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Bayside & Tidewater

http://bs-and-t.com

The Haggis List

I was searching the internet the other evening trying to finds sites with tips and techniques for model railroad scenery. The search was coming up empty when I stumbled across the Haggis List Model Railroading FAQ.

I had discovered the list years ago but had forgotten about it. It contains hundreds of reader tips and solutions for doing just about anything on a model railroad - from layout design to scenery.

The only complaint I have is that it does not have pictures illustrating the ideas.

It looks like a great source of ideas. I've bookmarked it for future reference - so hopefully I won't forget about it again.

So, back to hunting for scenery tips and techniques. Anyone care to suggest web sites or blogs? Please leave a link in the comments section.

Scott

The Scrap Yard

It finally looks like GM Metals has been around for a long time. Or at least some of the junk there does. This area became the new home of some of the trees I made up for the Truro show.

You can just barely see Dickie Clothing through the dense canopy. The big notch at the left is where my lift-out bridge fits in. I need to get more junk, although Kim says I have enough junk now! Ha!

Scott

Conifers

These are some conifers I made to use on my modules during the Truro show. I "planted" them on "The Ridge" after the show.


These trees were relatively easy to make. I will take picture of the process sometime over the next little while and create a "how-to" to post here

The fire tower was the first structure I ever scratchbuilt. Being an ex-forestry guy it seemed like a natural thing to make.

Scott

A Service Shed

This is a little shack I built for the service track in Stevenville a while back but haven't highlighted yet. It took about two evenings to build and paint. It is constructed out of mat board, scale lumber. The roof is plain mat board covered with paint and a facial tissue, then weathered. The windows and chimney are from Grandt Line. Total cost... about $5

The equipment details (compressor, pump house, tanks, etc.) are lead bits from Woodland Scenics.

The little shack adds a nice bit of detail to the area.

Looks like early morning in Stevenville as the local crew gets ready to start a busy day switching businesses in the industrial section of town. There are lots of customers in Stevenville and Charlie and Fred have their work cut out for them today. Picard Packers and Dickie Clothing have big shipments ready to go, so they'll need lots of empties dropped off and loaded cars pulled out of the way.


After a long day Charlie's looking a little sore. He's been up and down out of the cab quite a few times today and his back has about had it. Being a brakemen in a busy industrial area is hard work. He's not looking forward to having to do it all over again tomorrow.

Later!

Scott

Tidewater Gets a Backdrop

You may have noticed the backdrop in the previous post about the new 0-8-0. Here are a couple more views of it.



It is from SceniKing. I think it looks great. Not glossy like some photo backdrops I've seen and just the right level of detail for a backdrop. There can be too much detail, which will draw visitor's attention away from the models.

One thing that completely surprised me is how close the sky in the backdrop matched the paint I used on the wall. I wish I could say it was good planning, but it was more like great luck!

I still have to ballast the yard and will add grasses and such to blend the backdrop into the foreground. Brian had a great suggestion to help blend things in even more - add 3 dimensional loading docks at the doors on the backdrop where space permitted. I'll definitely give that a try.

Scott

BS&T Times - Oct. 25, 1956

After going through a long and exhaustive tendering (no pun intended) process, BS&T management has purchased an old CP 0-8-0 steam locomotive for excursion passenger service. Management has, in addition, purchased 4 coaches for this new train. The engine has recently undergone a boiler inspection and will soon be in service, when demand for the service (operators) exists.

Engineer Billie Tate says, "She sure is a beaut! She looks like she just came out of the builder's shop!" I'm sure that won't last long after she goes into service.

(Editor's note: The loco is a Proto 2000 Heritage Steam o-8-o, and it really is a very nice looking engine. A sound decoder has been requested from Santa)

Scott

The New Trees

Well, the new trees turned out better than I had hoped. They received quite a few comments from the folks at the show.

The view looking down the road toward BigFoot Bridge.

In addition to the deciduous trees I was able
to create about 7 conifers.

Greg rerails a car at Hazard Bend.
The name is well deserved.

Perhaps I should start selling trees at shows? The only problem is that I like them so much it would be hard to part with some of them. But, if the price is right....!

