Midland Belt Railroad first loco

Well, the big Freemo event has been and gone. And it lived up the anticipation.. absolutely brilliant weekend.. I'm aware that I haven't posted here but I don't think that there actually that many people who read my blog anyway, and lately I've been using Youtube a little more.. I posted a slideshow here..

Our 'local' Midland based Freemo group has taken on the name of the Midland Belt Freemo group. We've decided to run our own shortline too - the Midland Belt Railroad.

Although we haven't really fleshed out the detail, Chris Gilbert has sorted out some decals in a similar style to his Florida Central locos, so we hope to get a few locos re-painted and patched for the joint RR, that way there is a sense of consistency when we run our trains at our Freemo get-togethers.

Although we are probably going to 'allow' some other plain colours - the consensus is that the ideal livery will be black with the yellow branding and striping of the MBRR.

I recently picked up an Atlas HO "Trainman' RS36 from eBay and this week managed to get the loco fitted wth  a Soundtraxx chip as well as getting the decal job started.. as the loco was already black with a red band, I decided to paint out the 'Iowa Central' and replace with the Midland logo. I also added the yellow line to the footplate.

Looking at it now, I think that I may replace the numbers too, I may stick with 900 but use the decals for a more consistent look.

Hopefully once it's done, a light weathering will help to tie it all in together.

A short video showing how I bodged the speaker here..

September.. Revving up for Freemo

Not been posting regular updates on this blog, I know. However, I do try to occasionally post on Youtube too.

I recently uploaded one to show my two latest loco purchases..

At the moment the focus is mostly on getting ready for next weekend - Big Freemo meet in Armitage, home of the TVNAM show.

Here's a plan for the meet.. Sheldon and Cooper are both there on different branch lines..

Hopefully will have lots of pictures and some video to post after then :-)

Cooper gets greened

I decided to concentrate on one Freemo module before I move on to the other. Over the last week or so I've been scattering grass material, drenching in PVA, cursing, making buildings, painting, sanding, filling, cursing, and nearly giving up..all over "Cooper"

My intention originally was to hold back, keep things fairly sparse, as that seems to work best in the Freemo environment overall. I've been spending a lot of time in Google street view around the midwest - noting the lack of fences and number of trees around the lines I was following. However, as I was bathing Cooper in a shower of green material..I was worried that the module was all getting too busy, with the trees and different textures, but today I'm fairly relaxed about it. 

I certainly don't intend to do too much more.. it's just a case of finishing off the ground colouring in the areas of hard-standing, and a few small bits like a bit of clutter around the warehouse, signage etc. Then clean up and test the track again before putting it away and starting on "Sheldon".

Cooper is supposed to be on the edge of town. One spur feeds a team track, from which I removed the ramp as it just didn't look right. On the other side is Wollowitz and Hoffstetter, I hope to get a semi or trailer to park in the yard, along with a few dumpsters. Next door to W&H is a small house with it's lawned yard and swimming pool.

A few pictures of progress so far..

overall view

Wollowitz and Hoffstetter

Along the module - team track to the left

Approaching Cooper

Too many trees?

The team track

crew

People are rare sight around Brett, it's such a quiet little backwater. This morning however I caught the YPRR crew switching the elevator. They were running no 36, the BL2, newly out of the shops at Fiddle Creek..

TVNAM 2015

Yesterday I was at 'the' show for American railroad modellers, held each year at Armitage, TVNAM.

I've been to the show a few times and always enjoyed not only the modelling, but the almost social club aspect.. as Nick, the organiser put it, it's a show for enthusiasts, by enthusiasts.. not really one to compare with your typical club model railway exhibitions, run in scout halls and sports halls up and down the country every weekend.

The main room

Midland, Ohio. Nick's O Scale layout

Midland, Ohio. Nick's O Scale layout

Midland, Ohio. Nick's O Scale layout

Florida Springs and Hacienda Avenue

29th Street Wharf

29th Street Wharf

29th Street Wharf

West Allen Street, micro layout

I didn't get many pictures of the great layouts on show I'm afraid, I don't tend to bother too much these days as my camera skills aren't really up to it. Much better pictures will be up on RMWeb and other blogs today, I suspect.

Woodsville

Woodsville

Anyway - this year, our little newly formed loose band of "Freemo' enthusiasts arranged to display in the large side room. In the week leading up to the day there was a series of emails and rough plans drawn up, trying to work out how to best arrange the various modules that we now knew would be there in the room, to give us some kind of running and be accessible to the paying public.

We starting setting up around 8 o'clock, an element of shuffling and seeing how things fitted came into play. By the time that the doors opened at 10, we had the modules up. It took a little longer to fully work out some electrical issues (one of the modules was built to a different standard and a bit of electrical tinkering was required), but we were running trains and answering questions all day.

The Freemo Room!

Very tiring, but good fun. Hopefully may have sparked the interest of one or two visitors.

Personally it was a relief to know that my modules worked ok, although it also highlighted a couple of minor things for me to adapt (checking the rail ends height on Cooper and perhaps arranging to bolt the legs in place rather than relying on the push fit.)

I put together a short video here:

Freemo modules get 'tested'

Actually, this was a genuine testing session, rather than just an excuse to play trains!

TVNAM is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I want to make sure that the modules are working okay - track clean, no electrical foibles.. that they join up alright etc. 

I did need to re-solder one of the track ends. (Which involved nipping out to buy a new soldering iron!) Why I chose to solder to screws I don't know.. never done it before and eventually I'll replace these with copper clad instead.

Anyway - clearly a lot more to do as regards scenics.. and I'm not 100% about using the brick building for Wolfowitz and Hoffstetter, but for now they are working and that's what matters most.

No pictures today - just a video..

Wobble up and down..

Looking at Static Grass Applicators on eBay, I noticed that this one from the Far East had instructions in the description. I'm guessing that someone used Google Translate...