Monday, September 24, 2018

Mind the (Background) Gap

The source photo, before extensive
Photoshop-pery to blend it in.
When I visited the Northwest Indiana area--known in those parts as 'The Region'--I had several high priority to-do items, including eating some Aurelio's pizza and finally photographing the Mineral Springs crossing. I needed a good shot down Mineral Springs Road in the direction of Lake Michigan to fill the gap in the HO Dunes Junction backdrop. The appearance of oblivion elicits comment from everyone who visits the layout, and I have wanted to remediate this unsightly gap for the five or six years the backdrop and scenery have been in place. After some trial and error, I got the photo where it needed to be with Photoshop and numerous tries at the printer.
Before: that oblivion look. Is that the end of the world? Or just a high cliff overlooking Lake Michigan? Many visitors to
the layout—my father-in-law in particular—immediately call attention to this gaping sight.

After: I cleaned up the photo and used Adobe Photoshop to transform the photo, primarily to match up the angle of the road and roughly match up the coloration of the road surface and vegetation. Still not perfect, but it makes the point and solves a pesky visual distraction on Dunes Junction.



Monday, September 17, 2018

Nashville

Quick! A train! I caught this CSX freight snaking out of Radnor Yard while we were conducting an impromptu craft beer crawl after a biscuit-heavy brunch in The Gulch neighborhood of Nashville.
My wife, Rachel's attendance at a rail industry trade show occasioned a visit to Nashville, Tennessee, recently. It was an immersion into the city's ample cultural offerings--food and drink everywhere, and there was country and pop music emanating from most doorways and even sewer grates--and on the side I managed to squeeze in more than my usual amount of collateral rail fanning.

The best camera is the one you have with you. After a busy and rainy morning of trade show logistics, I captured this image of a CSX coal unit train waiting at the historic Nashville L&N station with my iPhone. I bumped into another railfan in this same spot who turned out to be Brian Schmidt, a Trains magazine editor who was in town for the rail industry trade show.
A CSX intermodal train passes hip and trendy condos in the Gulch. Not visible to the right, my new railfanning pal Brian Schmidt cursing me for distracting him from his railfan photography with my irresistible conversation skills.

A GP38 road slug set knocking covered hoppers around the Gulch.

Get a load of this lovingly painted transition-era Louisville and Nashville Geep at the Tennessee Central museum.


Serious dudes trying to stay out of the way
of real railroad operations: Andy Elkins,
center, yours truly on the right,
Another of Tennessee Central's workhorses is this SW wearing early Illinois Central-inspired colors.
Day two of my visit to Nashville was full of intriguing surprises. Friend and colleague Andy Elkins--a fellow infrastructure protection professional--gave me the backstage tour of Nashville that included the Tennessee Central rail museum, barbecue restaurants, and cab ride on Nashville's budding commuter rail line, the Music City Star.
Ex-Amtrak F40PH #121 powered our Music City Star train.

Obligatory front-end view of F40PH #121.

The cab end approaches the Nashville station. The car's Chicago Metra heritage is
apparent in the colors and lines.

In this cab car view, our inbound train is in the hole for a meet with an outbound train.

Outbound view from the F40PH cab. Unlike many commuter rail lines, the Music City Star route is curvy, single track, and features many interesting bridges and scenic views.

Monday, September 10, 2018

Odds and Ends Around the Old Line Corridor

I originally built a Piko (also Con-Cor) substation for the OLC, but it just didn't have the distinctive lines or towering bulk of NEC substations. The maker of OLC's catenary towers, DesignDyne/Shapeways, produced this N scale substation. Look for an upcoming post on the substation. 

This kitbashed highway overpass was made from a couple of Rix overpass kits, with piers fabricated from Evergreen styrene strips. The overpass and the paper plant form a kind visual block to break up the curve at this end of the layout. Looking forward to scenicking the overpass and the paper plant into the layout.  

Designdyne/Shapeways four-track catenary bridges finally installed over the 'visible staging' yard. I wanted to run trains around the OLC and couldn't do so with the catenary bridges not yet mounted with magnets--they kept tipping over on to the tracks. Hey, is that an Indiana Harbor Belt SW between Amtrak trains on the NEC? Look for a an upcoming post on the Northwest Indiana trains that keep turning up in N scale and thence on the OLC...

