Field Trip!

Getting to the track-laying stages of South Woodbury, I figured I would take a field trip, walk along the tracks, and see what was left. The yard is practically gone. The revitalized station remains. The Blasius piano factory was destroyed by fire but the apartments replacing it mirrors its architectural style. It was a trip down memory lane since I used to walk the tracks on my way home from Woodbury High School. More photos can be found at: https://plus.google.com/photos/117979710150548241973/albums#photos/117979710150548241973/albums/5786312270700199073

Woodbury Station refurbished as a restaurant

 

Cooper St looking north to Hunter St bridge

Clock on the station corner

Looking south; Deepwater, Salem branches and the yard veer off to the right; Millville branch to the left

Evergreen Ave underpass

Woodbury Heights

 

 

Woodbury - South - Part 1

Continued some slow progress on the South Woodbury module. The other modules have had box benchwork (16"x6'). This module required the ability to fade out the Deepwater/DuPont branch and possibly duck it under the mainlines to staging so I went back to L-girder construction with a cookie cutter top (22"x6'). I should have some track laid in about a week. Then we deal with the congestion issue.

Train Storage

1) I used to store in regular OfficeMax cardboard containers. They held 116 cars (9 rows of 12 MT cars + 8 spacers in the middle). That left a lot of open space above the cars. To facilitate our house move I cut the boxes down to eliminate the headroom as shown.

 

2) Got some cheap (modus operandi) 5 drawer plastic drawer storage units (~$20). Each of the 5 drawers holds78 MT cars (6x13). Extra vertical space will hold locomotive containers also.

3) My next plan is to put storage under my freestanding "Woodbury" modules. My modules are 16" wide and 6' long.  I have about 12" free space between the legs. I will put a 12" board between the horizontal braces with a 1"x3" board mounted vertically down the middle (screwed in making it a strong "L"/"T" girder) which should perfectly hold 288 MT containers (3 high on both sides).

How to Get Everybody Mad at You:

Model Railroad Forum Thoughts:

Model Railroad forums are a great source of help and information that make the hobby  better. They are a way to acquire new friends with similar interests and grow your skill sets. I believe every modeler should at minimum monitor one site and contribute when they can add something to the group.

A friend led me to the Railwire site (http://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?board=1.0) and I became hooked. Then I realized there were other sites. To name a few:
            nScale.net (http://www.nscale.net/forums/forum.php),
            Trainboard (http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/forumdisplay.php?170-N-Scale),
            nscale.org (http://www.nscale.org/defaulteng.htm)
            Atlas (now defunct)

Personally I definitely object  to people posting the same stuff on multiple forums. They have their own reasons (different friends on each, etc.) but it comes across to me as more ego. (Yes I know I shouldn't judge, please smack me on the hand.) If everyone did that there wouldn't be a reason to have multiple forums.

On several sites I also am annoyed at the excessive use of large emoticons (look at me! look at me!) and the space they take up. But speaking of judging anyway, I have compiled a list of things that I personally like and don't like about each forum. These observations are mostly first impressions and definitely subject to change. (You need to make up your own mind!)


Atlas: Sorry I never got to know you before you closed down. It did have a pervasive reputation of being a site that contained a lot of animated divisive arguments.


nscale.org: I occasionally go to view the layouts. but do not spend much time there.
Pluses:

• Colorful site
• Lots of pictures

Negatives:

• Hard to read
• Significant foreign model railroads (nothing wrong with that; I just do not have an interest in non-North American railroads)

 

Trainboard:
Pluses:

• A lot of good experienced modelers across multiple scales

Negatives:

• Harder to navigate
• Waste too much space at top with clutter; always have to page down at least once
• Search feature hard to use and usually times out
• Admins quick to close topics

 

Railwire:

Pluses:

• A ton of great modelers (especially the Canadians)
• Eastern RR tilt (my preference)
• Easy to get good advice & help (DKS, Conrail 98, Lee Weldon)
• Well organized site
• Strong search capability
• Easy to upload pictures
• A lot of traffic and interesting topics
• Seems to have gotten better with the addition of the Atlas fugitives
• Seems to be the most active (number of topics and participation)

