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

Doswell Changes, Part 1

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:

And now I'm starting to layout some track options: 

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

Prototype Photo Series: Seaboard US&S CTC Panel

During a road trip this fall, I was able to swing by the North Carolina Transportation Museum and take a bunch of pictures of the Union Switch and Signal CTC Panel from the Seaboard's line in North Carolina.

At this stage, I wouldn't expect any of these panels to still be in service on a US based railroad, so seeing one in actual action would be limited to some years ago.

This panel is in decent condition; some of the levers are apparently broken and hang down, instead of being in a expected position, but otherwise, the model board is in good shape and most of the lamps are present as well.

There seems to be some sort of automation of the various lamps coming on here and there to simulate some amount of activity on the line, even though I expect it has been decades since this machine was actually connected to a code line.

Note the original Norfolk Southern Railway crossing between New Hill and Merry Oaks

Even more pictures are in the gallery at richmond-terminal.org.

Industries at Acca Yard

 Acca has had, and continues to have, a number of industrial spurs in the yard area proper.

In the era that I am modeling, I am utilizing a number of them. They are not in the exact location on the layout, that they are geographically on the prototype, but in general, they are nearby.

Most of the industries are the the northwest side of the yard in real life. The major exception that comes to mind, is Transflo, which is the transloading area of the yard. In a previous iteration, that area was used as a container loading and unloading ramp. 

On the layout, they are all put on the northeast side, off the number 1 advance track.

In this shot, we are looking railroad north and the NA interlocking is just above the center of the photo. You can see the bag of ties right above the scissors crossover - the NA crossovers are right there.

This track layout has 3 dedicated spurs - 2 for the concrete and gravel operation, and 1 for a lumberyard. The runaround area might be used as an offspot, haven't committed to that right now.

All this rail is code 70, from Microengineering.

Gluing ties down. 

I used a gray-ish stain for the ties around the concrete plant to give the impression of lots of cement spills and dust building up over the years.

I'm going to use a standard, dark brown stain, on the rest of the ties.

More photos on richmond-terminal's gallery.

Modeling Amtrak, Part V, Models Part III

In the mid 1990's, Amtrak started the process to replace the sleeping cars on the east coast trains.

Due to tunnel clearances north of Virginia, the Superliners were not an option. (Note that the Auto-Train runs from Lorton, VA southward) So something else had to be done.

The sleepers were a mix of pre and post war cars so as you can imagine, by the 1990's, they had significant miles on them.

Amtrak designed the cars and had them produced by Morrison-Knudsen with final configuration at Beech Grove. Of course, nothing with Amtrak could be easy so in the middle of the order, M-K went through bankruptcy and Amerail ended up finishing the order.

I've been under the impression, and it is a mistaken one, that nobody ever produced Viewliners in HO scale.

I am happily wrong.

eBay searching last Month (October 2017) showed a set of Viewliners in plastic (a Walthers offering; pre the seriously detailed offering that run $70 to $80 a car) and a single, Overland imported, Ajin produced, Viewliner in brass.

I missed the plastic Viewliners, but scored the brass model.

It has a bit of wear, but is still a good representation. A couple of sample pictures follows; the site gallery has more of them. There is a link to that at the end of the post.

The fall sun is a fickle thing. I need a lightbox, but don't have the space or money for one.

Vent is present.

The complete gallery is on the picture portion of the website here.

Now that the Viewliner 2 is a thing, I wonder if we will see another run of them produced. Hmm.

Picture Update

Posting prototype pictures to the gallery today. These as smallish JPGs that I've run through a watermark batch. If you'd like to purchase rights to a photo for research or modeling, please contact me for large (6000x4000 JPGs and Nikon RAW) files.

Rick

Book Review - RF&P Passenger Service 1935 to 1975, William Griffin, Jr, TLC Publishing 2000

Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Passenger Service 1935 to 1975

Author William E. Griffin Jr
TLC Publishing 2000, Hardbound, 106 pages

As promised on the full website, I will be reviewing books from my library that I would think is interesting to my readership or that have direct bearing on my modeling.

This book falls into the interesting rather that direct modeling, but I find the pre-Amtrak era of passenger service fascinating.

 

The book's cover is a wonderful shot of one of the RF&P's E8 A-B unit pairs southbound just north of Richmond, headed to Broad Street Station.