Scott

The 2007 Truro Show

The weather was worrisome as we headed to Truro for the Annual Fall Model Railroad Show last Friday. The forecast said "Rain", the sky was ominous, as we had a truckload and trailer load of model railway "stuff". We carried 21 modules in all, plus the accompanying tools, electronic gadgets, freight cars, and locos. We were not looking forward to doing what we had done the past 3 years at the Truro show - load and unload in the rain.

Fortunately, the rain held off long enough for us to get unpacked. It started pouring about a half hour later.

Don P. and Ron D. already had all their gear inside before we arrived. Don even had a few modules set up. We started setting up the layout about 4:00 after determining our starting point - thanks to a borrowed tape measure from the N scale guys. Guess what - it was a tiny N scale tape measure, but it could extend to 6' thankfully.

Trains were moving by 8:00, but a supper break and socializing pushed the completion of the setup to about 10:00.

The layout as seen from the stage (29' x 38')

Saturday morning started off with breakfast at Fletcher's. We were back at the show about 8:00. A few minor finishing touches and the layout was ready for visitors. There were lots of folks around checking things out. A lot of regulars from previous years came around to say hello.

Greg, Steve D., Dave T., Don P. & Shelley (sitting)

Will, Ron, Al, & Derwin

The biggest surprise was seeing Jean and Carol! Carol broke her leg, very badly, a while back and we did not expect to see them at this show. Other UMG members that stopped in for a visit were Dave and Pam, Jeff Keddy (all the way from Winnipeg where he is currently living), and Stewart Gibb. If I've missed anyone please don't be offended, it was a busy day.

We started packing up about 4:00 (maybe a bit before - sorry Will) and were sitting at the China Garden restaurant by 5:45.

All in all the show was well attended and the UMG gang had a great time, as usual. I spent more money than I intended, as usual, but more on that later.

Scott

Module in a Week - Conclusion

Well, as you know I was building a new module to take to the Truro show last week. I was so busy between work, Kim's Crafts, and the module that I didn't get any time to post any updates on it.

I didn't quite get the module done, but it was done enough that I felt okay about including it in the UMG layout. The frame wasn't painted, and there was a little bit of blue foam showing through near the tracks, but overall it looked pretty good.










Since this was being used as an EoE (End of Earth) in the layout, there are a couple Railway employees warning oncoming trains that there is a hazard ahead. They set fusees a little farther up the line just to be certain. I don't see any blue flags though.

There's obviously more work to be done on the module. I'll leave that until the week before the Moncton show next spring.

Scott

A Module in a Week

Well, I was going to post some pictures of a module I started working on last Saturday, but apparently the memory card in my camera has gone corrupt. Hopefully it is not the camera! The images are all scrambled.

Anyway, my plan (hope) is to have a module ready to take to the Truro show on Friday. Yes, 2 days away.

The module will be a new End of Earth (EoE) replacement for our Spring Valley set. It will also function as a run through module if required. I plan to model some sort of obstruction on the tracks, like a rock fall, that will turn it into an EoE.

I built the 2' x 3' frame last Saturday and glued the foam to it on Sunday and Monday. Last evening I shaped the foam into hills and rocks and applied a coating of plaster. This evening will be grass, track and ballast, I hope. If I don't get all that done this evening I still have one more evening to finish and still have time for the glue to dry.

It won't be the first time we've taken a module to a show with the glue still drying!

I'll get a new memory card so I can get some pictures at the show.

Scott

Commentary on DCC

The goals of the UMG (Un-Named Modular Group) are to promote the hobby of model railroading and to expose people to the operations side of the hobby. Some would argue the primary goal is to have a good time with a bunch of great guys, but that's actually just a bonus.

One of the things that we encourage our "members" to do at public shows is to talk to visitors and explain what we do, why we do it, and how we do it, even at the expense of blocking the main line. During shows we have to have a "sweeper operator" go around the layout and move trains abandoned by operators engaged in deep conversation with a visitor.

One of the most common topics we get asked about is DCC. The amount of misinformation that is available on the web, and supposed "common knowledge" of non-DCC modelers, is astounding.

I've discovered a few sites lately with a lot of great information about DCC that I'd like to share. They shed some light on the myths and misinformation.

Joe Daddy has a lot of great information about Model Railroading Urban Legends which covers more than just DCC. His Legend #5 is one that always gets me - "Use the biggest wire for your DCC bus that you can, preferably 12 gauge twisted."

