Motive Power Updates

 As time has gone on, the motive power on the Richmond Terminal has become closer to the prototype's mix versus the initial "whatever we found" paradigm.

Part of this is having RF&P decorated units available from the various manufacturers, another part of this is being able to actually source them.

Recently, Rapido launched a GP40 in the late 80's, early 90's scheme, and Walthers put out a GP35 in thir Proto line. The GP35 has the slightly older paint scheme, but that's acceptable for now.

Here's a shot of a new GP35 being put through a break in cycle before being assigned to a consist and speed matched.

Spot the Issue OR Why couple at a scale 4 MPH or less?

 As part of the briefing, I remind the crew to couple up to cars carefully and maintain control of your train.

HO scale cars are a bit more fragile than the real thing; after all, these are plastic cars, not metal.

No word on how the crew accomplished this:

On the RIP track in Acca

From the June 2026 op session, for those curious.

August Op Session Guest Photos

The August 2026 Operating Session is in the books. I did take a few pictures, but as I am being on a bunch of other tasks, I am going to feature some photos from one of the operators, a famous auteur - Wayland .

The initial, pre session briefing:

A member of the crack team of operational specialists refers to this paperwork:

A very neat approach:

Whoops!

The debrief:

A bunch more photos can be found on the gallery.

July Ops

 July's operations were on the 2nd Sunday, as per normal.

This was the last session before the NMRA National Convention in Chattanooga, TN.

Didn't take too many pictures during this session so see the guest photos instead. :)

A few more shots at richmond-terminal.org.

June Operations

Editor's Note:  This is a fill in post as the blog is behind real time by months and months. This isn't to say that nothing is happening on the layout, as lots of stuff is happening, but actually documenting it is what is missing.

A string of RF&P boxcars rolls south behind a RF&P Geep.

More pictures are on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org

Guest Photographs for May Ops

Here is a selection of photos from the (in)famous O. Missing Link, taken during the May op session.

The highlight of the afternoon: Lunch!

A northbound freight is going by a stopped Amtrak train at Staples Mill Station

Apparently, the yard crew needs more work to do:

You have to admit, it is pretty meta to take a picture of the super taking a picture.

For your enjoyment, more photos can be found on the Richmond Terminal gallery.

A Teaser

 Even though I have a workbench in the staging room, I do a lot of work on the taller bench that is inside the layout room proper, as I can stand instead of sit. I do too much sitting during working hours, hence my desire to stand when I work on things for the layout.

May Operations

 

A few more pictures are on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org

Mid Atlantic RPM in Photos

 It has been many months since the Mid Atlantic RPM, but I wanted to keep up my momentum on the blog, so here is a few minutes of entertainment for you.

I'm a sucker for RF&P (obviously):

A sample from the layout tours:

More shots on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org

Fascia Controls

 Operators of the Richmond Terminal are familiar with the fascia mounted control panels used to indicate turnout status and control same.

 The mix of control panel circuit board layouts that I used over the years has been a bit of a logistical and training challenge; one of the early designs that was used was missing mounting holes. (Whoops)

I went ahead and did a redesign on these, and when I had them remade, I chose a white solder mask to make them standout better against the black fascia.

Old and new at Hamilton.

XR Rebuild

 One of last summer's efforts were related to the Crossroads (XR) control point.

This area has been plagued by various issues over the life of the layout that I trace back to the crappy plywood that I used as subroadbed here. This plywood had separated plys and inconsistent thickness over its run, which caused phantom uncoupling and other operating annoyances over the years.

When I went to put in scenery, I realized that it was going to be just about impossible to add in any structures.

So, the obvious solution was to rebuild from the ground up.

I made the area wider, matching the width of the lower deck, across the entire area. I also updated the track layout to better match the prototype.

I moved the crossover south around 6 feet, and angled it, to make sure that I could make the mainline match the curve to Hamilton smoothly.

This has been in place for the last 6 sessions and I have gotten good feedback from the crew, so I will put this down as a success. In a future post, I will talk about the structures that I've installed in this area.

A few more photos can be found on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org.

Scenic Satisfaction OR How to realize your original choices weren't optimal

 One of the things I keep discovering is that even background structures need at least 1.5 inches between the edge of the track and the backdrop to be installed.

Many of my switching areas has less clearance than that, and in some cases, there is 0 between track edge and backdrop.

One of those places is in Greendale.

After multiple attempts to fit a backdrop structure in at Boxes to Size, out came the oscillating tool.

Here's an aftermath shot:

Note the standard wall color - this had been covered my the masonite backdrop previously.

More Changes - Backdrop at North Acca

 There was a huge open space at north Acca that I'd thought about turning into an industrial switching area, but the reach in distance was going to preclude anybody but folks that were tall from working there.

After thinking about it, I decided to make the backdrop curved and closer to the track, making more of a shadowbox effect in the area.

Here's a shot of this work in progress:

April 2026 Operating Session

After a much longer layoff than I planned on, an operating session was held on the 2nd Sunday in April.

The winter months saw a significant rebuild of the South Milford area. The initial track layout in this area wasn't very prototypical, and there was a switchback that was the source of many operator complaints on getting the work done here too.

I took that feedback, and realizing that trying to apply scenery in this area wasn't going to be easy either, I decided that a full rebuild was in order.

It took way longer than I wanted it to, but that's how it always go.

 We had a new crew member join us for this session, Reid.

A few shots of the rebuilt area:

 

The coal train made an appearance:

More pictures can be found on the gallery on richmond-terminal.org.

May Operating Session Recap

 Due to Mother's Day, the normal operating session was pushed back to the 3rd Sunday.

A full crew trooped down to the basement and put the railroad through its paces.

More pictures on the gallery on richmond-terminal.org.

South Milford Rework

 As frequent readers and operators can attest to, the area of South Milford wasn't optimal from a track perspective. It was one of the first areas that I built when I started construction in early 2017, so what I thought was a challenging configuration, ended up being very time consuming to switch, and awkward to install scenery and structures. I decided to make some changes to better reflect the prototype layout of track in this area, which would also make the scenery easier to deal with.

Here's a shot of what it looked like before, taken by the famed photog, O. Missing Link:

You can see the switchback tracks at upper center left, and the large space between the industries and main line.

The area around the corner to the left was empty. I had eventually planned to put an industry in there, but had never solidified my plans.

This rebuild neatly sewed this all up:

Easton and Potomac Website Recovery

 As many know, the Easton and Potomac was a local layout here in the Richmond metro area that was the standard bearer for the community.

Brooke on the E&P. This is the crossing of the RF&P that I model from the other POV on the Richmond Terminal

The layout owner did a great job creating and maintaining a website about the layout. I had made a copy of it soon after I had heard that he had died, with the intention of eventually restoring it.

After the passing of the layout's owner a few years ago, the layout was dismantled. It reprises in a modified form elsewhere.

There was a domain name for it, which has since been squatted on by a domain squatter, so I will NOT link that domain here.

I have restored it to http://ep.richmond-terminal.org 

Plenty of pictures during the final open house for the E&P can be found on the gallery.

April Operations

 Editor's Note: This is a fill in post, so just some pictures is all I will present to you. I didn't realize how far behind the blog is to current events.

More photos on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org