One of those formed plastic throttle pockets turned up on the clearance rack at MB Klein's, so I bought it for my ESU Mobile Control II. I mounted it on the front of the OLC layout, with the result that now every time I walk by it, I just start running trains.

Monday, September 3, 2018

A Childhood Friend Comes To My Neighborhood: The 2018 O Scale Convention

Welcome to the O Scale Convention! This intricately scenicked On30 logging camp module greeted registrants. While  oft-discussed On30 was present at the O Scale Convention, it was not as dominant as I expected.
On a recent busy weekend, I was able to squeeze in a brief visit to the 2018 O Scale Convention, which took place at the Hilton Rockville—close enough to my home that I didn’t even need to get in the car to get there.
I visited the convention mid-morning on a Saturday, and the crowd was just picking up. There was an extensive schedule of clinics, layout visits, and other rail-related tours, as well as a model contest. A good sized vendor floor offered a large selection of O scale and general model railroading wares. Most of the rolling stock for sale was mainline, standard gauge fare, which surprised me a bit—I was expecting more On30, pre-WWII, and even traction gear.
O scalers are, for some reason, more prone to model heavy electric, and I was pleased to see a significant contingent of big electrics on the vendor tables as well in the in contest room. Even modern electric equipment gets its due, and I saw several chunky AEM-7 and Siemens motors on display. An O scale AEM-7, ironically, is about the size of a small toaster!
The event afforded me the opportunity to meet some manufacturers and model railroaders of note. Dave Herman of ESU was showing off high-amperage decoders (particularly relevant to older O scale equipment that can draw well over 2 or 3 amps!) and the new CabControl product. We discussed the ECoS controller and Mobile Control II, which I have been using on the Old Line Corridor after having reading about it on Trevor Marshall’s Port Rowan blog.
Tony Koester, that genial statesman of model railroading, was also on hand with his modular ‘Wingate’ O scale modular layout that will be featured in upcoming issues of Model Railroader magazine. Tony and I swapped stories about our alma mater, Purdue, Northwest Indiana, and railfanning the South Shore. I learned that Tony was involved in campus radio at Purdue, but I should have figured that he had some broadcast or performing arts in his background--he has 'the voice' and the knack for a great, immediate story.
Model Railroader columnist, author, and raconteur Tony
Koester telling rail tales while displaying his Wingate, IN
O scale modules.
In a particular way, visiting the O scale show was a return to my earliest, most formative model railroading experiences. The first actual model railroader I ever knew was Dr. Alan K. Roebuck, and I helped him build benchwork, track, and catenary for his O scale Indiana Northern layout. In my teens, I cut grass and did handyman work for Dr. Roebuck, who not only paid me money but also let me have the run of his extensive railroad and modeling library. He passed on to me his abiding interest in heavy electrics--I 'borrowed' his copy of Middleton's When the Steam Railroads Electrified for several years. We were both inspired by the work of Bob Hegge, who had been publishing articles featuring traction and electric models in the major model railroad magazines of the time (the late 70s and early 80s).
Dr. Roebuck and I even went to an 80s iteration of this O scale convention, and there were both similarities and important differences in the 35 or so years since. The models were just as big and substantial as I remember--and electric prototypes were in evidence as well. But today the models are better--the hobby's greater overall fidelity to detail was certainly apparent in both the contest room and the sales tables, and more likely to be made of plastic. As late as the 80s, disdain for plastic as a modeling material was still in vogue among O scalers. But in the years since, the high quality model manufacturing methods that have been refined in HO and N have been employed to great effect in O scale. Track is another area of substantial improvement over the decades--more scale sized rail and detailed flex track and turnout products.
Despite my nostalgic affection for O scale, and what seemed like acres of available models of interesting subjects, I didn't walk out with any O scale models or even inspiration to launch an O scale project. It is difficult to imagine arranging my real estate in such a way as to accommodate these monstrouns models, even though they are impressive and satisfyingly substantial (There was an O scale AEM-7--that toaster-sized 'Toaster' mentioned above--at a low, low price that was indeed very tempting. And sound takes on a whole new meaning in those seemingly cavernous O scale boilers and locomotive bodies!) But I did enjoy catching up with O scale in person, and meeting and talking to other model railroaders, including latter day O scalers.