Aftermath

So, I've delayed writing about the Springfield show because I've been distracted. Yearbook final deadline is March 1, our club is having its first operating session in years and general business with life in general.

The show? Oh yeah -- the show. It was great. I had the good fortune of being able to introduce some of the QCMRA people to the NE Free-mo people and it went very well. As usual, the NEFM people put together an amazing experience. Setup went smoothly, operations kept the layout busy all weekend, and everybody had a great time.

My module has never looked better and thanks to a little (ok, a lot of) track cleaning by Mike McNamara, it even operated fairly well. Almost enough encouragement for me to build a second.

And on that note, the QCMRA people are very interested in building Free-mo modules. Hopefully, we'll have something to show this summer.

What follows are a few photos of my module as well as the video of the entire layout (produced by the afore-mentioned mensch, Mike McNamara.

Status - 3 days to go

This has been a busy couple of weeks; not all of it railroad related.

Finishing up college applications with my daughter, dealing with the aftermath of my dad's passing, semester grades, yearbook. Lots to do; lot's been done.

So far on the module, I've:

1. Redone the roads and sidewalks using Walther's asphalt road system. It looks a lot better than the foamcore did. I slightly adapted them to fit the space that was there. Not perfect, but a lot better. Still have to add grade crossings.
2. Chose not to do foundations for the buildings; removed all the old foamcore. 
3. Made sure every square inch of wood (other than what the buildings will cover) has some sort of ground cover. I used dirt on much of the north side for parking lots. I'll detail it later this week.
4. Bought and prepared trees. I got a bag of inexpensive bottle brush trees from Amazon. Sprayed them individually with matte clearcoat and covered with ground foam, They look better and I'll install them later this week.
5. Painted and ballasted the track -- painting went ok, ballasting not so much. See note below :(
6. Thanks to Dennis at QCMRA, got the Cinch Jones plugs replaced with Powerpoles. Still have to install them but that can happen at the show if I don't get to it before then.
7. Have done some scenery refreshing; still more to do.
8. Fixed a couple of structures. 

Still to do:

1. Weather and detail the roads and sidewalks.
2. Add grade crossings.
3. Detail the scenery with bushes, trees and a couple more grass patches.
4. Paint the areas under the foundations black.
5. Clean up the track. Ballasting went poorly and I need to use a wirebrush to remove excess ballast to make sure that the track is usable. This could take a full night :( Lessons learned about being more carful when ballasting. I may need to repaint the inside of the rails and the ties. I'll buy Woodland Scenics markers at the show and take care of it there.
6. If time, repaint the sides of the module. The dessert sand color has gotten dirty over the years. I'm thinking of getting some dark green and redoing it -- at the least, redoing the visible sides.
7. Pack all the structures, rolling stock and whatever tools I'm bringing.

I'm sure I'm missing a couple of things, but this is fairly comprehensive. I'll post photos later tonight. I'm excited; first show with this module in at least three years.

Start Me Up

Three Years. It's been three years since I looked at my Free-mo module or have done anything to it.
Why? Daughter in high school. Two dogs. Pneumonia a year ago. My model railroad club. Working on the yearbook for school. Other distractions.
However, I'm taking the module to the Amherst show this year but it will need some fixes before we go.

1. Redo the roads, parking lots, sidewalks and foundations -- I did them with foamcore the first time and they didn't hold up well. I'm using styrene this time.
2. Finish weathering the rails (dry brush gray paint) and ballast the tracks.
3. Replace the Cinch Jones connectors with Anderson Powerpoles and add a booster common wire.
4. Touch up the scenery.
5. Add UP5 to 'front' side.
6. Review all the structures, other details and rolling stock.

The show is January 25 and 26. That’ll  gives me 17 days as of today to get that all done. I bought a 2' X 4' sheet of 1/16" styrene from Dick Blick yesterday for $16 so that will take care of all the roads and sidewalks and building foundations. I'll cut the roads using a pair of Cutco scissors that I've used for styrene before. I'll paint the roads with flat black spray paint, the sidewalks with off-white craft paint and the foundations with gray craft paint. I'll mark the road stripes with Woodland Scenics road striping pens. This whole project should only take a few evenings.

