JRD's George Gaige wins 3 prizes in photo contest at NMRA National

George Gaige reports that three photos of his layout took First, Second and Third place in the black & white photo category at NMRA National. Way to go George!!

NMRA Atlanta National: My First Three Days… pt 1

The last three days have been a whirlwind as I have… Driven from Charlottesville to Atlanta, given two clinics, attended five other clinics, helped assemble the Civil War Roadshow for display and guest operations, pitched in to assemble the rest of the displays brought by other members of the Civil War RR SIG for our SIG room, driven all around greater Atlanta on the Layout Design SIG home layout tour, drove to a local Michaels to buy supplies and glue, attended the LDSIG annual business meeting, caught up with old friends, made plenty of new friends, visited the NMRA contest room, made photocopies of my clinic handouts, not slept much, eaten too much pizza, and just had a great time.

This was originally going to be a Wordless Wednesday Blog post but if I just posted pictures with captions (and yes our blog page will get better) it might seem a tad under contextualized. To make a long story short…the Civil War Roadshow seems to be a big hit as people have been stopping by all day and night to see the layout, operate the layout, or just watch others operate the layout. This is in addition to all the NMRA convention attendees who have wandered over to the Civil War RR SIG room are looking at all the other models, equipment, artifacts, models, slide shows, videos and whatever else we have laying around the Civil War RR SIG room. We brought all of this wonderful stuff to Atlanta to entice those who have yet to be exposed to the wonders of mid 19th century model railroading that this not only educational, but lots of fun!

NMRA Atlanta National: My First Three Days… pt 2

As far as giving clinics, I had two 90 minute clinics back to back and showed 235 Powerpoint slides to two slightly overlapping audiences of apparently intrigued model railroaders (?) on two very different topics. In my first clinic, “The Delicate Stomach of the Iron Horse:Water Supply, Purification, and Water Engineering Practice on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, 1918-1948,” I explained the importance of university trained chemists hired by the railroad to successfully respond to the a quest to lower locomotive and operating efficiency costs by avoiding mechanical breakdown due to hard water. To be honest… it is more interesting than it sounds! In my second clinic “‘Going to War with the Railroad You Have:’ Designing and Operating the Chesapeake & Ohio’s Olby Branch in 1944,” I explored the possibilities of designing, operating, and building a C&O layout during WWII using the industrial expansion of the American chemical industry to diversify/complicate operations through increased traffic density. I had 30-40 in the audience through both sessions and received some very nice comments. As far as being a clinic audience member, I attended a number of different clinics in the last 48 hours and especially enjoyed two by Tony Koester on double deck layout design and another on the limits of kit bashing in addition to a great presentation by master modeler John Wilkes’s on the evolution of Appalachian coal tipples from the 1940s through the 1980s. I think I learned more form Mr. Wilkes in 60 minutes than I have by reading any number of books and magazine and journal articles in the past few years.

Let me sign off (for the moment) by noting that there is so MUCH to say about the layout tours and the models in the NMRA contest room…and as time is short…I will just provide you with some photos and captions.

More to follow,

Gerry

Gerard J. Fitzgerald
Charlottesville, Virginia

Civil War Roadshow Update

The Civil War Roadshow proved to be very popular this week from early morning until the SIG room doors were locked at 10:30PM.  Here volunteers, along with a crowd of  visitors who crowded around to watch, run an operations session with scale link and pin couplers in O-Scale.

 














The Civil War RR SIG Room has been a busy place all week demonstrating to model railroaders the possibilities of modeling railroads during the war in various scales among a number of prototypes.

by Gerard Fitzgerald

Kitbashing by Tony Koester

Tony Koester gave a wonderful clinic on structure kitbashing on Wednesday evening that featured models from his home layout and examples from other layouts across the country.

by Gerard Fitzgerald

NMRA Contest Room

The NMRA contest room featured many interesting and highly detailed models including structures, locomotives, and rolling stock.

by Gerard Fitzgerald

Military Loads in the Contest Room

As someone who models the C&O during World War II, I found the military loads train built by modeler Bruce Smith down in the Contest room to be a clinic all by itself. Dr. Smith also gave a regular clinic on the topic this week in Atlanta.

 

 By Gerard Fitzgerald

Young Engineer

The engineer in this photo, who wandered in and was given the Roadshow throttle after showing some interest, demonstrates that model railroading’s future (which for some always seems to be in doubt) will be just fine. 

by Gerard Fitzgerald

Brian Rudco’s Pender Street Mills

One of the most interesting displays in the contest room was Brian Rudco’s Pender Street Mills, a Gn15 layout. Gn15 is G scale industrial/narrow gauge using HO standard gauge track. The portable layout replicates a very highly detailed manufacturing plant with various visual and acoustic effects.   

Courtesy of Gerry Fitzgerald

Philip Stead’s 30’ x 52’ O/On3

The LDSIG layout tour featured the Philip Stead’s 30’ x 52’ O/On3 layout which replicates operations on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (Pueblo Division, Alamosa/Chama Subdivision) on September 23, 1949. Brass K-36s, bridges, and mountain scenery make it a great place to visit and operate.    

Courtesy of Gerard Fitzgerald

The W.H. Whiton blows her whistle and officially commences operation of the Civil War Roadshow at the 2013 NMRA Atlanta Convention. Huzzzzahhhh!