Back to Back Op Sessions on PoLA

Switch list and drink in in left and throttle in the
right, Phil looks like an old pro at this.

Phil Hoffman stopped by tonight for a op session on PoLA. Phil used to live in Maryland, but moved to Mississippi where he works for NOAA at Stennis Space Center.  He was here on business, so I set up a session for him.

Getting ready to spot tank cars at Vopak.

Phil did a great job. I left him on his own while I worked on a presentation for a talk next week in Tulsa, OK. In about two hours he was done with all the switching work and had the train blocked for the return to Watson yard.

Well done!   Phil is normally an N scale modeler, but after tonight, he is switching to HO.

Dual (Dueling?) Op Sessions

PoLA Switch List

Tonight Paul Dolkos, Mat Thompson and Pete LaGuardia arrived to operate the layouts. I had two trains ready to go on PoLa and two on the Aquia Line layouts. For some unknown reason, they all wanted to operate PoLA. In the end Pete and Mat took PoLA, while Paul and I ran the Aquia Line.

In a way Paul was lucky as he helped make history. We ran Train 11 out of Aquia - the first official train from Aquia. It was a 4 car train with engine Haupt for power. It had set outs at Brooke, Stonemans and Falmouth. We then swapped engines and took Train 12 with engine McCallum and 8 cars back to Aquia. It had a set out at Potomac Creek.

Switch list for train 11

Meanwhile, Mat and Pete were busy with PoLA. They had 11 cars inbound and 14 outbound cars. There was also an off spot car that they had to spot at the Borax silos.  While they were working the PHL 30 job, Paul brought out a cut of flat cars with Army vehicles for Chase Marine Terminal. This resulted in a meet between the two trains in from of Pier Shed 181. Another first for the layout.

All in all it was a fun night.

Bow Bulwarks

Mocking up the superstructure.

Over the past three days I added the decks and the bow bulwark.

The decks are laser cut 1/8th inch acrylic. I used 2-part epoxy to glue the deck pieces to the wooden hull. There were a few places where I had to sand the deck to make it even with the wood hull sides.

Making a paper template

To make the bulwark on the bow I first cut a piece of heavy kraft paper to make a template. Then I cut an outer and inner layer with 0.020 inch styrene. I glued the bulwark to the hull with CAA. Because it wasn't perfectly symmetrical I had to do some sanding to get the two sides even.

I added putty to smooth the bulwark to the hull.

While the putty died, I drew up a mockup of the superstructure. The railings and stairs are the next Alkem Scale Models products. Stay tuned for them.

One other thing I realized is that the 2.5 inch diameter silos I originally used for the borax factory look kind of wimpy next to the ship. So I bought some bigger 3.5 inch PVC tubing that I will cut to make a more massive silo complex.

Paper the,plate to cut bulwark

Gluing styrene bulwark to hull

Bulwark glued to hull

Puttying the bulwark to the hull.

  

Do i =1, putty gaps, sand, next i

First heavy coat of high build primer

I laser cut acrylic sheets for the deck of the bulk carrier today. I glued the forecastle deck, which was 1/8th inch acrylic to the wood hull with 2 part epoxy. Several hours of putty, sanding, more putty, more sanding, even more putty and even more sanding, and it was ready for a coat of high-build primer.

Epoxy visible though clear acrylic deck on forecastle  

I sprayed on a thick coat of Rustoleum primer and used my finger to rub it in like a thin putty. Yes, there will be more sanding in the morning once the paint cures. But the bow is looking good.

Upcoming talks

I spent the week developing a new set of etchings for use on my HO layout, but it will be useful to any HO modelers doing industrial scenes. The etchings are currently in pre-production and will hopefully be ready for sale in a month or so.

In the meantime, I will be presenting several talks in the upcoming two weeks. The first is tomorrow at the NMRA Potomac Division Minicon.  At 2:15 I will be presenting a talk I call, "Down to the Sea in Trains." The talk complements my newest book from Kalmbach, "Waterfront Terminals and Operations," which I am happy to say has spent the last 4 weeks as #1 best seller for Amazon's model train category.

On March 18th, I will be presenting two talks to the Layout Design and Operations Weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to "Down to the Sea in Trains," I will be doing a talk on the design and construction of the USMRR Aquia Line layout.

I recently learned of a really neat display layout call Kaj-M, produced by a group of Dutch modelers called, Montfrooij ModelSpoor. It depicts the Port of Rotterdam in HO scale. Montfrooij ModelSpoor are a group of 5 modelers, 3 Montfrooij  brothers, one of their sons and a friend. They have been working on this project since 2009.  They scratch built nearly all the models on the layout including many impressive ships, cranes, and straddle carriers. Their layout is a very impressive display.  They take it to a couple shows a year in the Europe. Check out their website. It is written in Dutch but well worth a peek.