First, have you ever tried to twist 12Ga. wire? Second, why would you need heavier wire for your layout than what's used to carry power throughout your house? Most home wiring uses 14Ga. wire to carry 110 volts at 15amps! Most DCC layout wiring carries 15 - 20 volts at 5amps.

The pundits of heavy wire state that there is less resistance in the larger wire resulting in less power loss. Some hunting on the web shows that 16Ga. copper wire will lose about 6.5v over 100m (328ft.), while 14Ga will lose about 4v in the same distance (at 5 amps). This would be a problem on some very large layouts but not so much for the average home layout. If voltage loss is a concern you should place the command station/booster in the middle of the section it is powering to reduce the wire run as much as possible. If your runs are really long, adding boosters to the middle of power blocks will help.

I used 16Ga stranded wire. Apparently, stranded wire should have less power loss because electricity runs on the surface of the wire. So, more wires equals more surface area equals less power loss.

Steve Jones has several pages dedicated to DCC Myths on his blog - Electric Nose. The one that irks me the most is the issue of DCC Friendly Turnouts (being in the UK Steve calls them "points"). Some websites scare modelers away from DCC by telling them they need to make a tons of modifications to their turnouts before they can run DCC. Steve points out that it is not a problem of DCC, it is more often a problem of wheels, or the turnout, being out of gauge.

I've built two DCC layouts of my own, and helped friends with several more. We have never had to do anything more than insulating the frog rails on power routing turnouts to avoid shorts. Well, there were a few used turnouts that we had to set the gauge of the point rails and some that we had to shim the guardrail, but those were more of a derailment issue than a shorting issue.

DCC command stations are much more efficient at detecting shorts than DC systems are. When trains are run on a DC layout there may be shorts happening all over the layout, but neither you nor the DC controller notice them so the trains keep rolling along. DCC systems are very sensitive to shorts since the power output (5 to 10 amps) is generally much higher than DC systems. They shut down at the first sign of a short to protect the layout. So a layout that seemingly runs fine on DC may not run quite so fine on DCC. But that not a problem of DCC, it's a layout problem and is rarely very difficult to fix.

You'll see a lot of layouts on the web that have what looks like very complicated wiring. Some people will think that's because they use DCC. On those layouts DCC is only a small part of all the wiring. Items like electric turnout controls, signal systems, occupancy detection, and scenic lighting all add to the wires running under a layout. You shouldn't just look at a picture of complex wiring and think "DCC". Read the text and see what else they've got going on their layout. Remember, DC layouts can have much more complex wiring than DCC layouts due to multiple throttles and power blocks.

Railroadman, Daryl Dankwardt, has a great post about complex wiring - Don't be Intimidated by all the Wiring - that shows photos of his wiring. It looks complex, but he uses DC and is doing a lot with all those wires. He has electric switch machines and has a control/dispatcher's panel with LED indicators, turnout controls, and throttle selection switches. His wiring is very neat, especially when compared to some other layouts I've seen.

Scott

Trees, Yet Again!

Sorry for another post about trees so soon, but I had to share these ones.

I had read about using sagebrush twigs as model tree stems and tried to find an inexpensive source of twigs. All the commercial sources I could find were quite expensive. Then, one day I read a message from a guy in British Columbia who offered to send some twigs to someone else for the cost of shipping. I quickly shot him off an email asking if he'd consider the same for me. He said he would. A few weeks later a very large box arrived at my door full of fresh picked sagebrush twigs. The cost of shipping? Only $15!!

I made a few trees with them shortly after they arrived. Being the nice guy I am they ended up near a river scene on Derwin's layout - Canadisle Rail.

Considering I've been on a tree making binge the last couple weeks it was inevitable I'd pull out a few more of those twigs. When you start making a tree you never really know what it will look like in the end. I'm always surprised that they rarely look like I picture them at the start of the process. They always look good, but not like I imagined.

These newest sagebrush trees completely floored me when I finally got the leaves on them. So much so that I'm not sure if I'll risk taking them to the Truro show. Brian was in for a visit the other evening and his comment was that they were the closest thing to a real tree he's ever seen. I hope you agree.



I used the same process that I use for all my deciduous trees. The only thing different about these is the realism of the stem and the branching structure.

Scott

Tidying

I am making some progress with the tidying up chores around the layout room. Remember this picture taken a while back?
It was taken just after I "reorganized" the multi-purpose room. Sure looks organized, doesn't it?