The track: gray drybrushing should take one night and ballasting one more.

Another night for the Powerpoles and booster common wire. May be able to add the UP5 the same night.

Another night to touch up the scenery.

One night to review all of the other stuff I'll be taking.

Ten nights out of 17 days. I can do this.

Going Modern

One of the things that I looked at during the show in West Springfield was the rolling stock other people were using on the layout. The vast majority of rolling stock in use was from the modern era. Aside from Stuart's NYC Passenger set, I saw no other rolling stock of my vintage (mid 50s). Pretty much everything was late 60s on up to today. 

So, I started thinking, maybe I should acquire some modern rolling stock so that when I interchange with others (at the National Train Show?) I'll be more in line with what other people are using.

My plan, long-term is to acquire 32 specific freight cars, in eight categories for very specific industry service, eventually building a small layout/modules with these industries.

The industries/car categories: 

1. Food processing plant/warehouse (box cars, vegetable oil tank cars, corn syrup tank cars, reefers)
2. Propane Distributor (propane tank cars)
3. Plastic Factory (covered hoppers)
4. Shipping Company (well cars)
5. Scrap yard (gondolas)

I bought a few pieces of rolling stock at the West Springfield show. Another couple of pieces came from eBay and Trainworld. Rather than doing what I've always done (just buying whatever was marked for the New Haven and was the correct vintage), I have specific plans for which cars to look for and I'm constantly looking for sales and underpriced cars on eBay to keep costs down. Tim Moran was a huge help in narrowing down what to focus on. I don't plan on having all 32 cars by the National Train Show (or even afterwards, as I'll buy a few there) but it's kind of fun to review some of the better car makers modern offerings. I can spend a little more on quality-per-car as I won't need quantity.

And of course, there's one more thing. My locomotives are all mid-50s era New Haven. That won't do for trains running in 2016 (and 2017 and 2018...) so I thought about which modern locomotives made sense. I want to do some switching and Lance Mindheim has covered that topic pretty well with his "Downtown Spur" layout. I'd love to build an industrial park layout set somewhere in the tri-state (NY, NJ, & CT) area. A four-axle EMD loco makes a lot of sense. The road? Well, CSX is the current successor to much of the New Haven's territory and there are a lot of affordable choices in that road's colors. A GP-38-2 or GP-40-2 seem ideal. Atlas makes the former and Athearn makes the latter, so that makes that easy. A single GP38-2 or GP-40-2 with DCC (and sound, if I can scrape together the extra cash) will be all that I need to run something modern at the N.T.S.

More as plans (and purchases) come together.

The Happy Recap

The late Bob Murphy, one of the original voices of the Mets' broadcast team, used to say "we'll be back with the happy recap" after a Mets win. That's kind of what I feel like writing after the Amherst Railway Society show, January 29-31, 2016. A very happy recap.

First of all, I can't thank NE Free-mo enough for organizing the setup. A main line over 250 feet long (about four HO scale miles), a branch of over 75 feet. Extensive operations on both Saturday and Sunday. Plenty of free time (and space) to run trains. What an amazing event and what an amazing group of people. See the .pdf of the layout.

Setup on Friday took about eight hours. That didn't include a couple of wiring issues, but when you're building a layout that size, you have to expect a couple of glitches. The postmortem after the show highlighted a few things that they're going to do differently next year. Break down on Sunday took about two hours. I was packed in about half an hour, but stayed to help out; there was a lot to do and everybody pitched in.

Overview of the layout - photo credit Mike McNamara

A great panoramic shot of the layout - photo credit Mike McNamara

There were modules (and owners) at the setup from Canada; Albany and Westchester New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut; nearly 30 people in all. And every single person was more than willing to share information. As much as I learned from my two previous trips to this show, I learned so much more this weekend.

My module was by no means complete, but was in much better shape than the previous year and in addition, I gained plenty of knowledge to give me confidence that I can complete it before the National Train Show in Indianapolis in early July (yes, I'm planning on going). I still have to put down real foundations, sidewalks and roads, as well as finish scenicing the western half of the module. I also have to do a little wiring to bring the module up to the new standard.

