James River Branch: News Archive

Website News Archive: November 2009

27 November 2009

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I thought I'd take the opportunity of a couple of days off to catch up on revising the Z Scale Truck and Coupler Review with the new products that have been released, including AZL's roller bearing trucks with redesigned wheels (right), Full Throttle's officially-released Bettendorfs, and Fox Valley Models' replacement wheelsets. By the way, I'm deeply honored to have learned that my report was responsible for AZL's decision to improve their wheelsets, and make no mistake, they are real beauties. Yet no sooner was I all caught up with the revisions when Full Throttle announced their latest product: Micro-Trains replacement metal wheelsets—in direct competition with Fox Valley Models. This should be very interesting to watch!

23 November 2009

The open house was a good time. It was great meeting some modelers who had a genuine interest in what I was doing. The last work done on the layout on the night before the open house was adding the herd of deer (right). But after so much intense modeling, I'm ready for a break. I think I'll be turning my attention to other neglected hobbies for a little while, so that I can come back to the James River Branch refreshed.

20 November 2009

Nothing noteworthy has been accomplished on the layout—I pretty much just tidied things up. Hope to see you Saturday or Sunday at Rick Spano's during the Open House!

19 November 2009

I've only been able to get dribs and drabs done the last couple of nights—as luck would have it, there was much competition from real life for my time. With only one evening left for last-minute work before the Open House, I decided to round out this evening with a new overall photo of the layout (click for a jumbo version). This is pretty much what folks will be seeing this weekend!

17 November 2009

Still groggy from meteor-watching very early this morning, I'm nevertheless moving along with the scenery around the farm. Regrettably, I've modeled myself into something of a corner here—which is not a new experience. Turning lemons into lemonade, I'm taking the hidden canyon all the way to the finish line anyway, with an eye toward the times when, like the bank, it will be featured in future photographs.

14 November 2009

I've been a ground-covering, tree-planting fiend for the past couple of days, and this afternoon I took a break to see if I could get a nice image of my progress. I've got to tell you, it's really hard capturing the feeling that the new patch of forest next to the cornfield evokes in person; most of the shots present little more than amorphous blobs of green. But one shot (out of seventeen) finally nailed the look—worthy, in fact, to add to the gallery—and with no digital trickery, not even cropping.

Speaking of images... this website now has approximately 1,400 of them (counting the fact that nearly every one of them has a thumbnail and an enlargement, that's about 2,800 files). And they were culled from roughly 8,000 original exposures.

13 November 2009

Up to now I've been concentrating on getting the layout's infrastructure in shape for the Open House. With the layout now relatively easy to operate, I've switched to cosmetics. With far too much of the town still unfinished to make any worthwhile headway in the time remaining, I'm doing as much scenery as I can, since that goes much faster than sidewalks and building foundations. Anyway, scenery is more fun to me. Pictures tomorrow.

12 November 2009

Even though I'm still preparing for the Model Railroad Open House, I was enticed into participating in a modeling challenge. The point of the challenge was to finish a small, simple project in an evening, and I decided that I could spare one night for a bit of fun. And it was worth it: it was a blast to build, and as a consequence I learned some new modeling tricks that will definitely come in handy down the road.

10 November 2009

Preparations for the Model Railroad Open House continue apace. Much of the work the last couple of nights has been focusing on infrastructure (such as wiring control panels, right), so not much of it's photo-worthy. One problem I face is deciding what cosmetic items to tackle: with so many things I could do, it's a bit overwhelming, and the choices are difficult to make.

8 November 2009

With the Model Railroad Open House approaching like a fast freight (November 21 and 22), I'm in a mad dash to wrap up as much as I can. The first order of business was getting the train running, which was nearly an all-day affair yesterday. It involved more than just thoroughly cleaning the track; I also had to fine-tune the grade crossing, do some temporary wiring, and perform a little locomotive maintenance (replace the traction tires with regular wheels and correct their gauge). To celebrate the first moving train since the golden spike and maiden run nearly a year ago, I shot some video:

1 November 2009

On a different—and very pleasant—note, I must share an email that I received this weekend. It really made me feel good about both my modeling and my website. Thank you, Pär, for taking the time to write such a nice message!

Dear David,

I found the web page about your layout, "the James River Branch", through a link on a Swedish Model Railway Site. Since then I have spent many hours reading about the layout and all its details. You have really made interesting and instructive web pages with many nice details and wonderful pictures. I am very impressed with both the layout and the web pages, and you have really given me a lot of inspiration and ideas. When looking at the pictures I just can't understand that this really is z-scale... I'm new to this and I would like to thank you for sharing all this knowledge and information on your web site.

Best regards,
Pär Ekstrand
Stockholm
Sweden