Being “retired” does not necessarily translate into “more time”. In fact, I seem to be busier since retirement 2 years ago (!) than I was while still working. Still, retirement does give a certain flexibility to one’s schedule, and I took advantage of an opportunity last week, along with a rare warm sunny December day to visit fellow Division 12 member Dick Bradley and his most excellent semi-freelanced Pennsylvania & Maryland Railroad layout. I traveled with another Division 12 member Ray Brown. Ray is building a large B&LE-themed layout, and his progress is documented here: Bessemer & Lake Erie in HO Scale. It being a nice warm day, Ray wanted to give his Dodge Challenger a stretch, so we had a nice ride on the way to Dick’s.
Nice ride!
Dick Bradley is MMR #37. You can view an interview with Dick, conducted by Division 12 members Rob Bennett and Bill Schopf, here: Interview with a Master Model Railroader. You can also see a video tour of Dick’s Pennsylvania & Maryland Railroad layout here: Layout Tour Update: Dick Bradley’s Pennsylvania & Maryland. Dick welcomed us on arrival, and we immediately headed to the basement to see the railroad. The P&M is a proto-freelanced railroad heavily influenced by the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad (Don’t confuse the two!), but Dick also runs PRR and Western Maryland equipment.
Heading down the stairs, visitors are greeted by a long scratch-built wooden trestle bridge:
Scratchbuilt in the days before laser-cutters and 3-D printers!
Numerous scratch-built and kitbashed structures populate the layout, and there are many small scenes, too numerous to take in during an afternoon visit.
Large well-detailed factory building.
Mill complex scratch-built from prototype photos. (I used a bit of Photoshop magic on this one…)
Ray was having entirely too much fun running trains and switching cars while I shot photos.
I should have brought tripod for some photo-stacked shots. Oh well…
Dick gives Ray the run-down on how the railroad operates.
All too soon we had to take our leave of Dick and the P&M. Next time, I’ll have to bring a tripod! Thanks to Dick Bradley, MMR #37 for a most enjoyable December afternoon!
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