Season Greetings & Update

To begin, the Management of the WRS would like to wish everyone the Best of the Season and the wish for another great year ahead.

Now for the Update.

As you can see in the pictures below, there has been a few changes in the White River Paper Company. The "Elves" had a little green paint left over and they painted many of the Mill's buildings. Painting foamcore cause a problem, it curled unless the pieces were correctly braced. A few braces had to be added after the fact on some of the buildings. A few cardboard tubes where wrapped in yellow construction paper and installed around the Mill to represent tanks
.
The WRS track gang was at the Mill also and installed another siding.




This is a long shot of most of the Mill



This the Finishing End of the Mill

This is the center of the Mill

(Note: the airslides are setting on the new siding)

This is the Receiving Warehouse in the center, Chemical Unloading Building on the right and the Boiler Plant on the left.

Some how the main building of the Boiler Plant was turned 90 degrees, this was done after seeing the building on another website . Now a little "land" will have to be installed under the building.

The WRS Track Gang also had another project in the South Yard. They added trackage to the track on the left. Also the crossover between the left track and the center track was moved to the other side of the crossover between the center and right track. This will help the Yard Crew in switching the Yard with the longer pull back track.

Best of the Seasons Everyone

Doug

Ops Session Nov 28

The WRS finally had another operating session.

Barry headed for the MEC/South Yard to see if the changes Management had made since the last ops session will improve how the Yard operates. Pierre and returning operator Jeff headed to White River Paper to operate the local mill switcher. Glen headed for the North Yard to pick up his train and headed for Dogwood. Dave headed for Roseton to switch the town. And Wayne headed to the South Yard to pick up his first of his five mainline trains. With the return of the MEC GP38's, Wayne had to use a pair of leased BN C424's.





Barry working the MEC/South Yard



Wayne at the South Yard waiting to depart with his next Mainline Train.


Pierre and Jeff at White River Paper


Dave at Roseton

Glen at Dogwood

During the ops session, I have two jobs. One is the North Yard Switcher, which is mostly to move the cars from the Arrival Track to a storage track after the Mainline Train departs. The other job is the MEC Transfer, which runs from the MEC Yard to the Paper Mill and back. That is when the "fun" happened. I was picking up my caboose and I was watching the end of my train and not the front. The engine left the Yard and entered the Mill, almost hitting the Mill Switcher. But the loco did run one of the switches. So when I started backing up to pick up the caboose, the engine and first car in the train "tried" to enter the Boiler Plant.

The revised plan for the operations of the MEC/South Yard was an improvement, but there are a few plant issues that need to be addressed before the next session.

It was a great session and everyone had fun, which is why we do it.

later

Doug

Summer Project

In July I got a phone call from Wayne asking if I wished to come to the On30 construction night. Since I had used the two modules that was the mini yard for the local UMG shows on the revised Paper Mill, I wanted to see their light way construction methods.

After a few more visits to construction nights, Wayne asked if I wanted to go halves on the modules we have been working on. I answered yes I would and now I am part owner of two On30 modules. Which can be seen below as the basic frame work was completed.






Wayne had planned to install a tipple, which he had required for the project, on one of the modules. But after many hours on Cadrail, I could not get to fit on a standard 15" wide module. So a third module was required and it would not be standard. In On30 everything is four times the footprint that of HO scale. So the tipple, dump truck and siding required almost eleven inches in length to get everything to line up correctly. This required moving the mainline track from the centerline to one side by four inches, install a curve on the siding after the switch and install a "bump" on the standard module to get everything to work correctly.

After the basic module construction was completed, the modules were moved to my basement to start installing the track working and scenery, the construction of the third module had put us behind the group and Truro was coming. This allow us to work on the modules more then one night a week.

Below is a picture on all three modules connected together with the new module with the "bump" in the middle with the cork on it. As you can see in the picture the area where the Paper Mill as and more was taken up by the three modules.




During the next few weeks, foam was added to create the hill and road going up to the top of the tipple on the middle module. The cork and track were installed. Then it came to install plaster to cover the foam. From this time on, Wayne and I were working almost every night to get the module completed in time.

To insure the modules were going to work, the group had a test setup in a local church two weeks before the Truro Show, which moved up Wayne's and my schedule.

After the test setup there were a couple things to adjust and a few more things to get completed before the big show in Truro.

The modules are below.





This is the first module in the set with the road going up the hillside to the tipple.


This is the middle module with unloading area, tipple and siding. Yes many hours were spend in doing the rock work to get it right.




This is the view of the middle module looking at the tipple and siding. Wayne build the tipple and the building on top on the hill.





This is the third module. The river was not planned at first, it was going to be two bodies of water on each side of tracks. One thing lead to another and it ended up the bridge over the river.

