operating – Page 5 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Another year

A switcher works a string of cars at the freight house.

New Year’s Eve is a time when many people assess the last twelve months and look ahead to the next year. Goals are set and promises are often made. Let’s take a look around the blog and the hobby room to see what has happened in 2014.

I like a year end reviewing as the number of projects and activities often surprises me. While I did not make as many blog posts as in 2013, I kept pretty busy with my layout and Mike’s layout in Las Cruces. I attended at least one operating session a month and I finally hosted a few sessions on the B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal. These become more satisfying each time and are a major reason why other projects keep moving along.

I’ve also been attending the monthly meetings of our local NMRA division, the Roadrunner Division. It’s been fun to interact with the other members and share tips and techniques. I’ve brought back at least one new idea from each of the meetings. I also traveled back to Pennsylvania last spring for the Valley Forge Railroad Prototype Modelers meet. It was great to see a bunch of old friends, take in presentation details, and operate on a couple of the layouts open for the event.

I won’t offer up my plans for 2015, but I do have three major projects and goals that I hope to achieve. Details will be shared here, of course. I also look forward to attending the RPM East event near Pittsburgh in late March, as well as the June NMRA Rocky Mountain Region convention in suburban Denver, CO. I’m most certain there will be more operating session details shared here, as well as freight car kit builds, and weathering factory output.

I hope you have set a few goals for the New Year. Railroad modeling becomes more enjoyable as we meet new challenges.

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Boomer Operator #5 – A local layout

An eastbound local crosses Main Street in Birchmont, Ohio, on the Kingston Southern HO scale model railroad. — An eastbound local crosses Main Street in Birchmont, Ohio on the Kingston Southern HO scale model railroad.

I moved to El Paso, Texas, in the summer of 2012 and began to seek out local model railroaders. I attended a local NMRA meeting and met Mike who was building an HO scale home layout in nearby Las Cruces, NM. His layout had progressed well and he hoped to begin operating soon. I offered to assist with any tasks to keep the progress rolling and ended up visiting a couple of times a month. Over the next year, the mainline was completed, a yard was installed, an industrial branch was installed, and operating sessions were set up. Mike now hosts once a month sessions on his layout and a few local model railroaders participate. Click on any image here to review a large size.

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The first op session for the Wheeling Freight Terminal

The quiet before the storm of the first op session.

My B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal layout has reached the point where I can hold an operating session. All of the track switch controls have been installed and adjusted to proper working order and a few track gauge issues have been corrected. It was time to make the leap of faith. My friend Mike committed to the initial shake down session so I was now locked in and needed to prep. This will be the first op session on a layout in my home since the summer of 2001. Where have the years gone?

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Boomer Operator 3 – The New York Harbor Railroad

I traveled to Clifton, NJ on a recent Friday afternoon to operate on the HO scale New York Harbor Railroad of Dave Ramos. Dave models three railroads and their operations with a focus on late 1947. These facilities are confined to a few blocks along the west side of Manhattan, mainly between 27th and 33rd Streets. Dave features quite a bit of prototype detail on his layout website. I used my iPhone to capture images at the op session. A slightly larger size can be viewed by clicking on any image here.

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Boomer Operator 2

A B&O mallet storms from a tunnel on the B&O West End.

While I have not started a new home project layout this past year, I have been able to operate on a number of interesting model railroads. One of these layouts is inspired by a stretch of the Baltimore & Ohio in West Virginia, and not far from where I lived in Morgantown, W. Va. Thomas Eckhardt has been building his HO scale B&O West End layout for a couple of decades. The main line is running, nearly all track is complete, and much of the scenery has been installed. On occasional weekends, a crew gathers to operate the West End.

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