Guards Armored Breakout of Normandy at Aquia Landing?

After a nice dinner party tonight, John Drye and Marke Franke asked if we could take some pictures of some tanks that Mark had built and painted. These are used in large scale war-gaming. The models are about 1:56 scale.  Mark and John are trying to recruit me back to the wargaming hobby.

We posed the tanks on an open area near Crozet Tunnel on my ACW layout. The first image started with a single exposure of the models with a Canon 70D and a 18-135mm zoom at f22 and ISO100. Then using some photoshop and a background photo from Normandy, a few air show images and some smoke effects we ended up with this.

Like model railroad shots, lower angle views are usually more realistic in this kind of model miniature photography too. This image used a series of six iPhone10 images shot with  the lens close to the ground. Then I aligned and focus stacked the images in Photoshop for extreme depth of field.  The P-51s are from a photo I took at the WWII VE Day 70th celebration over Washington, DC.

Ten Year After Action Review

As the tenth year anniversary of the Aquia Line ticks by, I thought I'd take some time to record some of the thoughts from this project. The military is infatuated with the concept of After Action Review (AAR), so let's call it that. Here we go. There is no particular order to these points, they are just some thoughts that I have considered.

1. Operations. I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy watching the layout come to life in operating sessions. Furthermore, I have been pleased to see that the layout offers interesting operations despite its simplicity. As of today, we still haven't had a perfect session, but we've come really close. Two-man crews seem to work the best.

2. Link and Pin couplers have been a success for most people, but there are some folks that just can't do it. So when we set up crews, we try to get conductor/brakemen that feel comfortable and capable at that job. I have lost some operators because they have trouble with the links and pins, and that is a shame.

3. Switch stands and frog juicers. Both of these have been wonderful.  I highly recommend frog juicers.

4. Batteries versus keep-a-lives. I love the battery system for its robustness. I just wish the throttle response was better. With the antennas in the boilers tubes, which is basically a faraday cage that attenuates radio signals, the throttle response is not ideal. I suppose I should look into improving that.

5. Working brakes They have been fun to implement, but have-not been a factor in op sessions. I'm OK with that.

6. Pet peeves - some things that annoy me

1. Gearbox noise from the locomotives.
2. The florescent lights I used over Brooke and Potomac Creek - I'm gradually switching to LEDs
3. Difficulties with programming DCC -aaarrrrg, luckily not much of an issue on the Aquia Line now.
4. Lack of military figures in relaxed and working positions. I may have to do something about that with my spin caster.
5. Not much rusty metal to weather in this era and no colorful graffiti to model
6. Track kinks due to humidity changes
7. Comments about destroying the layout during a visit. Yes, it's a wartime railroad, and you might have been raised south of the Mason Dixon line, but these type of comments have proven rude and tiresome to me.

7. Possible improvements. The things I would change to the layout to improve it are

1. Remove the tight turn back curve at Falmouth
2. Provide more aisle space at Falmouth as that is a busy switching location, especially when two trains are there at the same time
3. Have longer sidings to support 10 car trains
4. Longer runs between stations

The first three would be satisfied by an expansion of the layout into the crew lounge. That would also partially address the fourth point, though only at the southern end of the railroad.

8. Future plans. I have often wondered what will come next for my model railroad endeavors. Part of me wants to start a whole new project just for the fun of building. But, a bigger part of me wants to savor what I have done and perhaps expand it.
I really don't want to start another 10 year project. I think back to friends that were at my age when they started new layouts. Most never completed them. There have been some notable exceptions though.

9. Layout visitors and this blog. Hosting visitors and sharing the layout through this blog has been a source of major enjoyment for me.  Thank you for sticking with me. 

10. Sometimes, when I go into the basement and look at the layout, it almost surreal. I think, "I can't believe this is here."  But then I think about how much work and fun it was to build, and the good fortune I have had to have a supportive wife, family,  and friends, and the health and means to pursue it.  I realize I have been very lucky. Yes, there is much for which to be thankful. 

There you have it. Ten points, one for each year.  What do you think? 

