Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads
A hobby adventure
I recently started decaling some box cars that I’ve had for a few years. I showed my wife the progress on the Rock Island car seen above and she rolled her eyes and mentioned how difficult the work looked. A comment from a friend in an unrelated conversation a couple of days later hit on a similar note.
Another successful operating session was held on the Wheeling Freight Terminal. Mike visited from Las Cruces and ran the team yard job while I took the freight house work. A total of 75 freight cars were switched among the inbound and outbound movements. A description of the session processes was started a few months ago. The last operations update described using undecorated and partially completed models among the freight car fleet. It’s time to wrap things up with how outbound cars are handled.
Continue reading “B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal Operations – Pt 4”
In our freight car building and detailing adventures, we sometimes forget about finishing the wheelsets and trucks that carry the latest builds around our model railroads. Here are a couple of tips to enhance these components and the final freight car effort.
Another pre-Depression Era railroad modeler visited recently and operated the Wheeling Freight Terminal. Dave has a focus on the Toledo & Ohio Central line near Bellefontaine, Ohio, circa 1928. He has been building a multi-level HO scale layout in his garage but has had few operating experiences. We have been communicating via email for a few years, so I invited him to sunny El Paso for some throttle time.
Continue reading “B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal operations – Pt 3”
The Wheeling Freight Terminal layout hosted another op session recently, which prodded me to continue the freight car movement discussion. The photo above is similar to many team yard images I’ve seen from the Teens through the 1940s. These have inspired my layout work. Click on any image here to review a larger size.
Continue reading “B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal operations – Pt 2”