RPM Meet season!

While it is not Spring yet, we did reset the clocks for Daylight Savings Time over the weekend and that adds anticipation for the upcoming season change. There are several Railroad Prototype Modeler events in the next few months for modelers to become inspired to move your model efforts forward. Here are the events!

Railroad Prototype Modelers Valley Forge – March 28-30 in Malvern, PA (metro-Philadelphia)
Western Prototype Modelers Meet – March 29 in San Bernadino, CA
Central Ohio RPM Meet – April 24-26 in Marion, Ohio
New England/Northeast RPM Meet – May 30 & 31 in Collinsville, CT
Bay Area Prototype Modelers Meet – June 21 in Richmond, CA
St. Louis RPM Meet – August 8 & 9 in Collinsville, IL

I strongly recommend attending one of these events to learn more about the prototype and new techniques to use on your model building. I’ll be attending the Valley Forge event and giving a presentation on the B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal prototype and layout update. I hope to see you there!

Blog Update

All of the blog posts here have been updated so all images appear again. There was a small coding problem that occurred with a software upgrade. It took a little while to figure out the problem and then some extra time to make the individual corrections, but that work has been completed and new posts are on the way soon!

A quick update

At long last, I’ve been able to upgrade the blog software. It’s been a bit of a battle but all is updated and the comment area is functional again! I spent time creating a new header but no matter what I do to change the large, shaded box above, it won’t go away. It’s frustrating to follow the WordPress blog directions and change out the files, and then it doesn’t work. HO scale resin freight car kits are easier than figuring out the WordPress coding. Even those kits that lack directions!

As an addendum, I know many images are missing form older posts. It seems the software upgrade did not completely transfer all of the files to the new locations or assign the proper file address to the image. <sigh> I hope to tackle this issue by restoring images to a few older posts each week. The pages will be done as soon as possible along with a focus on 2013 posts. It will take some time but everything will be restored in the upcoming months. Thank you for your patience.

Hobby updates are coming soon as I’ve been busy on a number of projects. Thanks for checking in.   – Eric

Happy Holidays!

The holidays are a busy time of year devoted to family and friends. Hobby time declines and progress often grinds to a halt as our free time fills with parties and preparations. It’s been a great year as my wife and I moved into our own place with an ample hobby space. Many projects have worked towards completion and the HO scale B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal layout moves closer to operation. Thank you for checking in here on projects and progress. More excitement is just around the corner in 2014.

While I’m quite happy with the layout and model progress, I am not happy with this blog. I use WordPress software through my web host, but they stopped upgrading the versions a few months ago. Now I need to download the software and flesh out the blog on the home computer before uploading to the web host for viewing here. It may take a week or two of free time, learning, and tweaking before the next blog update, but there should be a new page design and an improved comment area. This seems like a huge bother to me right now, but I can see this is really a benefit if there is ever a problem at Mission Control, i.e. the web host. Building the blog on my computer means I’ll have all content ready to roll out at anywhere else if it needs to relocate, or if the web host has a hiccup and loses everything. Some readers may recall a web host hiccup a couple of years ago that wiped out many early posts.

So we live, we learn, we update the software, and we move right along. I’m looking forward to 2014 and sharing more of the hobby journey. If you have a comment, feel free to drop me an email at 43admin at hansmanns dot org, just remove the spaces and substitute @ for ‘at’ and a . for ‘dot’, and it should work fine.

All the best to you, your families, and your railroad crews in 2014!

– – Eric

Scratchbuilding a Shed

A mostly completed end wall.
A mostly completed end wall.

Building models using a minimum of commercial parts or set directions is often referred to as scratchbuilding. Anyone who is building a model railroad that closely follows a specific prototype location will need to scratchbuild a number of structures to capture the look and feel of the real place. In some cases, commercial models can be modified and altered to represent an actual structure but those instances are infrequent. Scratchbuilding has challenged many model railroaders over the years. The fear of failing or messing up a project inhibits many modelers. I think all model railroaders should attempt at least one scratchbuilt structure. I recently finished two small buildings and learned new skills in the process. Click on any image here to review a large size. Let’s take a look at one of these projects.

Continue reading “Scratchbuilding a Shed”

Virtual RPM Meet 1

New box cars on Harold's layout.
New box cars on Harold’s layout.

It’s time to share the work of another pre-Depression era railroad modeler. Harold Oakhill has been here before with some wonderful Pennsylvania Railroad XL class box cars. He just wrapped up building several New York Central box cars. Harold takes over the blog to discuss his latest works. Click on any image here to review a larger version.

Continue reading “Virtual RPM Meet 1”