Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, Hermitage Road Layouts1 Comment

No. 163: 16 Days, Pt. 4

Golden1014

The 16 Days program ended last Monday when my wife and daughters returned from their U.S. trip. In those 16 days I was able to complete major work on several structures for the layout, rebuild and repaint a dozen freight cars, complete construction on one new freight car, and paint the traverse table for the layout. I also sold five models on eBay and in other places, and I also spent a considerable amount of time writing on this blog. I normally try to keep the layout and workbench very clean and organized, but during the 16 Days I allowed … Continue reading No. 163: 16 Days, Pt. 4

Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, Hermitage Road Layouts1 Comment

No. 162: 16 Days, Pt. 3

Golden1014

Work on the railroad continues as the family is traveling in the U.S. for two weeks. One of the industries I built this week for my Hermitage Road switching layout as a “grocery warehouse”. In the area of Richmond, Virginia, where my layout is set, there were quite a few grocery warehouses, and I wanted to include one on the layout so I could use refrigerator cars. There are no known photographs of the grocery warehouses in the Hermitage Yard area so I was forced to proto-freelance something. On my old Ackley, Iowa layout I built a large cannery as … Continue reading No. 162: 16 Days, Pt. 3

Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, Hermitage Road Layouts1 Comment

No. 161: 16 Days, Part 2

Golden1014

Work continues while the family is away! When I last showed the Richmond Cinder Block Company, it needed windows. The windows I used, seen below, are from Tichy. I painted them with a Tamiya Metal Gray and then added clear styrene sheet windows and fixed them with canopy glue. Once the glue was dry I then sprayed the whole assembly front and back with full strength Dullcote. I painted in a few window panes white to simulate broken glass repair. Next I added the windows to the structure, gluing them in place from behind with Tamiya extra thick liquid solvent. … Continue reading No. 161: 16 Days, Part 2

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No. 160: 16 Days, Part 1

Golden1014

At the beginning of August, my family traveled away and left me at home alone for a while. After a very busy and very social summer, and a summer full of travel, I have the first 16 days of August to myself to catch up on some modeling work. This is the first of hopefully several posts on what’s happening during these 16 days. Below. Last week I took my son to Radovljica, near Lake Bled, and spent three days with him hiking and swimming. We hiked to this mountain hut at the foot of Mt. Triglev, which is seen … Continue reading No. 160: 16 Days, Part 1

Prototype Topics, Railfanning & MuseumsLeave a comment

No. 159: 12:30 to Zermatt

Golden1014

Over the recent fourth of July weekend I took my family to Grachen, Switzerland for a week of Alpine hiking. Grachen is a mountain-top village a few miles away from the highest peak in the Swiss Alps, the Matterhorn.  Incredible vistas are everywhere, but you’ve gotta earn them by hiking to the top. Above. One of my daughters a thousand feet above Randa, Switzerland, which we’ll visit later. Below, the fam and I are taking a break from a hard hike up the mountain before crossing the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world, about 7,700 feet above Randa. The … Continue reading No. 159: 12:30 to Zermatt

Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, O Scale & Proto 481 Comment

No. 158: O Scale Work, and Central of Georgia Auto Car

Golden1014

I took a few days off of work before Memorial Day and went on three day-trips with the family over a five-day period. The most interesting was a road trip to Belgium and Luxembourg with my son to buy beer. My son and I went to a neat place in Arlon, Belgium called Mi Ougemi Houblon to buy a variety of craft beers.  It was a cool store and a lot of fun, and the guy working there was very friendly.  We drove to a Del Hayes grocery next to buy a stroop waffles and more beer–this time the easy-to-get stuff from … Continue reading No. 158: O Scale Work, and Central of Georgia Auto Car

Hermitage Road Layouts2 Comments

No. 157: A British Post (Modelu and Traversers)

Golden1014

Here’s a post with a decidedly British flavor. Modelu A few weeks ago I ordered figures from a vendor in Bristol named Modelu (pronounced Model You). The box arrived at the nearby Deutsche Post office, and my half-German wife dutifully went over there, paid the import tax, and brought the box home. Here’s what was in the box: How exciting! Modelu is a British vendor that makes finescale 3D-printed figures. A few guys on the Proto-Layouts list discovered Modelu online, and I offered to make a large order to try and save everyone some import tax. Six of us combined … Continue reading No. 157: A British Post (Modelu and Traversers)

Hermitage Road Layouts8 Comments

No. 156: Track Laying and Track Scenery on Hermitage Road

Golden1014

Over the last weekend my daughter Kirsten and I drove up to the lovely German town of Boppard, on the south bank of the Rhine River, for a little Klettersteig hike. It was a fabulous, warm, sunny day and there’s no better way to escape the utter stupidity of covid than with a great hike along the Rhine. There’s no English translation for Klettersteig, but it is a method of hiking along rock faces in mountains along fixed-rope climbing routes. The routes are much better known in the Italian Alps as “Via Ferrata”–which literally translated means The Iron Way. Basically … Continue reading No. 156: Track Laying and Track Scenery on Hermitage Road

Hermitage Road Layouts4 Comments

No. 155: Turnouts on Hermitage Road

Golden1014

Last week I received a few locomotives I bought from my friend Jim Dick in Minneapolis. Here’s one of them: a second-run CNW GP-7 in as-delivered paint. I figure this model was run around 2003. That makes it–what, 18 years old? The paint still looks great. As soon as I got the engine out of the box I removed the original DC underframe and replaced it with another one I had rebuilt with sound/DCC that I’ve been using on a PRR engine. The 1601 will get a few prototype-specific details as soon as I can find the time. Earlier this … Continue reading No. 155: Turnouts on Hermitage Road

Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, Hermitage Road Layouts2 Comments

No. 154: Hermitage Road Update, Feb 2021

Golden1014

Traditionally December and January are big modeling months as most guys are trapped inside for Winter. Not so here, as my family kept me busy and out of the attic train room until about mid-February. I also had a double-laptop meltdown, which precluded any work on the blog along with a whole lot of other stuff. In the last 20 days I’ve been able to get a huge amount of work done on a lot of projects, and also on the Hermitage Road layout. The layout is now at the point where all the track is laid, operational, and scenicked. … Continue reading No. 154: Hermitage Road Update, Feb 2021