Overview of Naugatuck North - my photo

Two nicer shots of Naugatuck North - photo credits Mike McNamara

I was on the branch, somewhere between Cedar Hill and Yardville. The branch saw a lot of action as Yardville and Woodstown Junction initiated a lot of traffic.

With respect to operations, I ran several trains including the New England Fast flyer; a passenger train that covered the entire layout twice.

The New England Fast Flyer; my power, not my equipment :)

Here's a video (taken by Art Brearton of Albany Free-mo) that gives a good feeling of the size of the layout.

One Week Out

One week to go to the Big-E show in West Springfield. NE Free-mo has an incredible layout planned. Main line over 200'; I'm on the branch again this year by request.

So, things have been crazy in the Zaretsky household. Plenty of school-related work as well as normal stuf around the house, but today saw the return of the reversing toilets. Oh yeah, hours of literally cleaning $#!+ from bathroom, bedroom and basement. Where am I working on the module? Basement, of course.

Painted the track, cut out, installed and painted foundations, did some Loconet work. Tomorrow, making up Sculptamold to put down some landforms; hopefully, it'll be dry in a couple of days so that I can start putting down grass.

More to come tomorrow...

Roger helped me place the structures.

Kuch Packaging and Yoyodyne Propulsion in place.

Foundations cut out and hot glued in place.

A Few Good Photos

Thanks to Mike McNamara for taking these shots of my module at the NE Free-mo setup during the 2015 Amherst Model Railroad Society Show at the Big-E in West Springfield. The second photo is particularly amazing in that it hides the bald spot. :)

Amherst Railway Society Show 2015

So much to talk about - an amazing weekend spent with a lot of amazing people.

My module was functionally completed on Thursday night (1/22/15), the night before the setup for the show. Track feeders soldered to the track and then tied into the track bus, legs built and tested, sides and top painted. Even put down a little grass in the space between the tracks for the future passing siding.

When I got to the show, they did some tests on every module to make sure that the electricals were up to snuff. My module needed a little work (a couple of wires had to be swapped) but otherwise, everything was fine. Trackwork? Check. DCC? Approved. Woot woot! My module was placed on the branch between a couple of curves and two excellent, larger module sets; Mike McNamara's Woodstown Junction and Dan Picciotto's Aliceanna Yard/Baltimore.

Setup was amazing, one module set (Bill Gibson's remarkably prototypical Cedar Hill) was used as the 'keystone'. Once it was in place, we starting building out in two directions -- to the Eugene loop and to the wye. From the wye, one team built the main line to the St. Cloud loop while another built the branch.

Here's how the track plan for my module ended up:

We ran opps both Saturday and Sunday; the modules on the branch (including mine) got a lot of switching.

Here's are a couple of photos of my module covered with structures:

And here are a few photos from the setup:

Looking from First Avenue to the wye during setup

The electronics underneath the approach to the St. Cloud loop

Looking down the branch during setup; Surburban Propane to the right,
Woodstown Junction to the left.

My New Haven passenger train outside of Boston, Mass. on Sunday

The 'caboose train', a traditional last train of the show, led by my 'dinky' New Haven S1. Thirty-three cabooses in this train representing railroads from all over the country. And yes, the S1 pulled the train without any problems.

The layout was huge - 62 module pieces; a mainline run of about 150 feet and a branchline of approximately 50 feet. We had participants from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Toronto, New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio.

Here's the layout plan (.pdf)
http://www.nefree-mo.org/Springfield_2015_Final.pdf

It was truly an amazing weekend. I learned a lot, made some great friends and didn't buy a lot. Can't wait to get back to work and complete this module (scenery) and build the second part. Thanks to everybody for all of their help and support!

Going around in circles?

Does Model Railroading make you feel like you're going around in circles?

Watch this!

Round Two

Kinda quiet here Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday, I did fix one structure but didn't get anything done on the module itself the past three days.

However, nothing like a Saturday to give me the time and energy to complete a lot of tasks on my first 'real' Free-mo module.

