Trains I Saw in 2016, CSX and Washington Metro

Washington Metro passes a CSX freight in Silver Spring, Maryland, in  mid-October 2016

Getting Back Up to Speed and Catching Up the Blog

A lot has happened on the Old Line Corridor and in real life since my last post back in September. I am now fully recovered from a serious but happily contained health crisis in early September, and also getting back in the groove of my work in the power utilities industry and travel. As my brother-in-blogging-arms Trevor Marshall recently described in a post on his 'Port Rowan in 1:64' blog, sometimes real life can divert attention away from our hobbies, or at least specific aspects of our hobbies. 

My health recovery afforded me some time to make some progress on my Old Line Corridor project--track is all but complete, scenery roughed in, a rolling stock fleet a-building, a few structures built, and my DCC knowledge and practice is advancing. However, my appetite and attention span for blogging (and frankly a lot of other sedentary computer activities, such as photo editing) is finally starting to return to normal. Let's catch up a bit with the high points, and some future posts will delve into some of the details.

The "front" of the Old Line Corridor with terrain completed, track ballasted and weathered, and the beginnings of ground cover.  Am thinking of calling this "Goldsboro"--seems like every town here in the Old Line State has a street named Goldsboro. 

Trackwork is completed, including ballasting and weathering. I used Peco's Fine Scale track, which some N scalers find problematic for its decidedly UK appearance and non-conformance with NMRA turnout standards. Aside from the quirks of joining the double-webbed rail, I have found it to be durable and fault-tolerant. For example, Arnold's recently released U25Cs and U28Cs are slightly narrowly gauged and other N scalers have reported that these locos derail on NMRA-conforming Micro Engineering and handlaid code 55 trackwork. I have had no such problems with Arnold U-boats on Peco track. My one complaint about the Peco turnouts is that the points require some fiddling and cleaning to ensure good, solid conductivity--nothing unmanageable or discouraging, however. Were I to build another N scale layout or expand this one, I would seriously contemplate another track system, probably using Fast Tracks system for hand laying or possibly Central Valley's recently released tie strips.

This part of the layout--the "back"--has a name, and it's 'Ivy City', named after the prototype Amtrak facility in Washington DC, and a favorite railfanning spot. It'll also be my visible fiddle staging yard (a concept that admittedly might give fits to any operations enthusiasts who read this post). 

Terrain and ground cover are now roughed in. I haven't done anything adventurous or unorthodox--stacked and carved extruded foam, sculptamold, latex paint, and the usual mix of ground foam. One thing not apparent in the photos is the industrial scale tree making that will transform the look of the layout. While many model railroaders express dread at the concept of making scores or hundreds of trees--even choosing modeling subjects and specific seasons to minimize the need for tree making!--I find tree making to be quite satisfying, as noted here previously.  So far, I have made a batch of Woodland Scenics plastic armature trees that will be background fillers, along with another batch of some cheap eBay trees that were improved using Kathy Millatt's techniques for improving cheap eBay trees. A couple of boxes of tried-and-true Scenic Express Super Trees are up next.

Other things not readily apparent from the photos are the continued build out of the OLC fleet and changes to my DCC rig. The fleet focus is the broadly defined Penn Central-Conrail transition period of late 60s through early 80s but the reality is that anything that ever ran on the Northeast Corridor is finding its way into my collection. Plus a few things that never ever ran on the NEC, notably a pair of Allegheny Midland ES44s, which will look awesome during a modern op session when they go into a siding with a unit train to yield to an ACS-64 or P42 with a Regional Service in tow.

I had been using a Digitrax Zephyr and various old laptop and network adapter doodads to run JMRI and WiThrottle, but I streamlined that to a Sprog3. More changes are coming, with the goal of having a streamlined, user friendly, and reliable DCC control installation. The Digitrax system is reliable but has an ancient user interface; the Sprog, laptop, and WiThrottle are somewhat more user friendly but markedly fussier than what I prefer. Watch for a future post on a significant new direction for OLC's DCC control.

Thanks for sticking with the blog and apologies for the irregular postings over the past year--here's wishing you all the best holiday and a great new year! Hope to read, hear, and see you around!