't spend much time at the convention as I stayed with Brian Brendel to help him prepare his layout and then host several open houses.

I arrived at Brian's house on Sunday after a few rounds of golf with Alicia. We immediately went to work on the layout. The tasks we accomplished included painting rock carvings, finishing the fascia, adding scenery to various sections, hanging skirts and clean up. Brian has been working on this layout for about 3 years and has made a good deal of progress, especially considering he is now the chief of the Mountain Green Fire Department, a volunteer outfit. In the four days I was with him, he went on 4 calls.

The strategy we followed was to have the scenes that greet the visitors to be relatively finished.  So that's what we concentrated on. While I worked on fascia and some scenery, Brian installed the tracks to the Waynesboro switch district.

This is the view the greets visitors as they enter the layout room

The open houses went off very well. There were about 110 visitors over three days. Everyone was extremely nice and polite. Brian received a lot of nice comments. The green covered hills and the Jackson River scene received most of the accolades.

Brian entertaining visitors from the LDSIG

Steve Woodward and Paul Graf from Atlas Model Train Comoany 

listen to Brian extoll the virtues of code 80 track

LDSIG presented Brian with a fancy plaque on 

plywood and homasote  

After the open houses, we did an afternoon of railfanning. I finally managed to get a shot of a train in Echo Canyon, a very scenic spot on the UP main line. (See lead photo). Track work on the line had reduced the normal high train frequency to a much lower level.




























On Friday, we went to the train show. I enjoyed talking with the various vendors and manufacturers, also trying to recruit vendors for MARPM.

There were a few product announcements that were of interest to me. First, Bachman announced a new locomotive in On30 based on the 60cm  WWI 2-6-2T tank engines. They also plan to have rolling stock to go with the engines.

Bachmann is going to offer On30 2-6-2T Tank Engines

Walthers announced that they are reissuing their steel mill model kits with new details and packaging. The blast furnaces will have the stairs and railing included. The rolling mill will be doubled in size with new details inside.

Lionel announced two new 4-4-0s in 3-rail configuration. The engines look nicely detailed, but conversion to 2-rail would be a big job as the wheels would have to be replaced or machined to smaller flanges.

Converting to 2-rail looks like a big job

The locos look nicely detailed

The FreemoN folks had a massive and impressive modular layout. They had some very nice modules.

Later that evening I presented two clinics at the convention hotel. I got some nice comments from the attendees.

That ended my convention activities, as Alicia insisted I play more golf with her.

Calm before the storm

DODX 41000  cars weather to a pinkish red with the white primer showing. 

Brian and crew are making great strides on scenery,
but will he have any track down by the NMRA convention?

I've been working on client projects for Alkem Scale Models this week and doing some admin work for the Middle Atlantic Railroad Prototype Meet.

Next week we head to Florida. We'll be back for a few weeks before heading to Salt Lake City for the National NMRA convention. I'll be helping Brian  Brendel with his layout, and giving a talk at the convention. The updated plan for Brian's layout is below.

Lance Mindheim giving some modeling tips to
John Steitz and Scott Wahl at MARPM 2018

The MARPM is about 100 days out. We have a great meet planned. The list of clinicians we have signed up is second to none.  If you don't believe me, check it out here.  If you have never been to a Railroad Prototype Meet you might want to consider this one. We have a bunch of great model railroad activities planned. Plus, the hotel that is hosting the meet is adjacent to BWI airport and the AMTRAK and MARC train station. From the hotel, one could easily travel to down town Baltimore or Washington DC using railroads.

I've started making a new run for my DODX 41000 series flat car kit. This model was been a good seller for us. This will be the tenth (or maybe this is the 11th, I can't remember) run we have made.

We have O scale chain link fence on hand. We are working on the instruction sheets and gathering the parts so we can offer them for sale.

John Soch Liealoha stopped by tonight. He was in town on business. He observed some of my client model work. Then he graciously offered to draw an Army Escort Wagon in O scale using some plans I provided to him. I had been working on these as laser cut models, but John is certain they will look better as 3-D printed models. I hope so.

Finally, I ordered an Athearn HO scale SD40T-2.  There were two reasons, first it is my favorite diesel. I think it will be fun to detail and weather it. Second, I want to test it out, especially the new low profile truck that allows for see-through radiator screens on the rear.

In my mind's deep recesses, I have an idea that I might go back to modelling the DRGW, but in HO vice N scale.  I've even been toying with a track plan. More on that later.

These days, when a manufacturer offers a model you might want, you need to act as you never know when it might be unavailable. So I am getting one of these locos as a hedge in case I decide to build a DRGW project of some sort. If I like this loco, I may actually buy a few more to stock pile.  Scaletrains has a similar model, but theirs uses LokSound and costs a bit more. I prefer Soundtrax, so I went with Athearn.

Let's Get Dirty

Some of JD's new cars

Jake and Alex use prototype photos
as a guide to weather a flat car

In honor of Memorial Day today, Paul Dolkos, John Drye, Jake Brendel and Alexandra Cannole joined Alicia, Mom and I for a cookout. On the menu were grilled sausages with veggies, home made pierogis that mom and I made yesterday, fresh corn salad, grilled chicken wings, fruit, brownies and ice cream.

After the delightful dinner, we descended to the basement for a weathering session. The primary purpose was to jump start John Drye's conversion to HO scale by weathering a bunch of HO freight cars.  Jake and Alexandra offered to help. Paul Dolkos watched the festivities and got inspired to go home and do some of his own cars.

In a few hours we managed to weather about a dozen cars.  Probably my favorites were the covered cement hoppers that I weathered in part with a slurry of white chalk dust and water. When it dries it creates a most convincing look of dried dust.

Hopefully, this gave JD a good head start on his new layout.

Love these cement hoppers

Now that work on my layout is winding down, I am hoping to help my friends with their projects.   I do plan to expand the Aquia Line, but not until after we host Northeast Interchange next November. Also, Alicia and I are coming up on a busy travel period where we will be on the road about half of the time. So I won't be getting too much down on my layout.

Speaking of travel, we will be in Connecticut for the NERPM next weekend. I'll be presenting a clinic on Saturday evening. On Sunday, we plan to visit Mystic Seaport. I haven't been there in over 50 years.

JD posing by his new freight  cars