I call it the multi-purpose room, because it serves many functions. It's obviously home to the staging yard. I call it Wholinthall - a variation of "hole in the wall". It is the location of the Lenz stuff - command station, XPA/phone connections, programming track and computer for JMRI. It is a storage area for stuff that there is no space for under the layout. And, it is the paint room. Someday the room will also serve as dispatcher's office. Like we'll ever have enough operators to either need a dispatcher, or to be able to afford a dispatcher.
Anyway, I got the desk cleaned up a little more and have great plans for better organization in the future. Better organized? Ha! You always have to strive for something!!!

Later,

Scott

Crew Lounge - Part Two

Well, I finally finished painting the room on Saturday evening. What a job it was trying to cover up those ugly stripes! (Sorry Kristopher)

So, here is the before picture as a reminder...

And here is the after picture...

It looks much better I think. Now, I just have to be patient while I try to collect some appropriate furnishings - we want the room to be used as a guest room so we'll be looking for a sofa/bed or futon. And I'd like to have a few more "comfy" chairs.

Now, we do have a few usage conflicts. Kim wants to move the computer here from our bedroom, and John wants to set up a recording studio in the room. So I'm going to have to get really creative with storage and workspace solutions really quick.

Later!

Scott

Trees. More Trees!!!!!!

Well, sticking with my resolution to have trees for my UMG modules at the Truro Train Show in October I have been fairly busy. I've spent quite a few evenings since MudFest making trees while watching TV.

Two groupings of future trees.

I use natural materials for tree forms. The trees in the background are made using the dried flowers of False Spirea. I harvest these during the winter when the old seed pods are very dry and crumble off the stem easily. The trees in the foreground use a type of plant that I don't think we've identified yet. They grow in, amoung other places I'm sure, the field behind Jon Huneault's house in Aylesford, N.S. They have lots of fine branches and look like a very bushy tree.

In either case, I use Woodland Scenics Polyfiber for fine branches. Pull a small amount of the polyfiber off the bunch and roll it into a tight ball. Then start pulling it out, teasing it, until you have a very light and airy puffball. It should be teased out fine enough that you could lose it if you dropped it on the floor. I make a bunch of these, some small and some large for variations of branch sizes before moving on to the next step.

I put a fine coating of white glue on the branches that I will be attaching the polyfiber puff balls to. Then I either skewer the puffball with the branch or drape it over the branch. You can leave some branches leafless to simulate dead branches.

Remember the leaves of some real trees do not go around a branch in a perfect circle. You should also remember that not all trees are perfect globular forms. Real trees can have branches sticking out at odd angles and have clumps of leaves outside the main canopy of the tree.

The final step is to apply the leaves. I used to use cheap hairspray as adhesive to attach leaf material. It's fine for trees that get planted on a home layout and never get moved, but trees that are transported for a portable layout need something more. Lately I've been using clear, mat wood finish (Varathane). It's a little more expensive than hairspray, but I think it will hold up better.

I use different leaf material depending on the type of tree I'm attempting to replicate. I use regular ground foam for smaller bush type trees - ones that typically have smaller leaves. For larger trees I use a product I discovered a couple years ago by accident - leaves from Selkirk Scenery. If you've never visited Bill's site before you should check out his "How To" links. He makes some incredible scenery!

A tree made with Selkirk Scenery
leaves and False Spirea stem.

Anyway, spread out some newspaper to protect the floor from the adhesive and to catch excess leaf material for re-use. It's a good idea to have two areas of newspaper, one for spraying and one for excess leaf material. I start by spraying the underside of the tree and sprinkling a darker shade of leaf material over it, from the bottom up. This will simulate leaves shaded by the upper branches. Shake off the excess leaf material and spray another coat of adhesive to secure the leaves. Now, spray adhesive from the top down and sprinkle on a lighter shade of leaf material. Shake off the excess and spray another coat of adhesive.

Once the adhesive dries the tree is ready to plant.

It may take a few trees to get the knack of which colors work best for your layout, and your lighting conditions. Before you know it you'll have a whole forest of trees on your layout.
I'll have more on making trees in future posts.

Have fun making and planting trees!!!

Scott

New loco on the BS&T? Maybe.

