As I have done for the past few years, I did the LDSig tour at the NMRA National Convention.
I took a bunch of pictures, and encourage you to look at the full gallery on richmond-terminal.org, but here is a sampling of what you will see:
That rail is STEEL, by the way.. Handlaid decades ago.
Love some Heritage style units!
The gallery has over 100 pictures - don't miss it!
I had put a post together 2 years ago about my work on a run of custom painted 57' Mechanical reefers, painted for Hood Brothers Packing.
The one shortcoming on the pilot model, was the lack of the lube plate decal to add the final detail to 5800.
I bought a decal sheet of only the lube plate detail and it has been sitting around for over 18 months. I finally decided it was time to get some additional cars completed.
Number 5801 and 5802 have been added to the roster!
The year's final session was held on December 8th.
A full crew enjoyed a wonderful lunch, and ran the schedule.
Many issues identified in November had been resolved, so only a few issues were found during this session.
The priority on the layout for the next couple of months is to install and implement control of the signals to enter Acca yard from the north, and start moving in the direction of having a dispatcher sometime in 2025.
I didn't get a chance to snap as many pictures as I wanted, so I will just include one on this post.
More pictures can be found on richmond-terminal.org
Starting this fall, I moved to having operating sessions on the 2nd Sunday of the month. That seems to ease the conflicts that happen on Saturdays.
A full crew joined me and we ran the majority of the schedule. A few issues were found, which were added to the list.
Here are a couple of shots:
More photos can be see on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org
I attended the NMRA National Convention in Long Beach, CA, in August 2024.
As in some years past, I did the LDSig layout tour. One of the layouts on the tour this year was the Santa Susanna Model Railroad Club. The Club is housed in the former Southern Pacific Santa Susanna Station.
What follows is a sampling of photos that I found interesting. If you find yourself in the Los Angeles area, this is worth the ~60 minute drive up into the foothills.
Upstairs in the depot is the living area for the station agent - couldn't resist a cat on chair picture.
More shots on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org. If you are interested in more information about the club, you can check out the Club website for the depot. The Museum website here.
During my pre-session briefing, I ask all operators to handle cars carefully, and couple with care.
HO scale frieght cars are beautifully detailed these days, but all those great looking details are fragile, and subject to damage.
I show you an example of what happens when cars aren't treated gently.
One of the joys about operating sessions is having problems discovered by your crew.
During the previous session, an operator let me know about poor performance by one of the diesel switchers in Acca yard. This is a MP15 model by Atlas that I have had for many years. It has a standard TCS decoder installed, as it was a DC locomotive from the factory.
After taking it off the layout and putting a note on it, I also added it to my list of gripes.
This week, I took a look at it and noticed it was on the list from the February session.
Some troubleshooting during the session suggested that this loco had a low fuel tank, and I thought the plastic cover had just loosened, so should be an easy fix.
You can see where the tank has been rubbing on the trackwork:
After some additional investigation, I realized the frame on this engine has warped. I assume this has zinc pest, like many other engines from this time period. Very disappointing.
It will go into the case; maybe someday I will be about to source a replacement frame.
After multiple operating sessions, I decided that the track layout inside of Doswell wasn't what I wanted.
So, I ripped up all the track and roadbed, to start afresh.
After a bunch of measuring and test fitting, I realized that I needed to revamp the benchwork as well.
Here's the benchwork re-completed:
As most readers know, the freight car fleet on the Richmond Terminal is equiped with resistor wheelsets to make sure that all cars are detected on the line, and that the signal system reflects that fact.
To do that, I've used Intermountain axles that I prepared and installed.
Some freight car truck designs do not support the IM axles and require a different approach.
These are Athearn coal cars - the bathtub style cars, BTW.
Glue a 10K 1206 size resistor, and then paint to the wheels with conductive paint or glue. Problem solved.
We had a full house for the operating session in September.
I tore up the trackage in Doswell in late February, and it wasn't put back together yet, so trains in and out of Bremo staging were annulled, and other trains modified.
Other than that, trains ran and the crew enjoyed themselves.
Crew Assignments
Dick M - Acca YM
Mike B - Acca AYM
John V- Acca AYM
Scott L - Traffic Manager
Road Crew:
Bryce L
Bob S
Bill W
Bob R
Jerry R
The crew identified a couple of issues for remediation during the session that I will be working on before the next session. I will do a separate blog post about the cars that ended up on the RIP track, as that is interesting in its own right.
Now, onto the pictures:
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| Bob has Amtrak well in hand as he approaches Acca yard. |
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| Bill plans his next move in Doswell, as Jerry surveys the south side of Acca. |
I wanted to share a couple of shots with the audience from the train show in Timonium, MD, the first weekend of February.
I had to do a bit of shopping, and after I finished, I took my camera through a bunch of the layouts and took some photos of things that struck my fancy.
Enjoy!
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| This would have been better with a tripod and a different lens.. And yes, that bridge is VERY long. |
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| PRR style signals and catenary. Looks great! |
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| RF&P Car spotted! |
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| An RF&P wide nose unit? Sign me up! |
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| I just wish this wasn't under the coaling tower! |
More photos can be found in the gallery at richmond-terminal.org
A suggestion from one of the usual suspects around Christmas time was to add an interchange track in Acca to add another "universal industry" to the railroad.
Long time readers and operators will remember that version 1 of the Richmond Terminal had a Norfolk Southern interchange south of Acca off the mainline.
Since the tail of the drill track wasn't being used much at all, I figured would could use that as a base and proceed from that point.
I dropped in a curved turnout recovered from the previous layout to give an additional industry track, or be used as a deconflict between the drill and new interchange track.
A couple pieces of flex carried me around the corner.
When I decide to complete the Acca Wye, this track will need to be removed, but with the fact that I do not have a timeframe on that currently, this makes a bunch of sense to add, operationally.
And done. I made a custom bumper out of some foam sheet I had laying around.
I didn't realize that I didn't complete the DCC wiring until this last op session, but I have already fixed that.
A few more pictures can be found in the gallery on richmond-terminal.org
As my long term readers and any operators of the Richmond Terminal know, the layout is signaled.
How it works is based on the system being able to detect that something - a engine, a passenger car, a freight car, an entire train - is in a block of track. Since I am using DCC, the easiest way to figure out if something is there, is by measuring that there is some amount of current draw.
Engines are easy, as they draw power, even when they aren't moving since the decoder does need a bit of power no matter what (sound decoder or not). For passenger cars, if they are lighted, again easy.
For your standard freight car, they don't draw any power, so that's a problem.
As my rolling stock is standardized on metal wheelsets, I have made a bunch of resistor wheelsets, where I glue a small surface mount resistor and then use conductive ink or paint to make a circuit. You can take a look at a prior blog post where I talk about making a batch of resistor wheelsets here. I fixed the resistor size - they are actually 1206 size SMT resistors. 10K Ohm, 1/8 watt - on that post when I realized I erred.
My standard replacement axle is Intermountain. They sell the axles in bulk packs of 100. They fit in a wide variety of truck designs, but for some truck designs, they do not fit correctly.
As an alternative, especially for cars that the factor axles are plastic, while the wheels themselves are metal, I glue the resistor in the middle of the axle, and then connect each side to the wheel with conductive paint.
It seems that tank cars are a consistent issue with being incompatible with the Intermountain option.
I have been checking the tank cars and also spotting any without Kadee couplers installed, so I grab them for the coupler replacement, and take the opportunity to handle the resistor wheelset issue.
The paint does take a bit to try, so doing this can tie up the foam cradle for a day.
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| Cradle off the bench so I can do something else. |