I had fun building the bridge one stick at a time. I had got the drawings from the web and cut and weathered the wood to construct the bridge. I even had to hand lay the track.


The second construction project was a little wood shed I build from scale lumber except for the window. I still have a few details to add to it. Here is a picture of it.



These projects were interesting as I had to use different skills then I have been using and working with Wayne and other members of the On30 Group, I learn other ways to doing things.

Wayne and I still have more details to add to the modules over time. But for now the modules are stored under the WRS, as it is time to get back to working and operating on the WRS.

later

Doug

Update

I was reminded today, that I have not posted in some time.

I have not been working on the WRS of late or have had an operating session.

Have picked a few new pieces of rolling stock at the Truro show and from a couple of people thinning their fleets to fill a few holes I had. Yes, even with the amount of rolling stock I have, there where some how holes. The Paint Shop has a few cars to renumber and/or repair before the next session.

I have been doing projects in the basement of late, which has been causing issues with the layout. With the moving of the Paper Mill and the addition of the new South Yard, the only space I have to work on larger projects is now where the Paper Mill was located. This lead to the layout being used as an area to store objects during these projects.

During the last week, I have been working on trying to "find" the layout again. On a high note, most of the layout has been found :-)

One of the big issues at the last operating sessions was the South Yard. I have started to address some these issues. The paper work is being adjusted and improved. One or two of the trains will be pre staged.

So I fired up the system to stage the trains, well I now have a few more things on my "to do" list.
I am hoping that a cleaning of the track and loco wheels will address most of the issues, if not there will have to be track work done :-(

I am hoping to be able to spend more time on the layout as the weather gets colder and have another operating session soon.

later

Doug

Ops Session Sept 19

WRS Crew had the first operating session is a few months. Sorry no pictures more on that later.

Since the last operating session the WRS has changed, with the addition of the MEC/South Yard replacing the MEC Interchange at Greenfield.

So the Grand Plan was to have an operator work the new yard and build the out going trains. There are four trains that depart from this yard during the session and three that arrive. In total 43 cars are required in the yard at the start of the operation. The problem is the present stage yard tracks can only hold maybe thirty cars at the most. There were cars parked on the switches and leads to the yard. And of course, the cars for the first train were at the far end of each track. Something was said about dragging the last engineer, who worked the yard, behind the switcher.

About an hour after starting, Barry finally had the yard cleaned up and the first train was about to depart. This time allowed the other members of the Crew a lot of time to catch up on what happened during the summer.

Pierre was busy working the revised Paper Mill. Glen was switching the town of Roseton and Bruce switched Dogwood. Bruce was using a BAR GP38 with sound, which his son Andrew had just finished. Wayne was busy with his pair of GP 40 MEC units on the main line.

Of course there were the usual issues with a layout that has not be operated during the summer and will keep the maintance crew busy for awhile.

Adjustments will be made to the Yard operations before the next session to improve travel flow.

Oh the pictures, by the time we got the first train out of the Yard, I was to busy to take pictures... that is my story ...

later

Doug

A few pictures from PEI

The last weekend in August, I made a trip to Summerside. It was going to be for "Railfest", the annual setup of the UMG to operate on the layout. But this year it was replaced with us operating on Scott's Bayside & Tidewater and Derwin's Canadisle railroads. Below are a few pictures from the weekend.



Abel and Scott at Chappellton


Derwin getting his train arranged



Allan and Ashton working Stevenville

Looking from the Bridge just past Derwin's Drop towards Stevenville.

Allan checking out Ashtown

We started the day of operating at Derwin's layout with two sessions.

Then it was back to Scott's for supper and then an operating on his layout that night.

Sunday morning a second session was held at Scott's.

I had a great time

Doug

Changes ... Changes

About a year ago the first phase was started, when the section between Roseton and Dogwood was redone. The area called Junction was removed, along with the Blue Ridge Branch. Work as continued on this phase with the installation of a back drop behind Dogwood and the development of the area between Marc's Printing and the White River Bridge as discussed in past posts.

In June, Phase Two was started. The Paper Mill was disconnected from the layout at Greenfield. The connection with MEC was torn up and the MEC Yard was also disconnected from the layout.

Now it was time to install new benchwork to allow for a 180+ deg corner to connect Dogwood with White River Paper Company. As part of this new benchwork was the completion of the backdrop started in Dogwood.

Now Greenfield is the new home of Green Mountain Limestone's operations.

This is the view from Farmer John's field of Greenfield and Green Mountain Limestone. The town of Greenfield may stay or may not.

Now it was time to install the other side of the backdrop before installing the new framework. One of the issues with the old Paper Mill, was the ground was not even because of the way I build the modules. This time, there is no modules, it is all "L" girder under the Mill. The new Mill is a little longer then the older version.