I received an email a couple weeks ago from Joe Grubba at Factory Direct Trains offering to send a sound equipped Blueline loco for my club (the Half Nutters) to have a look at. He'd pay the shipping. If anyone in the group was interested they could purchase it at a discounted price. If not then we could send it back to him at his expense. He'd pay the shipping for future orders from club members.

Well, I could not resist the offer! Since I'd been half heartedly looking for an inexpensive steam loco with sound I chose the PRR M1. When I discovered the loco didn't come with a DCC decoder (the sound decoder works for DC out of the box), Joe offered to throw in a Lenz Silver decoder at no charge. So I told him to send me the loco and decoder post-haste. I couldn't wait to try it out!

My wife called me at work last Friday to tell me it had arrived. I wanted to take the rest of the day off, but had to curb my enthusiasm until I got home at my usual time. We had company when I got home so had to wait a little longer. They left finally and I was able to run to the train room to "play".

The loco, decoder, and "DCMaster" for
controlling sound on a DC layout. There was a
T-Shirt as well, but it didn't make the photo.

The decoder install was a breeze - definitely one of the simplest installs I've ever done. According to the instructions I had to move the wiring for the headlight from one plug to another, remove the small circuit board from the 8 pin NMRA plug, and insert the plug for the Lenz decoder.

Boom! On to the layout to try it on address 3. Wow! It was loud! But it worked wonderfully.

Back to the programming track to set the address. Oh, oh. I had read about problems programming decoders in Blueline locos, but had forgotten. After a few failed attempts programming the address of the sound decoder I started scouring the internet trying to find a solution.

Because there are two decoders, one for motor and one for sound, you have to lock one while you program the other. You can't program anything on the sound decoder using a Lenz system on the programming track. It has to be done using PoM (Programming on the Main), or Ops Mode Programming. But, you cannot set a decoder's address with Lenz using Ops Mode. I could set the sound volume, at least.

Joe did send me some information that I will try when I get a chance and post the results here. He's been very good with responding to email queries.

Anyway, the loco runs wonderfully, but seems to be a little less forgiving about poor trackwork than any of my diesel locos. Not that I have a lot of bad track, but I do have a few spots that cause problems every once in a while. The M1 will derail at these spots every time. I'll have to get busy and get those areas repaired.

I'm no audiophile, and no expert about prototypically correct locomotive sounds, but to me the sound from this loco is great! The only complaint I have is that you can hear a bit of a background noise (hiss) when the loco is stopped. During an operating session or a train show this shouldn't be a problem.

The M1 in Bayside Yard at the head
of the BS&T excursion train

If I can get the necessary track repairs done, the BS&T may just have new power for a new passenger extra - an excursion train from Bayside to Tidewater and back.

Scott

Shield's Up!

So, I finally installed my Power Shield (PS4) from Tony's Trains a few weeks ago. I installed the thing the afternoon of an operating session on the BS&T. I only had time to install two zones. But it was enough to make a difference during the session.

The feature that really bugs me about using Lenz DCC is the way it handles shorts. Having to press a button to recover from a short is a pain. What usually happens is that more than one person presses the button - the first guy turns the layout back on, the second guy turns it off again. Now you wonder if the short cleared up? So everyone fiddles with their locos and the whole process starts again with a couple guys pressing buttons. You'd think we'd learn to assign an "official button presser". Nope.

Anyway, we only had a few shorts during the next session (there's still a few turnouts in need of repair), but we didn't have to press any buttons. The PS4 reset automatically after the short was cleared.

I installed the other two power zones on the afternoon of the last operating session. It seems an op session provides an incentive to get something done on the layout. It's great! Now only 1/4 of the layout is affected when a short occurs.


Both yards at Bayside and Tidewater are on separate zones, as are Stevenville/Derwin's Drop and Chappellton/Kenville.

The next project for the PS4 is to install short indicator lights around the layout. I think this is something that can be done, but not exactly sure yet how to do it.

I know, it'll be even better once I get the source of the shorting problems repaired. That's a project for another day(s).

Scott

Hangin' Around

For many, many years (at least 10) operators on the SVR and BS&T have had to use the post at the bottom of the stairs to hang their coats and jackets. This was workable, and cheap, but if the first guy in was also the first guy to leave he'd have to dig through all the coats to find his own.

