CSX Hanover Subdivision

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I remember that photo! And I remember having to fight to keep my lens dry!

I forget, are you doing that spot?

[mu26aeh]

No, I do not have New Oxford on the layout.  But I do have space for similar station in Hanover near diamond where CSX crosses old MA/PA line.  It now is home to an insurance company and is a customer of mine.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ah, good.

Gotta save something for V2.0, right?

[mu26aeh]

Ah, good.

Gotta save something for V2.0, right?

Exactly !  I did give Mr Sprague, who drew up V1.0, a certain space/dimension to work with, giving him no restrictions, as with V1.0, I already had benchwork up, and didn't want to go thru that again.  More I thought about it, and more examples I seen of his work, I kind of kick myself at this point.  I am amazed at what he came up with and am happy with what I have, it does run/operate well.  This new version obviously has no timetable, and I told Mr Sprague that he could work on it at his will, if he wished, when he has some down time or a break from designing other layouts.

If/when a V2.0 happens, who knows.  But if it happens, I would like to include are areas near Hanover, Smiths Siding, where CSX interchanges traffic with YorkRail, possibly the Hanover Foods sidings, and the Hanover engine terminal/yard itself.  If room allows, Dal-Tile, Morton Buildings, Gettysburg RR interchange, Grit Mill (shingle material) and Maryland Midland interchange at Highfield/Blue Ridge Summit.  The new space will be bigger, but probably not by much, so adding any of this would be due to his ability and talent to design it as such.

[R L Smith]

mu26aeh

back in the 70's and 80's I used to make a quarterly treck to Gilbert's in Gettysburg
and Paul's in New Oxford

stopped by Tommy Gilbert's a couple years ago to find it dwindling
and to New Oxford to discover that Paul's is long gone

nonetheless the locations provide wonderful memories

sincerely
Gary

Gary - +1 from me ,as I lived in the area in those days too.  Speaking of memories, sometimes I'd see an eastbound train crew of the WM (well, Chessie System in those years) stop the train short of the Washington Street crossing and get their dinner from Tommy's Pizza.  Also saw that once with a westbound whose crew member went into the Lincoln Diner for takeout.  That was probably much more rare due to blocking crossings east of Carlisle Street.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming... 

Ron

[wm3798]

Is it true that CSX is threatening to tear down the New Oxford station?  I've heard they're trying to extort the tenants to buy it, or the town, or somebody under threat of the torch.  Good old Chessie the Knife... old habits die hard, old buildings die easy.

[mu26aeh]

I think CSX wanted paid for the ground the station sits on.  Looks like groups have raised enough money to purchase said ground.

https://www.facebook.com/traincampaign/

[mu26aeh]

Amazing what happens when you ballast your track and don't run trains after that for a while.      With a visitor(s) set to stop by next week, I figured I would get the basement cleaned up in general and check out the layout for problem areas.  Did I find them !  Now mind you, I ran trains for 3 days during 2 different open houses after getting all the track laid pre ballast.  I had 6 or 7 dead sections of track.  1 was due to a loose suitcase connection, others were lack of feeders.  Thought I had enough seeing things ran fine before, but just goes to show you can never have enough feeders.  Also had a switch I could not get power all the time, so I ended up tearing it out.  Ran it under the faucet to loosen/clean all the ballast from it, re-installed it and no issues.  Must have had some glue/ballast in the mechanism somewhere. 

Afterwards, I had both my kids take turns at the throttle .  My son ran the NS powered coal train for the paper mill.  He dumped one car while splitting the train as he did not listen to the roadmaster (me).  I told him to stop the train just after the first coal hopper cleared the switch.  Well, he stopped after the entire train cleared the switch and had backed into a building at the end of the siding.  That resulted in an extra meeting after the ops session explaining the rules and regulations of the subdivision.   My daughter ran the Rock Runner from Bittinger to Baltimore and back.  In both cases, I had them collect their power, find and connect to their train (already blocked to go), walk the train (check for all cars coupled together.  For ease, this time I had everything coupled.  Next time, won't be so easy).

[Blazeman]

  With a visitor(s) set to stop by next week, I figured I would get the basement cleaned up in general and check out the layout for problem areas.

You don't have to get it gussied up for me. See you Saturday.

[mu26aeh]

You don't have to get it gussied up for me. See you Saturday.

well, I at least needed to get the workbench sorted out.  No way any work would get done in the shape it was in.

[mu26aeh]

Haven't done much on the layout directly last couple of weeks.  In the modeling time I have had, I've been weathering some cars and doing some decoder installs.  I recently finished up this visitors from a bygone era.

20160327_152232 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

And weathered these cars using decals from Weathering Solutions, pens, and washes.

20160326_184104 by Adam Henry, on Flickr
20160326_172015 by Adam Henry, on Flickr
20160326_171751 by Adam Henry, on Flickr
20160320_195732 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

Got this car started late Sunday night.  Damn graffiti artists hanging out under the overpass in Emory Grove.

20160328_203249 by Adam Henry, on Flickr
20160328_203409 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

Southdown cars were just done off the cuff until they looked used and abused.  Cargill and the Winchester & Western car were taken from photos I found on the web.

Cargill  SAMX 60018
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2391546

Winchester & Western #4107
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=743829
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1673617

[mu26aeh]

So after seeing this picture last night while doing some internet railfanning

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/520626/

I got some motivation to do a little work on that area of my layout.  Here is what I got with a couple minutes of cutting and shaping foam board, and staging some trains and the only building I have that looks like a station.

20160329_210718 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

http://www.railfanguides.us/baltimore/map2/IMG_0818.JPG

20160329_210829 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

[wm3798]

Those bridge piers look amazing.

[mu26aeh]

Those bridge piers look amazing.

Thanks.  I found a file over on n scale.net from @gary60s of the stone pattern.  I resized in a little bit and printed it out.  Cut a piece of trim board I had laying around, rounded the ends and wrapped the paper around, secured with elmers.  There are a couple spots where colors bled from the glue but you won't see it with deck in place. Anything you can notice, it is like subtle weathering.

He also has other types of stone/brick work as well.  I have included link for file I used.
http://www.nscale.net/forums/downloads/stt9_7w6.jpg

[mu26aeh]

Anyone know of a model out there that resembles Western Maryland stations/depots ?  Glyndon and Hanover both have a distinctive roof line that I have not found on any available models.  If anyone knows of something close, let me know.  I may just have to bite the bullet and try rolling my own.

Glyndon station

http://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=5822

Hanover station

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8040873,-76.9858679,3a,75y,25.83h,78.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9Nd-GEuiSwk4sLLxunaQ8A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656