Alive & Well, but well.....no postings

For all who follow this blog and wonder why there are no postings, it's Scott Perry's fault!!!!

You see, ever since Scott moved away we've been remiss as a group about getting pictures and doing postings here of our Friday night work sessions and layouts.

We forgive you, Scott!......and we miss you - not just your smiling face, but your energy and postings!

The good news is that we're alive and well and still working on the railroad(s). The Friday night sessions continue and we're strong as ever (less Scott and a few others) but we're just not as verbose.

God bless,
Rick

Video run through of Richlawn Railroad 9-28-11

I've been busy on the railroad and with the help on the NCIOG guys have made good progress. I produced a little run through video that shows the new background mural along with some of the alcove work. It was shot with my MUVI micro camcorder and edited with Adobe Premier V6. Actual proto sound files were used to replace the loco's on-board sound.




Rick

Work session at Rick's on 9-9-11

It had been a long time since the gang had been at the Richlawn Railroad and a great deal has changed since the last work session. In attendance were: Glue Bob, Band Camp Mark, Packrat Paul and his nephew David, Coalfinger Ken, Cave Man John (and his wife Shirley), and Popsicle Rick.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hoped that Cave Man John would appreciate my new Man Cave sign posted on the outside basement door.


POSTED: Man Cave! Women can visit but only for awhile



What happens in the Cave stays in the Cave. Of course, its an indoor railroad, not a garden variety!

Organization is the key, so I had a sign posted with the jobs along with all of the material and supply arranged for each team.

The guys got a laugh out of my organization, but everybody knew what was supposed to happen.

Team A (Ken & John) worked on the pleating the fascia curtain. Shirley was upstairs visiting with Midge, but did visit us briefly to see the alcove mural. Here's a close up of Ken using the templates to make the pleats. I was originally going to have the guys hot glue the pleats but opted for using a stapler. Not hot glue burns!

Bob & Mark were on Team C - view block installation. The task involved stringing a steel cable and hanging bed sheets to hide the mess (who made this big mess???). Here Bob is asking Mark to hand him a tool.

Ken & John are off to a great start - who will complete their task first and win the prize (there really isn't a prize!)

Team B members Paul & David slapping on the paint on the fascia. The challenge was to get the fascia painted without painting the fascia curtain, floor, self, etc....

Mark & Bob taking a second to get their mugs plugged.

John wielding the stapler while Bob looks on.

Paul pointed out that the gray color I picked for the fascia looks a great deal like L&N gray - I promise I didn't do that on purpose. Could it be that L&N has soaked into my subconscious?

Laundry day? Not exactly, but I'm using the wife's good bed sheets to make a partition to block the view of all the junk! Meanwhile, Paul takes a break watching DVDs of what else? Trains, of course!

Break time! The guys are watching DVD that my sister bought me for my birthday - a 12 DVD set!. I'll use the TV and DVD player during my Piedmont Pilgrimage open house (Oct 15th) to play a run through video of the Richlawn Railroad using my train mounted camera.

So which team won? Well, with the weighting on how difficult and time consuming the tasks were I declare it a tie! All tasks were completed, most of the snacks were consumed, DVDs watched, lies told, kidding done (especially about Bob's unusually SMOOTH legs!) and a great time had by all. Thank you, Gentlemen for you help and fellowship!

Friday night at John Kruse's home 9-2-11

The group met at John's home for a work session and some fun. In attendance were Coalfinger Ken, Packrat Paul, Band Camp Mark, Glue Bob, Popsicle Rick, and of course "No Name" John. John's wife Shirley made some delicious home-made brownies - YUM! After the usual chow down and work discussion we got busy. These pictures are from my cell phone so the quality is not the usual.


John's new "Man Cave" sign was a hit! Yours truly ordered a Man Cave sign as a result although it will be a different style. The sign came in handy as Shirley was downstairs chatting with the guys and John pointed at the sign and brought it to her attention as a hint for her to take her leave. John is either very brave or foolish!



Here's the whole crew (less me) discussing the goal for the evening which was to get the track sub-roadbed roughed in and elevation set.




Bob lectures the guys on the finer points of model railroading.



Paul, John & Bob look at the plan. Paul is the "human elevation calculator" in that all you have to do is give him two out of the three (track length, grade percentage & elevation) and he will give you the third item - all in his head!

Mark is pondering the state of affairs before blazing through his tasks.

Ken is holding this corner in place that kept floating up off of the floor.....or, he is waiting for instructions.

I didn't get any action shots but there was jig saw sawing and drill drilling along with other work happening. I left around 9:30p and they were still going strong.

[Pictures & story by Rick Wade]

Friday Night at Keith's home 8-19-11

Attending at Keith's home were Concrete Keith (of course!), Glue Bob, Packrat Paul, Popsicle Rick, Coalfinger Ken, Band Camp Mark, and John (nickname yet to be determined).

It was great to see Keith again as he's constantly been on the road for work. Tonight he was tired, but a sport as he kept on going - kind of like the Energizer Bunny!



Mark & Keith interested in ????




Now what was that we were supposed to do tonight? Oh yeh, clean up, clean the track and run
some trains!


Bob get right to work picking up.



Why this picture? Because I LIKE it!



Nice, clean work running the track cleaner over the track. Rick even looks like he is working (sort of).




