Monthly Archives: March 2022

Nick Ozorak was a semi-regular operator on the model S&NY, prior to COVID and his moving out of the area. Nick is a master of “virtual” or digital railroading, both model and prototype, and became enamored with the S&NY after learning about it through our op sessions. Subsequently, he developed an amazing digital version of my S&NY layout. Nick left out the aisleways in his virtual version as not being necessary, since the digital railroad is essentially operated in the first person, and this results in some jaw-dropping scenic vistas. There are a few compromises, of course, mainly due to the structures and rolling stock available in the digital library, but the effect is still amazing. The view down the length of Laquin is especially good and looks very close to photos in Tom Taber’s logging series book “Ghost Lumber Towns of Central Pennsylvania”.

Nick Ozoraks’ Virtual S&NY Railroad

I really need to get cracking on the layout scenery; the digital version is way prettier than the real layout now!

Enjoy!

Besides scenery projects, I’ve been working on a few rolling stock projects. Our NMRA division started a weekly modeling work-session/chat every Thursday night as a way to keep interested members in contact. I found a weekly session is a good motivator to work on projects that can be divided into small bites while chatting online.

The first project was a resin F&C PRR FM flatcar kit. I pulled this one out of my stash of resin kits, and since I had never actually built a resin kit before I figured it would be a good one to start with, as the box actually include parts for two complete flatcars. If I messed one up, there was a spare to work on! The build was fairly straight forward, and the only downside was the completed cars weigh next to nothing. I decided to add a load of lead-shot-filled cable reels to add weight to the cars so they would track properly in operation. The reels are a laser wood kit from GCLaser with added detail and homemade decals. The load blocking was constructed of scale lumber and is taken from an ARA loading diagram.

Completed car end before load added.

Three-quarter view of completed car.

Car end after load added.

Side view of completed car and load.

Three-quarter view.

The second car project was also a “Thursday Night Build”. This project was a little simpler and consisted of a Rapido PRR F30a flat car and a resin-printed boiler load from Resin Car Works. The blocking was made of phosphor-bronze wire and scale lumber, following a loading diagram from the RCW website. Despite having a metal body, the car was still a bit light per NMRA standards, so I made styrene floors for the hollow boilers and added weight inside. The car ended up only about 1/8th of an ounce too light. I also swapped out the Chi-Com Kadee knock-off couplers for real Kadee scale couplers and used my usual weathering techniques for the deck and the rest of the car.

Side view of completed car and load.

Three-quarter view of completed car and load.

There are a few other projects in the works, and I’ll try not to let a year pass before updating again!

Continuing on with model railroad projects over the past year, I enlisted my son’s help with painting the backdrop behind the long Marsh Hill yard area. I wanted to give the viewer the impression of being down in the Lycoming Creek and Pleasant Stream valleys, with a couple of farms “over yonder” in the bottomland. My son helped with color values and blocking of the backdrop structures that would be visible through the 3-D scenery that would partially cover the 2-D painted buildings. On close inspection, things on the backdrop look a little abstract or “cartoony” but I hope that won’t matter once the Marsh Hill engine facility and other modeled structures are in place. Even as it looks now, none of my operators seemed to be bothered by the lack of backdrop detail when working the yard.

It’s a loooong scene…

Color values and blocking from reference photo on my son’s iPad.

Sketching structures in chalk on the backdrop.

Filling in colors with craft paints.

Some other structures at Marsh Hill. these didn’t turn out as well as the farm buildings, so I mostly covered them with 3-D trees.

Finishing touches to the farm.

Now we partially paint over all our prior work!

Adding 3-D scenery.

Adding ground cover and SuperTrees.

Done…

Done…

Done…

Done…

…and done!

To be continued…