Today saw:

1. both sides attached
2. hole for UP5 cut
3. both ends cut and attached
4. all three supports cut and attached
5. RJ12 sockets attached to both ends
6. 6p6c cables with plugs run to location of UP5
7. barrier strips installed and wires run between them

So, for all intents and purposes, the module frame is constructed and a lot of the wiring support work is done.

Here are a few photos of the day's accomplishments.

 Front side being glued in place

End pieces and support pieces all in place - the module frame is complete!

 RJ12 socket in place

 Wiring in place

 A little fuzzy, but another shot of wiring

 Wiring going through the access hole

Tomorrow, the focus is on making changes to a set of legs so that they're Free-mo compliant. My goal is to have the module standing on its own tomorrow and maybe even have the roadbed glued down and drying.

Other tasks to complete before the show:

• Build 4 Cinch Jones plugs for power and connect them to barrier strips
• Build 2 accessory cables and connect them to barrier strips
• Build 2 2' Loco-net cables
• Buy primer, paint and wood filler, then fix, prime and paint the front and back sides
• Install roadbed
• Install Free-mo end pieces
• Cut track and test it
• Lay the track
• Solder track to Free-mo end pieces
• Wire track to the track bus
• Test some trains
• Scenic the module
• Ballast the track
• Fix a couple of more structures

The good news is that I still have about 10 days to complete all of my tasks and it looks like it could get done.

More to come!

Round One

Chronicling building my first Free-mo module in preparation for the Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show - January 24 & 25, 2015

I've started! For real!

Tonight's tasks were primarily organizational in nature, but I did get a few other things accomplished.

1. Located nearly all of the supplies and tools I'll need to build the module.
2. Started organizing DCC gear
3. Started organizing rolling stock
4. Set up sawhorses and placed the module top on it.
5. Drew the center line and placed track in approximate locations
6. Reviewed all of my structures and after several years in storage, several need repair
7. Started placing structures on the module top to get an idea of what will work
8. Glued one side to the module top
9. Repaired one structure

Goals for tomorrow:

1. Screw in first side
2. Cut out hole for UP5 on second side
3. Glue second side to top
4. Cut out end pieces
5. Fix one more structure

Center line drawn

 Initial track and structure placement

First side glued and clamped

The $#!& is Getting Real

OK - deadline time. The West Springfield show is January 24 and 25. I signed up with NE Free-mo to have a single 4' module ready for the show. Time to actually build it.

I have most of the wood pre-cut. I have all of the necessary track components, roadbed, electronic parts, wiring and hardware. I've constructed a barebones NMRA module in the span of a week. Can I build a compliant Free-mo module during our two-week holiday break that starts this coming Saturday (December 20, 2014)? I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I'm sure I can get the benchwork/legs done in a couple of days. Roadbed and trackwork; another day. I'm only planning on a single-tracked module with one or two sidings. Wiring including DCC; another day. I have some concerns about soldering the Free-mo endplates, but I'm going to try to be very patient with that process. Scenery? I have a bunch of buildings ready. It's just going to be a matter of putting a surface down on the bare wood that will be realistic and allow for appropriate placement of structures. It may take several days to get paint on the visible parts of the frame and some realistic scenery on the top.

So - my plan is to start with the module construction this weekend. First, I have to clean the layout room so that I have room to work. There won't be a lot of sawing, but there will be a lot of drilling and gluing to get started. My plans for an actual layout are on hold until the module is built. If all goes well, I'll have the room ready for construction by Monday.

I plan on taking/posting photos. If you don't see anything soon, it's because life sidetracked me.

New England Free-Mo at the Amherst Railway Society Show - January, 2014

I got to spend a day with the New England Free-mo group at the Big E in West Springfield. I spent part of the day looking at the hundreds of dealer tables and dozens of other layouts, but the Free-mo folks drew the most interest from me. They've put together a great group of people and modules; if I lived a little closer to Boston, I'd be spending a lot more time with them.

Here's a video of their layout taken by Mike M. This group has really come a long way in only a couple of years.

I'm sure as time goes by, I'll have a lot more to say about this group too.