Trains, Planes, Automobiles, Trees and More

I just got back from a week long road trip with my brother Rob to Rochester, NY to attend the National Bonsai Exhibition. My brother has exhibited at this show for many years now. He usually drives up with a crew from Florida and they spend a night at my house.  This year, his normal co-drivers could not get tickets due to limitations in advance registrations from COVID. So I volunteered to help with the driving. Turns out I was also able to attend the show.

The Alkem Mobile in front of Gunston Hall

The trip started with a round of golf at Pohick Golf Course where Rob defeated Alicia, Nancy and I in a scramble. Either we stink or he is good.  

Then we stopped by Gunston Hall, the former home of George Mason, to check out the gardens. Unfortunately, the gardens were closed and there were archeologists tearing up the grounds looking for artifacts. However, I did get some pictures of the interior of the kitchen and laundry. I assume civil war era facilities would be very similar. Good detailing ideas there. 

Next we visited the National Museum of the Army at Fort Belvoir. The museum was practically empty and we enjoyed our visit. Alicia was especially impressed with the IED exhibit, maybe because she was involved in an IED attack at a gate in the Green Zone in Baghdad when she was in Iraq.  I like the museum's focus on people. The video about the Newburgh Incident and George Washington was very good. This is probably one of the most significant events in US history, yet very people know about it. It highlights George Washington's brilliance as the founder of the United States.

Kitchen at Gunston Hall

Cobra King Sherman tank on display at the Army Museum

The next day we drove to Rochester stopping at Gettysburg for a half hour to check out the battlefield.  The terrain in upstate New York is quite beautiful as we drove through the Finger Lake region. 

Example of the bonsai exhibit

The Bonsai exhibition was a curated display. The trees on exhibit are selected from applications around the US. My brother had exhibited trees here for many years and he says he has only repeated his display once. He has an extensive bonsai collection.  

There was a photographer doing 3D scans of the exhibit. His results are now viewable on line here. I highly recommend you take a look as the 3D technology allows you to walk around the exhibit as if you were there. The photographer told me that similar tech is available on newer iPhones. I think a view of my layout like this would be very cool. We also managed a round of golf in New York at a course built on an old farm. The club house was a barn, literally. Despite the simple club house, the course was in a park like setting with excellent greens.

Next stop was the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio.  It is an impressive museum as it is huge. There are 4 hangars filled with aircraft, missiles, and other aviation technology. We couldn't think of a significant USAF aircraft that wasn't on display. (OK, maybe 2 the C-5 and the KC-135) This was my brother's first visit and my second. So I focused on watching the videos and reading the plaques on things that I missed the first time through. This diorama of a ICBM silo was of interest to me.

Next day we headed to Rocky Gap State Park in Maryland to play at the Jack Nicholas designed golf course. I had a good game with 3 birdies. It's a nice course in a beautiful setting. Afterwards, we back tracked to Cumberland to get lunch and do some rail fanning.  We watched the hostlers spin a new Wabtec engine on the turntable. A west-bound container train was leaving the yard, but we didn't chase it as we needed to head home. 

We did make stops at the Sideling Hill cut and at Fort Frederick, MD. This was an early fort used to protect settlers during the expansion west.  The fort was once in private hands. Now a state park it is in a beautiful setting near the Potomac River.

Back home I continued work on the model of the slave pen for the Alexandria Museum of Freedom. I am almost done with it.  I hope to wrap that up in a week or so and get working on my backlog of layout and other projects.

We also survived another flash flood that left parts of Alexandria with more flood damage. The storm drains are now an issue for the next election.

On Sunday, I  presented a zoom clinic about my layout to the Louisville Division of the NMRA. It is interesting that Fred Soward, the president of that division, is married to Barbara Walthers, who is a second cousin with my wife.  Barbara is also one of the few women that participates in model railroading as a hobby.  We actually first meet at a NMRA convention.

Dodged Ida's bullet

 This is getting more like the weather channel than a model railroad site, but I suspect many of you are wondering how we fared in the wake of Hurricane Ida 2021.  Turns out we very were lucky as the main rain bands passed about 2 miles north of us.  This high resolution map showing total accumulated rain in the past 24 hours shows how the heavy rain just missed us in Alexandria. We received less than 2 inches total rain spaced out over several hours. 

I am pleased to report no flooding in our basement. My sympathies to those that have flooded. We know how devastating it can be. 

Last week I presented a clinic via Zoom to the Potomac Division of the NMRA with an update on the Aquia Line. Readers of the blog know all about this, but they will post the video on line at some point in case you want to hear my same old bad jokes.

I am scheduled to do another Zoom clinic for the NMRA Louisville Division on 18 September. 

Floods Averted and other Updates

The Smoke Bush (tree?) in our backyard did not survive the storm last night

Readers of this blog are probably familiar  with the City of Alexandria's continuing struggle with flooding. Alexandria has had some extremely heavy rain on several occasions this year. Last night was another sustained and heavy rain that dropped about 4 inches of water over two hours. Several zones in the city experienced flooding.  I am happy to report that the flood control measures we adopted have been successful and our basement stayed dry, as did most of my neighbors. However, just a couple blocks 

City Sheriff Lawhorne stands in the flooded
alley behind his house a few blocks from ours.

from my house, there was significant flooding.