The Tenth Anniversary of the Layout

It's hard to believe, but about ten years on this date I started building the USMRR Aquia Line. This is a good opportunity to look back on what my helpers and I have accomplished, and to look ahead. I will do that in the next week or so with some additional posts. In the meantime, please enjoy this short video celebrating the railroad. It includes some special effects and special guests.

Dispatcher's Telegraph Station

I finished building the desk for the dispatcher's telegraph station.  I still need a few items to make the look more authentic such as a vintage clock, appropriate  artwork, a lantern, ink well, wooden chair, and a telegrapher’s key. And yes, the flag is correct for March 1863. It has 34 stars as West Virginia is not yet a state.  The USMRR did have lanterns with their initials on the glass globe. It would be awesome to find one, but in the meantime, a regular lantern will suffice.'


Note that the artwork of the Baldwin  Tiger 4-4-0 is a silver on glass "print" from the Franklin Mint that my parents bought about 50 years ago to decorate the bedroom for my brothers and I.  Was this a foreshadowing of what was to come?

This was the "easy" part. Next comes wiring of the control panels at each station. The solid panel in the center will display the station lights and a "clear" button.

Using a track saw and parallel guides to rip pieces as I
don't have table saw. The parallel guides
are a bit tricky to calibrate, but they can result in
good cuts.

Here are some photos showing the construction of the desk and cubby holes. Alicia says I should build chair for it too. I think I'll just buy one.

I used tools from the Festool system to fabricate the parts. The Festool system is ideal for a small shop where you don't have room for lots of bulky, specialized tools, like a table saw.  However, this project  convinced me that the next job will be to build a workbench that allows me to access the Festool boxes without having to unstack them when I need a different tool.

Cutting the top to size using Parf dogs and a Festool MFT to
keep the track saw square.

I used a Festool domino to machine attach the
legs to the frame. However, the tool visible in the photo is a
Festool Rotex sander, probably the tool I used the most in this project.
The dust collection of this tool is outstanding.

Drawer is full extension.

I used lots of clamps to glue the face frame to the pigeon hole box

60 Amps of Power

I finished the secret project I mentioned in my last post. It was an animated version of a bedtime story that I used to tell my kids. You can see it here if you wish. It was a lot of fun to make, but also a lot of work. I had help from my wife and niece as they provided voices.

The electrician was able to use existing speaker holes
in the ceiling  to avoid cutting holes over PoLA.

In the meantime, I had an electrician work on improving the electric service to my garage workshop. He took care of the electric stuff by running a 220V, 60 Amp line, while I did the sheet rock repairs where he had to cut holes in the ceiling and walls.

Luckily, the wiring work did not affect the areas by the layout, but my office had to be cleared out to allow the work to proceed.

In moving the book shelves around, I realized that I will have to rebuild them. The thought occurred to me that if I made new bookshelves,  I could build a nice small shelf layout into them. The mind boggles at the possibilities.  But, that is a project for later. For the present, we have enough power in the garage to run all my tools, as well as the capability to add a charger for an electric car, if and when we get one.

Brian eying over my stack of N Scale DRGW stuff

During the wiring upgrade process, we had a surprise visit from Brian and Jake Brendel. Brian was in town for a fire department memorial service. They had a chance to familiarize themselves with operations on the Aquia Line. Hopefully, they will be back for a full session.  I took pleasure in seeing that the Aquia Line ran well for them in what was essentially a no-notice inspection!

With the garage powered up, I continued to work on the desk for the telegraph dispatcher. The top, legs and frame are ready to go. I just need to decide if and how I can add a drawer to the desk.  This was the first time I used the Festool Domino system to make floating tenons. It really is a neat system. It's probably too expensive to recommend for model railroad benchwork, but it sure makes nice joints.  I may try some benchwork with this system in the future, maybe for a module frame.

Jake running a train into Falmouth

While I am working on the desk, Seth and Steve revised the software for the telegraph system. The revised chips and boards should arrive any time now, so we can renew work on the telegraph system electronics.

Gluing up the legs for the dispatcher desk

Cutting the desk top to size with my track saw