The other evening we were operating at Brian's NeverDone Railway and when we were leaving he asked if I could use some scrap wood for burning. He and Susan had just finished renovating their bathroom (a great job they did too!) and had some scraps left over. Always looking for free heat in the shed during the winter I said "Sure!". So we started piling the 2 or 3 armloads in my trunk and I discovered a piece with 4 coat hooks. "Are you sure you don't want this?", I asked. "Nope." was the reply.

Since this past Sunday had the BS&T on the op schedule I quickly put it up. Finally, a proper place to hang coats and jackets.


A lounge, coat hooks, what else will I do to keep operators happy? Kim's cooking sure helps! More on that later.

Scott

The BS&T gets a lounge!!!!

Wow,! After years of waiting patiently, struggling through endless hours of changing diapers, feeding, cleaning, helping with homework, calming sibling rivalry, prom, graduation I finally have a crew lounge!! Well, not a dedicated crew lounge, but we'll be able to use it on operating nights - yippee!

Granted, it doesn't look much like a crew lounge right now (I have to question my son's taste in paint colour), but in my mind it will look like the inside of an old train station. There will probably be some influx of reality as I compete with the desires of my wife and "still living at home son" (who really wants a poker/movie room), but hopefully it will be close.

Does anyone have suggestions for the interior design of the train station crew lounge?

Later!

Scott

Model Railroading Weather?

Is there such a thing as suitable weather for model railroading? I think so. Model railroading weather is when it is too chilly or wet to be outside doing other things. It certainly felt like model railroading weather this morning when I left for work! I could see my breath!

Anyway, on with the BS&T update...

I have no photos to show today. Sorry. I'll have some next week.

Since returning from the UMG RailFest I haven't done much on the layout other than put things away and tidy up a bit.

I thought I'd take advantage of having some things out of the "Control Room" and do some cleaning and rearranging. It looks a whole lot bigger now, especially since some of the stuff that was stored there got moved to the new "Crew Lounge" that I inherited after Kristopher moved out to go to university. I'd like to get a better storage solution for the supplies that I have stored on a shelf at the moment - something that takes up less space.

RailFest made me realize that I really must get busy making more trees. The ones I used on my modules were now gracing the BS&T layout and I didn't have the heart to pull them all out. So I had no trees for the modules at RailFest. My plan is to make a bunch before the Truro show in October, use them for the show, and then put them on the BS&T when I get back. Then I'll make more new ones for the spring show in Moncton, which will also end up on the BS&T. This way I have an incentive to make lots of trees.

I'll get pictures of the "cleaned up" control room, "Crew Lounge", and trees to show you next week.

Later!

Scott

Almost a Mud Fest, definitely a RailFest!

(warning - long post ensues)

With all the rain we had in Maitland on Friday night and Saturday it almost was a MudFest. The event got its name this year from the location. Maitland Nova Scotia is located at the mouth of the Shubenacadie River which looks rather muddy when the tide is out.

Setup began Friday afternoon about 3:00. We, the P.E.I. group, didn't arrive until close to 4:30 unfortunately. We got to work right away and had the modules set up within a couple hours. By 9:30 the layout was pretty much up and running.

A "stitched" image of the layout (Ric Hamilton photo)

When we set up at trains shows the layout is much smaller (60' - 80' in length) and takes only a couple hours to set up. But with about 150' of modules it takes a lot more time.

It was the first time we used my PS4 from Tony's Trains Exchange and that took some time to get wired in. I was sure I had all the plugs installed so that the power phase would be right but somehow I messed up two zones and had to swap wires around at the board. At least it was a simple fix.

The crews get their instructions before the operations begin

Trying to sort out the shorting issue on David's modules was another matter. We probably spent at least 30 minutes trying to sort it out. We finally rigged it so that it wasn't shorting but the problem was not really solved. But, we were able to run trains.

The Fullerton kids

Some young railfans stake out Allegheny Paper as a great source of action.

Little did they know they'd get monstrous action!
(Check out the top of the building and the girl's hand)

We left the school about 10:00 and went back to Will's. Dave Thompson, Al Bishop, Ryan Nelson, and myself stayed at Will's. Everyone else came back to drop off cars and arrange car pooling back into Truro where they were staying. Before they left we arrange the schedule for the next day. We were to meet at the school at 8:00.

