Birthday - Part II

My December 26th, 2012 blog showed what my Floridian son sent me for Christmas. Here is the present he and his family sent me for my birthday.

It masquerades as a letter opener but my Klingon buddies and I know a Bat'leth when we see one.

Another Birthday!

My birthday last weekend got hi-jacked by a family wedding! (Grrr!) So we had to wait until mid-week for the family birthday pizza party. 3 of my 4 kids and their families were here (the 4th has been deported to Florida). My daughter made me the birthday cake pictured. (Yes, I am a confirmed Pepsi-holic). I asked her why the Junior Mints and got told she didn't want my false teeth to inadvertently get sucked out. (How thoughtful).

Anyway I got money to cover the 2 CNW Dash-8s so I can legally run them now. (Yes I know it is not PRSL 1950s but they look pretty and it's my birthday so I can run anything I want!!!)

I got another 12 feet of double track ballasted. I still have to lay (and ballast) another 2' S curve of double track and then the mainline (not the yard) track of Phase 3 will be completed. Then I have to remove the current window end connections and build a new one (frame and all) to tie together the old and the new mainline runs. That should give me about 85 feet of mostly double tracked mainline.

What are we trying to achieve here? ... and how far along are we?

I have been babbling along in this blog for more than 2 years now, so it is probably time to pause and review the construction philosophy

We almost managed to keep the 19" minimum radius intact (on the Camden turnback inner track we had to go 18").

• It is still a code 80 rail layout (which one friend said was like scraping fingernails across a blackboard). Code 55 is in vogue now but I am not about to spend a ton of money replacing 40 years worth of track and turnouts (~ 50) for something my eyes will basically miss anyway. [Some folks have not learned/will never learn how to allow other people to enjoy the hobby without imposing their value standards on them.]
•  We have faithfully represented the 1950 trackage arrangement through Westville & Woodbury. [Done]
• Created a few Philly area scenes to give a sense of what was there (not enough space to duplicate). [Working on it]
• Created Camden Pavonia yard (in name only, to support the railroad operations). [Working on it]
• Level of detail: As I said in the July 15, 2011 blog entry: "It is not my intent to model a super detailed layout so the nit-pickers should have a field day. I will model to a “good enough” level and enjoy the return to my childhood memories."

Long range goals:

·         Enjoy operations with a few friends and aim to run an entire 1950s schedule of PRSL passenger and freight trains with some sort of freight forwarding card system.

·         Write a 3rd article to be published, this time including a brief the history of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore lines.

Short range goals:

·         Get the phase 3 construction done (before Christmas) to the point where I can tie its track into the current operating portion of the railroad.

·         Get minimal scenery onto the phase 3 construction areas

Mid range goals:

·         Upgrade all scenery

·         Get someone to build some custom signature structures:

o   Woodbury station

o   Manayunk Schuylkill River concrete bridges

o   St. Pat's church

o   Buzby Bros. cement

·         Find a way to include the Texaco refinery in the Westville modules.

I am officially a senior citizen (actually a 13 year old kid trapped in a 60s body) and have already been blessed with the opportunity to build some model railroads that were fictitious (sorta prototypical) and gave me a free reign to do what I wanted (see: http://www.myrrlayout.com/R/Aspfiles/DetailPage.asp?Xfer_Code=20001280) but I always knew that, before I kicked the bucket, I would be drawn back to model the local railroad (PRSL) that ran within a block of my house in both towns I grew up in and my high school. This gives me the joy of reliving some of those youthful experiences.

There are downsides to this endeavor:

• South Jersey is flat, flat, flat (and I love mountain railroading).
• The PRSL in the 1950s used ugly black Baldwin road switchers (not even a racing stripe).
• Steam was primarily PRR 4-4-2s and PRR H6,7,8 2-8-0s. (These models currently don't exist.)

So far the ride has been fun and the railroad is getting better by the day. It may not meet some modelers standards but "Frankly, Scarlet" I don't care!

Schuylkill River / Manayunk Update.

I hate ballasting! (only decaling is worse.) Did the 3 lower and 2 upper tracks on the Schuylkill River / Manayunk module. Only the concrete bridge remains but that will have to wait. I am striving to get the track on the phase 3 construction completed so we can get operations going, so I will now move to the Camden / Pavonia module (more ballasting. Yuk!).

Anyway here's the progress:

Here's the target:

With paper stand-ins:

I have also taken pictures of all my freight cars (765) for 2 purposes.

• Since my eyesight (and that of my targeted operators) is declining I want to add pictures to the car cards to make it easier to locate the cars when preparing the waybills.

• Since I have been unemployed, I sell off my excess cars to finance my continuing layout construction. Pictures always help people see what they are getting. I have a For Sale thread opened for the freight cars in the albums I created on nScale.net:

• $1-$8                           http://www.nscale.net/forums/album.php?albumid=997
• $10                              http://www.nscale.net/forums/album.php?albumid=995
• $15                              http://www.nscale.net/forums/album.php?albumid=996
• $20 and above.            http://www.nscale.net/forums/album.php?albumid=998