The book starts with a chapter on through service, as it was the most common type on the line. Not a shocking fact, as the railroad was a major North-South bridge line. A 1956 passenger timetable is reproduced, showing 16 (!) daily trains.  One additional Monday through Saturday train is listed, so you would expect to see 18 trains a day had you been trackside. Now, I have a copy in my collection of the first Amtrak timetable for the RF&P's line, which has only 6 trains a day showing - 3 north and 3 southbound. A RF&P timetable from 1968 has 14 trains listed.  A note is made on how SAL trains were numbered over the line, as the RF&P handled trains from both the ACL and Seaboard northbound. The book also has a short discussion here about the equipment that was contributed to the car pools that were maintained to handle the service. Both diesel and steam powered trains are discussed with many pictures sprinkled throughout the text. Related foreign road power is also discussed and pictures are included. My only complaint here is that most of these are B&W shots, but I imagine the sources the author worked from are B&W so this is a shortcoming of the source material instead of the book itself. However, there is a dedicated color photo chapter near the end; I imagine that with color film only becoming available commercially in the mid 1930's, that the expense for somebody shooting color trackside would be significant.
Chapter 2 is local and connection service. Locals were not as numerous, as talked in the text due to the early building of highways in the area that the line ran, especially between Ashland and Richmond. An interesting point is that there were 15 flag stops between Ashland and Richmond in the 1920s, which would be totally unheard of today. Today, you could buy a ticket on Amtrak from Ashland (though not at the station, as it isn't manned by Amtrak nor is there an automated kiosk. Your option is to either buy a ticket at a different station or purchase via their website.) to either Main Street or Staples Mill, but folks would probably look at you askance, as the closeness of Interstate 95 and US1 and the ubiquity of the car seemingly precludes this. Interestingly, the railroad spun off a bus company to handle this business in the 1920's as well. A gas electric was purchased in 1928 to reduce the operating cost of local service on the north end. The book states that the last local trains to run were #10 and #29 in January 1957. On a slightly happier note, connecting service with the C&O and N&W are discussed with many pictures, as well as a timetable. The N&W service to Broad Street Station is what provided us with great pictures of the K2 class (a 4-8-2 with similar streamlining to the famous J class) leaving the station, and was also the inspiration for some wonderful railroad art as well.
We move on to the special trains of the railroad, dedicating a chapter to the subject, which details their success over the years. What is interesting about this situation is that special trains ran up until the advent of Amtrak, while local service didn't make it out of the 1950s.  A trivia bit here is that for some years, the railroad was the largest ticket holder of the Washington Redskins, controlling a block of 600 seats. One wonders with the spring training site for the team now being in Richmond, what sort of deals would the RF&P have offered from the Washington area south, had the railroad still be independent of  Jacksonville.
A chapter on Amtrak follows and the short lived, independent Auto-Train corporation is here is well. We have many color shots here, as Amtrak is a child of the 1970s and color film was cheap. (Well, certainly cheaper than in the 30s or 40s!)
Chapter 5 is all about the passenger stations, with the edifice of Broad Street given particular attention, with many aerial photographs. From there, the chapter covers stations spot by stop heading to the northern most station at Alexandria. Washington Union Station is mentioned, but isn't properly a RF&P only facility, as it was jointly shared with many railroads. Floor plans and exterior shots are sprinkled throughout, making this very helpful to the prototype modeler.
Chapter 6 covers passenger rolling stock with gratuitous pictures. Cars lists from 1960 and 1970 are included; each is a complete roster with type of car, the number and even name, if the car was named. The RF&P both used its own cars as well as those from other railroad depending on the train service, as well as contributing cars to the service pools. Some of these cars were built from similar plan used by other railroads that are frequently targets of the model manufacturers, giving the modeler easier starting points if they want to build a collection of rolling stock.
Chapter 7 is color photographs which closes out the book nicely. The first 3 pictures are all broad street station pieces, which I enjoy.

A bibliography brings up the markers.

If you are interested in the RF&P, or just enjoying learning about pre-Amtrak service, I recommend the book to you.

Railfanning as Prototype Research

As I have discussed on this blog, as well as the railroad website, I have been collecting as much information as I can about the area, railroads, industries and operations of who/what/where I am attempting to model.

All this research certainly can take away from modeling time, I will admit, but this isn't 100% the case. Sometimes I am collecting information during a time that I can't do any direct modeling, such as during my lunch hour, or when I'm traveling. It is true that if I take a Saturday afternoon to stand trackside and shoot pictures, I am not in the basement laying track, or detailing locomotives, or fixing cars on the RIP track from last session.

I've also been able to snag additional materials by keeping my eyes open. A recent win was finding a RF&P book from Morning Sun on sale from a dealer; this book is out of print so a bit harder to find, especially at a discount. I also was able to score a new (to me) ACL book that was saved from an archive at the C&O Historical Society. (I will be putting a review up on the site about these books and mentioning it here too.)


While I have been researching to make my modeling better, one of the big pieces is being able to document what I see on a daily basis around town, such as when signals get replaced.

At first glance, this point may or may not be obvious to everybody, but I believe that once you consider it at length, you will realize this is simple, yet powerful.

Prototype modeling is all about replicating the normal, day to day business of  railroading. Some may even say that you are copying the mundane, and that may or not be a strong word depending on one's point of view, but no matter what, first hand knowledge of the subject is vital to prototype modeling efforts.

How is it vital? It makes it easier!

Collecting this information is done on a couple of fronts - noticing what is taking place, networking with other railfans, railroad employees and modelers to get the latest gouge, and documenting what is going on.

I think the first two are fairly basic so I will leave them as they sit and we will go a bit deeper into the 3rd piece - the actual documentation.

As the cliche goes - a picture is worth a thousand words. Memories can fade or change as time goes along, but having photos in hand is almost as good as being there again. Capturing good pictures also allows you to fill out other documents, such as consist information, locomotives used, routing information, and car/container reporting marks.