The next morning I woke up about 6:00 and went into the house for a shower. I figured someone would be waiting to use the shower when I came out, but there was no one. Actually, there was also no sound of life from within the house at all. I went outside to see if Al and Ryan were up. Everything was very quiet. It was raining so I sat in the barn where there was some shelter.

Al and Ryan got up about 7 so I went into the house with them to wait. I was sure someone would wake up with all the activity in the house. But after half an hour we went back outside to wait.

David running a Port Yarmouth Turn. Some of these were too long!

Another Port Yarmouth Turn

At 8:00 I was getting a little impatient so I got Will's phone # from information and dialed it. I guess that created a stir. Dave T. finally got up, followed closely by Will. We were at the school before 8:30 where everyone was waiting and a red faced Will had to take the heat for the late start.

The first thing we did was to get the coffee on (I was really croaking for one after having been awake for two and a half hours with no Tim's within walking distance). We got the rest of the rolling stock on the layout and populated the industries with freight cars to start. We were ready to start operating by 10:30.

Al working the Hazard Bend Wayfreight.

Ryan running the Spring Valley Wayfreight

Shawn had worked out a great spreadsheet to create car movements on a modular layout. But never having seen the layout before he wasn't aware of the length of passing sidings. Some of the trains were a little to long. But the nice thing about the spreadsheet was the flexibility to change things on the fly resulting in slightly shorter trains.

Operations went quite smoothly. We discovered a few turnouts in the yard that created shorts when locos went over them. They'll have to be replaced before the next setup. Greg's new Wye modules set worked quite well, except for a few shorting issues with some locos and the long reach required to throw the far turnouts.

A rare sight indeed - Steve's got an almost empty yard!

Steve's new 90 degree curve set looks great so far. He is using a new construction method found on the internet. It should create a fairly sturdy and lightweight module.

The PS4 worked perfectly except for about 4 times when it wouldn't recover from a short. It would recover after I disconnected one of the leads for the zone. I figure it's related to having several sound equipped locos in the zone at once. It was odd though because most times the PS4 would recover on it's own. I will include a switch for each zone on the board to handle this situation a little easier.

One really stubborn situation we had over the weekend was some decoders that would get reprogrammed once in a while (usually after a short occured, but not after every short). What made it more interesting was that even though all three engines had different types, and brands of decoders they all got set the same way - Deceleration = 96, Vstart, Vmid, and Vmax = 0. Fortunately we had programmer set up connected to a laptop running DecoderPro so the fix was fairly painless. It was still a nuisance having to deal with it every 30 - 45 minutes. I'll have to ask some of the experts on the DCC groups.

The Saturday evening slow-down. Our legs were pretty tired after standing for 10 hours!

Supper on Saturday was a barbecue in the rain at Will's. We put Will outside with the barbecue while we set up a table and chairs in the barn. I think everyone was full by the end of it.

We went back to the school after supper to run a few more trains and called it quits about 10:00. Some of the folks staying in Truro enjoyed a video of trains running on P.E.I. that Shawn did many years ago. Then went chasing a real train in the Wentworth Valley. They had a slightly later night than we did in Maitland.

Hmm... a new fad in the memorial business?

Ray spends time railfanning.

Sunday started out like Saturday should have, although I still beat Will to the shower at 6:20. We had a great breakfast prepared by Sue Ellen, Will, and myself (I felt guilty sitting there not helping!) and got to the school about 8:00. We ran a few "formal" trains while we waited for the "public" part of the weekend started. Except for a few teachers that had some summer work to do, and Will's family we didn't have very many visitors.

Shawn enjoys running the yard.

Steve's back in Hazard Bend

We started packing up about 1:00 pm and were saying our good-byes by 3:30. Everyone heading west met at a restaurant near Truro for a group meal to end off the weekend. We arrived back on P.E.I. about 7:30. By the time we done distributing and unpacking the gear it was about 9:00. My own bed sure felt good last night!

Dave has Port Yarmouth figured out finally!

Al switching the Spring Valley Turn

All in all it was a great weekend, as usual. It's great that everyone in the UMG group gets along so well. I think it's the informal nature of the group that makes it less stressful and a whole lot more fun. I'm looking forward to the Truro show this October. With all the new members and modules we are accumulating we should be able to set up unique layout with new modules no-one has seen before.

A common site during MudFest.

Coffee and spare locos were the order of the day.

Later!

Scott