This is the view from the end of the bench work, on the right is the "hole" connecting to Greenfield.

This view has the dry power unloading track on the left, in the center is the Shipping Building, on the front right is the two tracks for the Mill yard. The main line curves around the Shipping Building to end up as the third track from the right.

This shows the far end of the Paper Mill, with the Receiving Warehouse in the center and the Boiler Plant on the left. The main line (third track from the left) goes between these two building. On the right is the Chemical Unloading building and on the left is other end of the Mill yard.

With the new arrangement, there are a few more spots to unload cars. More on this later.

Now for the main reason for Phase Two, the South Yard.
Below are a couple pictures of the present arrangement of the South Yard/ MEC Yard. Once the area from Dogwood to Roseton has had more scenery added, the Yard will be re-arranged.





That is the update of the changes to date. The revised layout was operated as part of the Grand Tour, which I got notice of the date a week after I started this work.

later

Doug

Fall River & Eastern Derailment

During the operating session on the Fall River & Eastern last weekend, there was a major derailment. The Local Peddler Crew began a reverse motion on the mainline, however the switch for Golden Flame siding was still set for the siding. The accelerating train derailed the two covered hoppers on the siding, pushing the last covered hopper into the Tower, moving it from its foundation. Photo below is from the Management at Fall River & Eastern.



In the accident report the engineer said he was told by his brakeman to back up the train and the switch for Golden Flame siding had been returned to the Main.

Normally the brakeman would have be been responsible for the accident but he works for Fall River & Eastern and is related of the President of the Railroad and the engineer was visiting from another railroad and has a "history".

Clean up crews have been working on site and have the covered hoppers back on the tracks and have been send to the repair shop for inspection. The engineers will be reviewing the fountion and structure of the tower to see if it can be saved.

later

Doug

Grand Tour

After two months of trying to find a date which worked for all parties, the chosen date of July 24th finally arrived and three members of the Codiac Operators Group , Jim, John and Milne were on their way for the Grand Tour.

The first stop was Dave's Fall River & Eastern. Joining the tour were the three CEOs of the railroads plus one of regulars of the WRS crew, Glen. This will be only the second formal operating session on the railroad, so we not sure how things were going to happen. The session started with Milne running the morning Passenger Train, Jim took the controls of the North Thru Freight, John and Glen started working the River Yard (the main yard on the FR&E) and Wayne when to the North Yard to work the South Peddler. After completing the passenger run, Milne headed to the Brewery to do a little local switching. Jim and Dave headed out with the Meat Plant Local. Wayne was still working the South Peddler. I was still doing the paper work for the rest of the session.

After Jim and Dave finished the Meat Plant Local, Jim headed out with the South Thru Freight. Milne had arrived at the North Yard with his local, so he took a break and ran the RDC service. Wayne was just finishing up the South Peddler and had arrived at River Yard, which was keeping John and Glen busy.

Wayne departed River Yard with the North Peddler, Milne headed back to North Yard to pick up his local to return to the Brewery and complete its run, and Jim and Dave departed with the Local Peddler.

On the right is Dave and Jim working the Local Peddler


Wayne heading out with North Peddler



Glen and John checking out their handy work in River Yard.


Jim and Wayne talking between runs.

Milne was moving so quickly his pictures did not turn out.

After everyone had completed their work, it was time to head out for lunch.

After lunch, we all headed to Wayne's Maine Central Nottingham Sub. After reviewing the lastest additions to the railroad, it was time to operate a few trains on the Sub. A formal operating plan is still in development. (The link to Wayne's Railroad is on the sidebar) Sorry no pictures, forgot the camera in the car.

Now for the last stop, the White River Southern. We lost one operator when Dave had to leave for another appointment.

John chose to operate the Roseton Switcher, Milne took the Dogwood Switcher and Jim got brave and headed for the Paper Mill. After get things setup in the new MEC Yard, Glen joined Jim at the Mill. Wayne fired up his MEC GP40s to run the Mainline Service.


Milne busy at Dogwood


John at Roseton working with Wayne as he makes his pickups and set outs.

Jim and Glen working at the revised Paper Mill

Six hours after they arrived, it was time for Jim, John and Milne to head back North. Hopefully they enjoyed their visit and will make a return trip in the near future.

later

Doug

Eastern Snagal

I needed to make a few trees for the hill behind the passenger station in Dogwood. The following is a brief description of how I made them.




These are the materials I used to make these trees. Most for them were found at the local Dollar store. The branches are made from a product call "Sisal Sheets", which is dyed sisal string glued into a mat. You get 3 sheets for a dollar. Each sheet will make three to four trees. The trunk is from BBQ Bamboo Skewers, which are 12 " long 1/4" dowel which has the last 3/4" sharpen to a point and come 36 to a package. Toothpicks, white glue, and scissors round out the material for the first stage.