Negatives:

• Won't accept hotmail email addresses for membership
• A lot of insider jokes that clog up the discussions
• People take pride in earning the title "a$$hat" (they could have chosen a less crude title)
• Very opinionated (a lot of "my way is better")
• A couple of  socially inept (nasty), picky participants with Neanderthal attitudes.
• Can be non-family friendly, obnoxious, and proud of it " Irreverence is embraced, instead of frowned upon"

This is an excellent site but this last item is what I consider to be its main drawback. Most people grow up over time but there are some on this site that are proud of their snotty attitudes and very vocal.

nScale.net

Pluses:

• All N Scale
• By far the friendliest and most open
• Family friendly
• The only forum to stay on topic with my question on forum focuses
• Easiest to search for local modelers (unfortunately south Jersey is relatively N scale modeler barren)

Negatives:

• Have yet to uncover many advanced modelers - most seem to have small loop track layouts (certainly OK but I am looking for more)
• Reputation of feeling everything is OK (critics say they: "celebrate mediocrity")
• Picture handling OK but could be easier

Personal conclusions:  I am trapped between Railwire and nScale.net. I can get usually get more good advice from Railwire but am turned off by some participants with immature attitudes. nScale.net is more friendly (less Neanderthals). So for the time being I'll enjoy spending time in both and perhaps get to modify some of my initial observations.

Really wishing them all the best! They all make the hobby better.

So go out and find one that meets your tastes!

N Scale magazine Sept/Oct 2012

Just got a complimentary copy of the Sept/Oct issue of N Scale magazine.

It includes my second article on my 4'x8' layout. This is not an easy read like the first article (see Oct 14, 2011 blog). The first was meant to tell a story. This is designed to show how much can be done on a 4'x8' and attempt to get some armchair railroaders into building mode.

It covers 10 pages and has 30 pictures. [I'll be famous for about 5 minutes.  :-)  ]

So far the only problem I have seen, is that they failed to give David K. Smith the credit for the beautiful track plan drawing he provided. I'll try to get a correction in the follow-up issue.

 

With the next PRSL module rapidly proceeding in the garage, I am afraid the days are numbered for this platform. I will miss it. It was my first layout following 20 years of armchair railroading inactivity (and collecting excessive amounts of trains). Hopefully I can find it a good home (and get at least enough money to replace the turnouts I'll be losing).



Fighting Fires in Westville

I am not a firefighter so I may not know what I am talking about here but one thing that always puzzled me was why Westville's multiple (Union & Independent) fire companies (pre-1980s merger) were both located on the same side of the tracks. (A couple of miles up the road Westville Grove's (Deptford) Tacoma fire company was also on the same side of the tracks.) Granted that side contained the town's small business district but if a fire occurred in the Newbold section and one of the PRSL 100 car trains happened to be going through town that would be an issue. Before the Timber Creek trestle replacement 10 mph speed limits meant the freight trains did not exactly hustle through town.

I vaguely remember talk of one such fire where the fire trucks had to go over the Broadway Timber Creek highway bridge to the first Brooklawn circle, under the railroad overpass, through the second Brooklawn circle and back into Westville on the Gateway Blvd Timber Creek highway bridge to the other side of town to answer a fire call.

I believe the same situation existed (on the other side of the tracks) in Woodbury where the main Friendship fire company and the Colonial fire company also were located on the same side of the tracks.

Later we moved to Woodbury Heights which only had 1 fire company which was located right next to the tracks!

Anyway, the old Independent Fire Co is a half block off my layout (perhaps a background picture off Pine street?). To get the Union Fire Co on the layout I will have to turn their building at the end of Olive street to be able to get a fire truck model on the layout.

So Much Easier This Way

Wiring is much easier when you can tilt the module on the garage floor and not have to worry about hitting your head or squeezing between the bookshelves and the bottom of the layout. Compare this with the last wiring go 'round in my September 1, 2011 post.

Module track work is done. I now have to:

·         Connect the leads
·         Test that everything runs
·         Paint (spray) the track roof brown
·         Ballast the track
·         Put the legs on
·         Raise the original 3 modules 6"
·         Sell off the 4'x8'
·         Move the Woodbury modules up to the loft.