I learned that our drain pipes will need periodic maintenance. The pop-up emitter on the main exhaust pipe was clogged with the a collection of samaras, or maple tree seeds, the kind we called helicopters as a kid. There are no maple trees near our gutters, so these are propelled by wind onto the roof where the rain collected them in the gutters. Perhaps we need some kind of gutter filters. 

Over the past two weeks I have conducted two zoom seminars on railroads of the civil war. The first was for the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library at the  St. Louis Mercantile Library, University of Missouri - St. Louis. Next John Ott discussed early locomotive builders, and then Nick Fry covered the history of early railroads in Missouri.  You can watch all three presentations at the following link, 

The second presentation of the same subject was to the Cincinnati Division of the NMRA.

I am scheduled to do two more presentations in the coming weeks. The next will be on August 22 to the Potomac Division and another one at a date to be determined to the Louisville Division of the NMRA. 

I have been working on a model for the new Museum of Freedom in Alexandria. This will be a model of the slave jail that existed in Alexandria before the war. I'll provide an update on that later.

Road Tripping

Here I am clipping an apex with my son in the white GTI hot on my heels.

I recently returned from a 13-day road trip to Birmingham Alabama to visit my daughter and her husband and then to Lexington, KY to see my son and his wife. Ostensibly the trip was to help my kids with house renovation projects and we did get a bunch of that done. But I also had some time to do a bit of sightseeing in Birmingham, visit a civil war battlefield, and participate in a High Performance Driver Education Event (HPDE) at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Track in Bowling Green, KY.

My daughter allowed me one day to goof off in Birmingham. I elected to visit the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in the morning and the Barber Motorsports Park in the afternoon.  Sloss is next to a busy main line and three freights came by while I was there.

I have been to the Sloss Works on two other occasions, so this was a refresher trip. They have built a nice visitor center at the south end of the facility. I am amazed and pleased  that this steel mill has been preserved for public visits. I asked one of the docents about how they deal with rust, as some of the artifacts are clearly going to become hazardous as they continue to decay. He said they have a plan for that. They inspect it every year and do remedial work as required, but there is a lot of rusting metal there and it all can't be preserved. Enjoy it while you can.

The Barber Motorsports Park is the nicest, most elegant race track I have ever visited. You get the feeling you are entering a luxury resort as you drive up to the museum and track. The museum is probably as big as the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. 

The "good stuff" was in the basement 

However, if you are a race car enthusiast and not into motorcycles like me, the museum was a bit of a let down. They do have the world's largest private collection of Lotus race cars and that was cool. But that was about all the cars they had. There were some cool Porsche cars on display in  the basement level, but that was not open to the public.

Just one of four floors of motorcycles on display

If you like motorcycles, you will love this museum. There are over 1,000 motorcycles on display in all kinds of styles with an emphasis on racing and street bikes. I did not see too many custom, display type bikes,  but there were antiques, commercial delivery, road racing, dirt racing, drag racing, ice racing, side cars... just about any kind of motorcycle you can imagine on display. 

To add an extra treat to my visit, the Porsche Performance Driving School was in session while I was there. I was able to watch them do laps around the track.   This was a good lead in as my own performance driving event was going to happen later the next week.

Carnton Plantation on the battlefield. I did not have
time to go inside.

I stopped at the Battle of Franklin, TN on my way from Bham to Lexington. The charming  town has grown and absorbed much of the battlefield, but there was a nice planation home and a portion of the east flank of the battlefield preserved for viewing. The Battles of Franklin and nearby  Nashville were some of the bloodiest of the war and resulted in utter destruction of the rebel armies under General Hood. 

I also made a stop at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Track in Bowling Green, KY to reconnoiter it. A few days later, my son Chase and I went back there for a day of high performance driving instruction. This was the first event like this I have tried and it was a hoot. During my first session I was as nervous as I could be. But by session 3 and 4 we were hustling around the track thanks to good instruction and our getting accustomed to the speed. It was fun and left me wanting to do more.  High speed driving is much harder than you think, both mentally and physically. We did about 90 miles total in 4 sessions. I was drained after each session. But I do want to do this again with a more nimble car. The Racing Tiguan did great, but it is not really designed for driving like this.  Maybe there is another Porsche in my future?

My daughter used her Cricut machine to make the sticker on my back window.

On my way home, I drove Corridor H, the new road that cuts across central WV. It is a quirk of geography but the fastest route from my house to Lexington KY is via Maryland:  I-270 to I-70 to I-68 to I-79 though WV.  The Route on I-81 to I-64 through C&O country is of similar length but has too much truck traffic to be an enjoyable ride. However, I elected to try Corridor H  from Weston, WV to Strassburg, VA. That is the most direct route, but as they say in WV, “it’s through the mountains.” The new road is not complete, but the parts they have finished  are smooth and traffic free. The road tends to follow the ridge tops versus the creeks. As a result there are some amazing bridges and spectacular views. It will be a boon to central WV when they finish that road. I just hope it is within my lifetime as it has been under construction for over 30 years.  Below is a view from a rest stop just west of Moorefield, WV. Looks like a model railroad backdrop.

I did see a railroad yard near the Mt Storm power plant from the road but it was empty. There were about 2 dozen freight cars in the Buckhannon yard, but I didn’t stop for pics. 

I'm now back in Virginia. I did a Zoom presentation on railroads of the civl war for the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library and the St. Louis Mercantile Library last weekend. Now, I am getting back to working the items on my do list including a new model for a museum and some writing projects. I also plan to start work on my layout expansion asap. 

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.