No. 183: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 3 – Laying Track

I have settled on a track plan for the new Hermitage Road layout. Here is a view, below, of the original Hermitage Road track plan under construction in March 2020. It was pretty simple. Here is the revision I have been planning up until a few weeks ago. It is similar to the first revision I posted last time: I was a little unhappy with this track plan. It maximized the same space, but I didn’t like how everything was square with perpendicular angles. There was no flow. The advantage of building the layout perfectly square with the front fascia … Continue reading No. 183: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 3 – Laying Track

No. 182: The 2023 O Scale National and 2023 Savannah RPM

Two weeks ago I attended two modeling events back-to-back. First, on March 17th I drove up to Chicago from St. Louis to attend the annual O Scale two-rail Train Show and Meet at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center Lombard, Ill. I was only there for three hours, but I had a nice time and ran into a lot of old friends, and met some new ones, and also bought a few hard-to-find things. You can read more about that event at http://www.marchmeet.net. Naturally the O scale community does things a little differently. This Milwaukee 2-6-2 was entered in the model … Continue reading No. 182: The 2023 O Scale National and 2023 Savannah RPM

No. 181: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 2

February and March have been good months of work on the new Hermitage Road layout. Here’s a mock up of one of two track plans I’ve developed. The layout is 7-1/2 feet long and 18-inches wide. I have another arrangement that I also like, but there’s no rush to make the decision and I’m letting the plans simmer for a while. I’ll share the other plan on the next post, but it looks much like this one with a twist. The reality is there’s not much room to do too much else other than something like this. Like the original … Continue reading No. 181: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 2

No 180: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 1

I went to Paducah, Kentucky last weekend–about a two-and-a-half-hour drive–to attend my daughter’s swim meet. Between the morning and afternoon races I took an hour to drive around the old Illinois Central locomotive shops, now run by NRE, and I also railfanned some old factories downtown. Downtown by the Ohio River is a nice display of railroad equipment, including this IC 2-8-2 and a rebuilt caboose. The last time I was at Paducah was in 1988 when I stopped for an evening on a family trip–35 years ago. I wasn’t able to get into the NRE facility last weekend but … Continue reading No 180: Rebuilding Hermitage Road, Pt. 1

No 179: New Proto48 Builds

Years ago I had dinner with Ted Schnepf. Ted is a former Milwaukee Road track guy and now runs an online and traveling hobby shop called Rails Unlimited (http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/). I explained to Ted that I had an HO layout and was fully-invested in HO scale, but I also enjoy building Proto48 freight car models as a side-hobby. Ted said, “Oh yeah, you’re what we call a rubber-gauger. That’s a guy that bounces back and forth between a few scales.” New Proto48 Builds I’ve lived back in the St. Louis area for a little over four months now, and in that … Continue reading No 179: New Proto48 Builds

No. 178: Freight Car Modeling, November 2022

Above. This former PRR Express X29 greets you at the gate of the Age of Steam Museum in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Unfortunately for me, this was as far as I got into the museum, as they were closed the day I got there. In September I flew to Baltimore to pick up a car at the port and drive it to St. Louis.  I flew to Baltimore the morning of Sept 20th, picked up the car, and drove all the way to Sugarcreek, Ohio.  On the way I stopped in Blue Ridge Summit, PA to visit Mainline Hobby Supply—that was cool—and … Continue reading No. 178: Freight Car Modeling, November 2022

No. 177: The Latvia Railway History Museum

About a month before leaving Germany I took the family on a week-long vacation to Oslo, Norway. On the way we stopped for a few days in Riga, the capital of Latvia, and we absolutely loved it. Imagine my surprise when–riding a trolley from the airport to our center-city Airbnb–we passed right by something that looked a whole lot like a railroad museum. Sure enough, it was the Latvia Railway History Museum and it was about a mile from our apartment. I went to the museum the next day. The museum is small, with collection with small locomotives, a model … Continue reading No. 177: The Latvia Railway History Museum

No. 176: Move-In and New Freight Car Work

Our major shipment of “household goods” arrived from Germany last Friday. My wife and I have spent most of our waking hours putting the house together. It has been A LOT of work. Included in our household goods was my Hermitage Road layout, the traversing table, five metal cabinets and bookcases, and about 25 plastic tote boxes with model kits and supplies of all kinds. Almost everything arrived unscathed, thankfully. The Hermitage Road layout took a beating so I’ll have to assess whether to try and repair or start over. More to follow on that later. Here is a photo … Continue reading No. 176: Move-In and New Freight Car Work

No. 175: Back to My Future

My work in Europe has come to an end and I’m now back in the U.S.—back to my future—where I will be working in the airlift headquarters at Scott AFB, Illinois. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Germany and given the opportunity I’d spend the rest of my life there. I enjoyed the people, the culture and the work. I was a member of a great church. I enjoyed a thriving hobby and railfanning life there. I raised my children there. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and my family. My outlook on everything has changed … Continue reading No. 175: Back to My Future

No. 173: The Rapido Pennsylvania Railroad X31 Model

It has been a very busy year at home and at work, and I’ve only been able to post three times on the blog. since January 1st. My last post was last week after a good railfan trip; the last modeling post was more than 60 days ago. Here’s a catch up. Despite the lack of modeling and railfanning I was able to take the family on a few trips. Covid restrictions here are 99.9% history and everybody’s traveling again. I took the family to Eindhoven, Netherlands in late February for a long weekend–that was beautiful–and in March I took … Continue reading No. 173: The Rapido Pennsylvania Railroad X31 Model