Up until this point, I had just been using a simple point and shoot type of camera. These cameras are good at taking snapshots, but they do have limitations.

With a standard pocket camera, your lens is only so good and then the sensor itself, is only so physically large (don't get too hung up about the number of megapixels), so this makes getting photos with lots of useable details at 100% or larger size, a bit challenging when you are further away than say 20 or 25 feet. If you are hundreds of feet away and can't get any closer, your little pocket wonder will really show its limits. Don't forget that these jewels mostly autofocus and have no ability to do anything manual, so trying to shoot a train moving past you quickly can be hard as the camera tries to work on a continually changing view. Also, the list of settings you can change that directly affect the picture (ISO, Shutter Speed, f/stop, plus white balance) is somewhat limited, as these cameras are built to get good photos in common situations, but this means that covering edge cases is difficult.

So, now that we've talked about what I'm trying to do, you can see that getting good results a bit challenging. A fact of railfanning in the post September 11 era is to ensure you stay off railroad property and not become threatening or suspicious. (And I'll save the snark about who actually won this war for a different forum).

So let's plan to stay on the sidewalk or at least off of railroad property. Our requirements are now a camera with interchangeable lenses, as we can tailor our choice to how far away we are. We can get a lens made for wide shots if we are close, such as on a passenger platform, or a zoom if we up on a road overpass with good sidewalks.

There are boatloads of options from a camera standpoint (manufacturer, mirror or mirrorless, lens mount type, storage type, saved picture format, etc) and discussing them is outside the scope of this blog post, but if you start out, I recommend a base level DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) with its included lens. If you know that a good spot to stand if a bit farther away, feel free to add a zoom lens that has a max zoom of 200 or 300 mm. Often you will get money off an additional lens if you buy with the camera.

Then, charge your batteries (you did buy a second one, right?) and go out and shoot pictures.

Don't expect awesome results as you get going; it takes time to learn what to do (and what not to do).

What follows are some sample photos I've captured since starting this last December.

Richmond Amtrak Schedule

I've been doing a fair amount of rail fanning recently and to that end, I've worked out an concise schedule of when certain trains should be seen here in Richmond. I was able to winnow this down from the timetables that Amtrak provides and their schedule tool on their website.

Times are show as listed per station, then the train name and number (handy to check status via Amtrak's mobile app on your phone as you sit trackside).

RVR = Staples Mill Station, Richmond
PTB = Petersburg Station
NPN = Newport News

Without further ado:

Weekday Schedule

Southbound

Depart RVR    Arrive PTB
Wed 12:02 pm     Wed 12:32 pm     Palmetto     89
Wed 1:10 pm     Wed 1:43 pm     Carolinian     79
Wed 5:19 pm     Wed 5:57 pm     Silver Star     91
Wed 6:26 pm     Wed 7:00 pm     NE Regional     125
Wed 9:50 pm     Wed 10:24 pm     Silver Meteor     97

Depart RVR    Arrive NPN
Wed 9:45 am     Wed 11:50 am     Northeast Regional     67
Wed 4:45 pm     Wed 6:50 pm     Northeast Regional     95

Autotrain 4pm Depart

Northbound

Depart PTB    Arrive RVR
Wed 3:41 am     Wed 4:25 am     Silver Meteor     98
Wed 6:27 am     Wed 7:03 am     Neast Regional     174
Wed 11:52 am     Wed 12:21 pm     Silver Star     92
Wed 1:20 pm     Wed 2:05 pm     Carolinian     80
Wed 4:31 pm     Wed 5:15 pm     Palmetto     90

Depart NPN    Arrive RVR
Wed 9:15 am     Wed 10:59 am     Northeast Regional     94
Wed 5:20 pm     Wed 6:55 pm     Northeast Regional     66


Weekend Schedule

Southbound

Depart RVR    Arrive PTB
Sun 12:02 pm     Sun 12:32 pm     Palmetto     89
Sun 1:10 pm     Sun 1:43 pm     Carolinian     79
Sun 5:19 pm     Sun 5:57 pm     Silver Star     91
Sun 9:24 pm     Sun 9:58 pm     NE Regional     71
Sun 9:50 pm     Sun 10:24 pm     Silver Meteor     97

Depart RVR    Arrive NPN
Sun 10:11 am     Sun 12:05 pm     Northeast Regional     65
Sun 7:10 pm     Sun 9:10 pm     Northeast Regional     99

Northbound

Depart PTB    Arrive RVR
Sun 3:41 am     Sun 4:25 am     Silver Meteor     98
Sun 7:42 am     Sun 8:18 am     NE Regional     88
Sun 11:52 am     Sun 12:21 pm     Silver Star     92
Sun 1:20 pm     Sun 2:05 pm     Carolinian     80
Sun 4:31 pm     Sun 5:15 pm     Palmetto     90

Depart NPN    Arrive RVR
Sun 8:15 am     Sun 9:50 am     Northeast Regional     194
Sun 5:20 pm     Sun 6:55 pm     Northeast Regional     66