The sheets are cut into squares of different sizes including, 2"x 2", 1.5" x 1.5" and 1" x 1". Since these squares are too thick, they are divided in half as shown above.

The next step is to shorten the skewers to the height of tree you wish to make. I made mine, five to seven inches tall. Then I drilled a small hole in the base and installed a half of a round toothpick to allow for installation of the tree later.





The next step is put the squares on the shewer, by pushing the square over the point of the skewer. Once the square is in place add a little white glue around the skewer at the square. Keep adding squares about 3/8" apart until the tree is finished. As you get closer to the top of the tree, I downsized the size of the square.



This is a completed tree. Notice how the squares get smaller as you go up the tree.



The next step is to pick and pull at the squares to loosen up the fibres to end up with a tree above. You will have to trim off pieces of fibre to get the general shape you require.

Next the tree is painted. I used grey primer, but others have used green or brown.



For the next step you will need a tub, hair spray and green ground foam. You take the tree from above, spray it with hair spray from all directions and then apply the ground foam to the tree. If you do it in the tub, you can recover the excess foam to be used on the next tree. Remeber to shake the tree over the tub to remove any loose foam.



This is the finished product, an Eastern Snagal ready to plant.



This is the hill behind the station with a few Eastern Snagals installed.

If you wish to make an spruce or evengreen. Just thin your squares to only one or two layers of sisal string before installing them. Then shape the squares as required. The picking and pulling step will not be required for these trees.

Now it is time for me to get back at making a few more Eastern Snagals, I still have a few more areas that need a few trees.

later

Doug

Update

Last weekend was the annual convention for the local model railroaders in Saint John, NB, which many of the WRS Crew attended. As part of the convention there were clinics presented on many different subjects. I was able to attend a few of them , in which I was able to learn a few new things. Now just need to spend a little more time in the Shop to put this new knowledge to work. Between clinics and other functions, there was also a chance to talk to a few other people about issues in operating a railroad.

Was able to pick up a few items for the WRS on Friday and Saturday.

Sunday was spend visiting five of the local railways. All of these railroads have their roots in New Brunswick. Three are based on real railways, and two are based if another railway operated them. Two of these railways, I had a chance to operate on about a year and half ago. The other three it has been longer since I visited them. All of the railways have had additions and improvements, some major and some you have to look for, since my last visit. Looking forward to getting another chance to operate on three of the layouts soon.

On the WRS, the track gang has finished the maintenance of the ballast on the line from the bridge to Marc's Printing in Dogwood. The site for the new passenger station in Dogwood is almost completed. The crews have also been working in Greenfield on some of the track work that caused a problem in the last operating session.

The WRS will be operating again soon.

later

Doug

Strange Sighting in Dogwood

AP - Dogwood
A strange sighting this morning in hills behind the Dogwood Passenger Station. All the trees on the hill, turned shades of red, yellow and pink. This would not so unusual in the Fall of the year for this part of the county, but it late spring and the trees are coniferous.

The local Manager for Lands and Forest and a biologist from the local university were photographed in the area behind the Station.







In talking to locals, a few said they heard a helicopter flying low and slow at dusk.

Was this another stunt by local artists, Fredrick J Blankstale III, who in the past have been linked to other "paints" in the area.

Another local said he overheard the Biologist saying something about the "rainbow" virus.

When Manager for Lands and Forest was connected for comments, he replied that the head office will giving an official press release later in the week.

This reporter will follow up later in the week with any updates.

Fall River & Eastern

On Sunday many of regulars of the WRS headed to the Fall River & Eastern for an operating session. This was the first operating session with the new paperwork.

The Fall River & Eastern is a large twin tracked layout with two freight yards, one has a complete engine serving area, and there is also a passenger yard. A coal mine, meat packing plant, brewery and fish plant are the major industries. There are also number of smaller industries to be switched.

The main yard was switched by Pierre, which kept him busy dealing with the Meat Packer Switcher, North Peddler, South Peddler and Local Peddler. The Way Freights and Thru Freights were not included in this session.

Wayne and I did the South and North Peddlers. These trains operate between the two yards and switches the industries along the line.

Glen and Dave did the Meat Packer Switcher and the Local Peddler. The Local Peddler switches the three local industries near the main yard. The Meat Packer Switcher services the Meat Packers operation, which includes cattle unloading, ice loading, warehouse and coal unloading.

The Crew is looking forward to the next session.



Dave and Glen working the Local Peddler

Pierre working the main yard and Wayne waiting for his next train.

later

Doug