Bob finished the pick up duty and switched to track cleaning. Who is that mysterious visitor???



Now if we knock out the basement wall we can expand on
to the golf course, and then........................



You missed a spot right there. What would Bob do without Paul's help?


Bob explains himself to Keith. I would have liked to hear
that conversation!


The L&N Boys Ken & Rick show their AWESOME shirts.


After all of the cleaning Keith set out the throttles and the
real fun began.

Mr. Murphy showed up after a few minutes of running and we had a "Naughty Node" that overheated causing a log jam of trains as the turnouts stopped working. It's actually great that this happened tonight as that was the purpose of the session is to get ready for Keith's open
house on September 18th.





Here Keith shows John how to get started.



A great time was had by all - thanks, Keith!


[Text & pictures by Rick Wade]

Alcove Expansion Progress - Fascia

After some careful consideration the cold hard truth hit me that I’m not going to be able to complete the alcove area before my October 15th open house on the Piedmont Pilgrimage. Accepting this fact I decided to change focus to try and install what I though would be pleasing for my visitors. Since I believe that fascia and a fascia curtain help define the area and give it a more finished look I’m going to concentrate on getting those items installed. I believe that I won’t have any problem getting this task completed. Here are some pictures of the progress the last few days:




The challenge with the fascia in this area is that there is a tunnel (8 ft long!) in the lower track that must be able to be accessed. The tunnel itself has three hinged doors that can be opened to remove any problems. Since the bench work is narrow in this area (20″) there isn’t room to reach up under the fascia to get in the tunnel doors (unless you are “Rubber Man”!) from underneath.



Here’s the fascia with the removable panel removed. It’s still under construction as I haven’t installed all of the magnets. There will also be a lower fixed board that will hang the fascia curtain as the curtain will remain in place when the access panel is removed. Any turnout controls or other goodies would be mounted in the upper fixed fascia.

I thought about saving the money on the magnets by not purchasing them and just screwing the access panel in place; however, Mr. Murphy would make sure that I had a bunch of “tunnel troubles” if I tried that. With the magnet mounted access panel it can be popped off in seconds and the tunnel cleared quickly.

Rick

Richlawn RR Alcove progress

Work continues on the alcove and I've got the lower track installed (although this picture doesn't show it) and I'm starting work on the upper track. I'm trying to get the alcove area as finished as possible by the Piedmont tour this fall.

Moving the ONR Ramore Sub & start of Mark's layout room

April 8, 2011 we moved the ONR Ramore Sub’s 11 of 12 modules from Bob’s to Marks house for a few weeks of storage. A thank you first to Mark and his wife Benita for the storage space and then to Ken, Paul, Mark and his son Jacob , John, Steve and his friend Randy and Colin for the help in loading and the transportation. We were able to fit 11 modules in Mark, Paul, and John’s SUVs, Ken’s little wonder wagon and Halina’s car. We also transported all the L girders, sub-framing, legs and many boxes of cars and locomotives. It actually went quite well. However the module of Kirkland Lake and Swa Junction we could not fit in the SUVs. This module was originally designed and built as 2 separate modules but when I ended up with a curved turn-up at a joint, I decided to make them one. This made the module a little awkward in shape and size. Paul feels that it will fit in his (Donna's) pick-up truck. We will do this when the pick-up gets back from the muffler shop. After we unloaded everything at Marks we built a 2 x 4 wall, for the start of his layout room. This ended up being a very productive evening. Thanks guys!

Modules removed from the L-girders

The 12 modules sitting in a 6' x 8' space ready for transport

Will this ever fit back together???

Loading the modules in the SUVs at Bob's

Paul says " we can fit one more in here" as Steve's friend Randy looks on in amazemant

Loading a module in to John's SUV.

The ONR Module Caravan leaves Bob's

The Module Caravan arrives at Mark's.

The 12 modules safely at Mark's.

The crew taking a well deserved break.

NOW ON TO MARK'S START OF CONSTRUCTION OF HIS LAYOUT ROOM.

Mark and his son Jacob start construction of the wall while everyone looks on.

Lifting the assembled wall in place. Mark's eyes saying "I hope I measured right and this fits?

Yes Mark . . . . it fits perfectly?

Dismantling the ONR Ramore sub for the move.

With an April 28 move fast approaching we started dismantling the ONR Ramore sub Friday night. Thanks to Paul, Steve, Keith, Ken, John and Colin for their help. We were very pleased to see Steve who had just flown in from Germany in the afternoon and who took the time to come and see us and give a great helping hand. Keith was also in town or the first time in some time took the time to come over as well. We started the night packing the rolling stock and then took down the shelf cartridges and took them downstairs. We then removed the first module, Kirkland Lake. I was quite concerned about this one as it was installed in a very non conventional manner but it did come loose. Afterward we unbolted the two modules along the wall nearest the desk. These worked out well as expected. Prior to the dismantling my good friend Bran visited us this week from Montreal. We ran a 40 car train as the last run with the one Hobbytown RS3. See the photo below. Thanks all for your help. Next week we will move the modules to Mark’s. The Kirkland Lake module sitting on the floor.

Dismantling the layout. The scenic divider is removed.

The last run, a 40 car train with Bob's visiting friend Brian.