We are going to be here a while!

The Amateurs and the Pros

My next N Scale article is due out in about a month and I emailed David K. Smith of Railwire forum fame and asked him if he would create a sectionalized version of the 4'x8' layout featured in the article (mine was built using Atlas flex-track.) under the assumption some readers with less experience may want to build a similar layout with sectional track. Wow! did I ever get a beautiful rendering back. I have copied his flex-track version below along with my original sketch (which now looks like it was drawn by a third grader).

 

That's the difference between the amateurs and the professionals. And it can be intimidating to the amateurs. So much so, that they may stop trying.

Take model layouts themselves. Railwire seems to have attracted a lot of the "professional" level (actual and some self-proclaimed) model railroad builders. I just marvel at, with a dropped jaw, their work. You then look at your own efforts and wonder why should I bother showing my work. It just doesn't measure up.

But if you look closer, you realize just how few have achieved that "wow" level. I copied the Railwire membership list into a Microsoft Access database to analyze it (I analyze everything; I counted the average # of posts, etc.) and went through all the ~900 members url's to look at their layouts (most do not have them). I only came up with about 2 dozen "wow" layouts (probably more now since the died Atlas forum invasion - a good thing). I found a heck of a lot more that showed layout attempts that still need significant growth/improvement.

So, instead of being discourage by the "competition", I think modelers need to not give in to the "give up trying" feeling and display their work. It probably resonates more with the average forum reader and encourages them to keep going, more than the "expert's" pictures (although they are still the inspiration standard). And hopefully I should be living proof that the average modeler can get published. If you have a dream and something somewhat unique, there is a niche there waiting for you to publish it.

Blog Anniversary

OK, another excuse to reflect. You would think I was a thinker...which I am really not. Just someone with a lot of minor league ADHD thoughts whizzing through my head. Some pause for a moment, most do not linger.

It has now been a year since I began this blog. What have I learned?

·         that someday I will get even with Dave for planting blog thoughts in my head

·         that blogs are a great way to store information about railroads and modeling that you might want to remember later

·         that blogs can record progress towards your modeling goals - more progress than you would have been able to realize otherwise

·         that blogs force you to learn new talents and techniques (such as learning to take better pictures after you decide you are going to post pictures)

·         that some folks will read anything (how else do you explain the almost 3,000 site hits in the 8 months since I found you could stick a counter on a web page)

·         that blogs force you to wrestle with your thoughts and make them (somewhat) more cohesive (organized) before you write them down (fooled you didn't I!)

·         that spell checkers are invaluable

When I began this endeavor I figured I would attempt to write something once or twice a month but I have managed to put in 40 posts in the past year. A tribute to both the number of random thoughts passing between my ears and the amount of information that friends at the PRSLHS and Railwire have dug up for me.

What I haven't figured out:

·         Who reads this blog? There are only 10 people signed up as followers and most of them are family members who I bent their arms to sign up (but they never read it). I have never gotten any comments or emails about anything. So is it just due to web crawlers that read, organize, and alphabetize everything?

·         At what point do you run out of thoughts? Most blogs I have seen seem to run at of steam somewhere in the 2nd to 4th years.

Good Smells

Ah!  I just love the smell of freshly sawn wood and cork roadbed. I started the first Woodbury module and am experimenting with the module height. The others are at 48" (49") and will be raised 3"-6". I built this one at 54" (+3/4" plywood). I am 6'1" and it was more difficult to nail the roadbed but I want to get some track down and see how it looks. My wife is about 5'5" and the surface comes to about her chin. (She would have the best view (if she even liked trains at all)).

I must admit that the basic construction is one of my favorite parts.  You start with a clean sheet of paper and sketch alternatives (seems like this takes forever), you then make a full size sketch to see if everything fits and then the excitement really begins as your project begins to take shape and life! And the wood just smells so good!

Here are the first Woodbury module construction photos with target prototype locations (i.e. looking at Woodbury from the north and south):

                                                                                   R.L. Long Photo   W.J. Coxey Collection

                                                        Images of America: Woodbury p.45