August 30th, 2009
I made two trips to Pennsylvania in 2009. I went in May and again in August. The May trip was cloudy and overcast on my only free day, but I was able to get some new shots around Portage, PA and Altoona to Tyrone. My second trip in August did not leave much time for watching trains. I did get some shots in the Pittsburgh area, but my memory card failed and I lost some good early morning shots around the old Homestead Works. I will be back there in the fall so maybe I will get lucky. The good news is that with a new memory card, I stopped in Cresson and caught a heavy east-bound manifest with a switcher in the consist. I took a couple of shots of him in Cresson and beat him to Gallitzin, where I got him going by the old “AR” Tower and dropping down the slide. I also took a couple of pictures on Horseshoe Curve.
A couple of sad things to report about Horseshoe Curve. It is overgrown again. If you want to visit there, and see the trains, I would go from late fall, when the leaves are gone to early spring when the buds are just starting. It’s just too overgrown for any other time. The other sad thing is that the Pennsy style signal bridges are falling. The most visible one for the curve may already be down as I write this. When I was there on August 20th 2009 the new mast had been erected. So if you are to get there this year, forget the curve. Instead, you should go to places like Lilly, Summer Hill and Tipton (McFarlands) and see if those signal bridges are still up. Get your pictures of them while you can.
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March 17th, 2009
The last couple of years I have been getting back to my own model railroad. I do not have a large layout. I have roughly a 10ft. x 10ft. layout with coal mine, power plant and some local switching industries. One of these days I would love to expand it. Of course traffic rights would have to be negotiated.
For years I had a small MSN Group called the Gauley River Railroad. Well MSN took all the small groups down. I also know that my railroad had the same name as a real Gauley River Railroad with reporting marks GRIV. I used GRR which turns out were reporting marks for the Georgetown Railroad. So I decided to go with something new and fresh. So I decided upon the Appalachian Northern. It was a toss-up between that and the Appalachia River, but I thought that was too specific. The Appalachian Northern seems a little more user friendly and gives me some leeway, if I ever get expansion rights. (However, before I expand, I have to finish what I am building.) Anyway, I did a Google search for Appalachian Northern and did not get any specific hits. i then went to a website that had railroad reporting marks. ANR was already taken, but ANOR would work just as fine and no other railroad had it. So it is now the Appalachian Northern. I plan to get decal sets soon. Watch for my progress.
A.J.
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March 17th, 2009
Please check out my tribute page to the old NVRRA layout in Bolton.
http://www.gemperfilm.com/a-tribute-to-the-bolton-nvrra-layout/
Thanks.
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February 28th, 2009
Just a quick update. After discussion with some friends and local experts on DCC. It was decided that my power supply may be going bad. So for $40 I went out and purchased a new supply and hope to get it installed this weekend or first time I get some time.
My old power supply was about 9 years old and was purchased fron Tony’s Train Exchange via mail order. Tony’s is in Vermont. These first power supplies did not come with and enclosure and so you had to buy one for it. Over the years, I understand that there could have been problems with them. But hey, I had mine for at least 9 years. I don’t know if that is normal shelf life or not, but no complaints from me.
A.J.
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February 16th, 2009
Have you ever had one of those days where nothing goes right. Or you have a project you are working on and one glitch leads to another. You end up spending som much time trying to take the easy way out, you end up spending more time than what you would have done if you had done it right in the first place.
What I am talking about here is my test track. I cheaped out on the wiring and used 20 gauge wires. This worked well until I put a locomotive on it that was equipped with a QSI decoder. It programmed well but then when I flipped the switch to have the test track get mainline power, the locomotive did not respond. Frustration sets in.
So I go get my handy voltage detector and start testing everything. Well this story is not over. I replaced all the wiring except for the last foot, with 16 gauge stranded. This did the trick in that all my locomotives worked again, except this one with the QSI decoder. It is not the locomotive as it runs perfectly on the test track. So the problem has to be the last couple of feet of 20 – 22 gauge wire. So next weekend I plan to take out this wire and solder the 16 gauge wire to the track. I hope it works.
I knew that QSI locomotives drew some power, but I never ran into this problem before as the rest of my layout is wired with 14 gauge stranded bus and and 18 gauge drops. You live and learn and waste time in the process. I will let you know how it goes once I solder the 16 gauge to the track.
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February 15th, 2009
It has been a snowy winter here in eastern Massachusetts. A lot of snow, but unfortunately I have not had the time to go out and get more snow pictures. After spending all the time digging out it seems the last thing on my mind is to go out again in the cold and wet and try to get some pictures of trains. Especially since the predictability and timing is harder than ever this year. I must be getting old. So this winter I have concentrated more on my model railroad.
I finally built a 10 foot straight test track. I also purchased a scale speedometer that you can get from Greenway Products or www.trainspeed.com. It took me longer than I thought to build it. What I thought would take a couple of hours, ended up taking up the better part of weekend. Now that I have it, I can check out my locomotives and adjust the speed settings, via DCC so that they can run together. I wrote an article about it for my local clubs newsletter. I will publish here after the newsletter is out. I also spent some time cleaning up my work area.
I am still in the midst of some projects. My coal mine is coming along and since I moved a piece of track I had used for programming, I now have more space for the little coal mine community. There are always things to keep me busy on my railroad. Time to fix things here and there. Regular maintenance. My home layout is roughly a 10ft by 10ft layout. It keeps me busy and it makes me wonder how some people manage to build these basement empires.
Until next time, stay warm, stay safe.
AJ
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January 5th, 2009
Hi all. I have been busy through the holidays both with model railroad and issues not related to railroading and model railroading. What I have done is manage to get the test track under way. I am about 80 percent completed with it. I will have a new programming track, a DCC and a DC test track. Basically it is two tracks that are 10 feet long. The tracks are straight with no turnouts. I am also working on putting in a speedometer so I can balance out locomotive consists. I will have more later. A.J.
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October 18th, 2008
This past week the fall colors have been at their peak in eastern Massachusetts. With that in mind I went to three different locations. On October 10, I spent some time at Westborough, Massachusetts and was able to snag Q437. The colors were not at peak. A few days later, I went out to Charlton Hill and got a couple of shots of Q168 coming up Charlton Hill through the S curve at Gauthier Road. I then headed west and spent a few hours at a classic New England railfan site, the mill at West Warren, Massachusetts. These photos are in the New England Gallery. I hope you enjoy.
A.J.
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September 28th, 2008
I have slowly been going through and organizing the pictures I have taken over the years. So I have added a lot more pictures to the New England Trains Gallery. Some photos are as recent as August of 2008. Others go back to the mid 90’s or earlier.
I also wanted to show some progress of my model railroad. I have been building the New River Mine by Walthers. I have been taking my time with it. Sometimes I may only get a piece or too glued a night, but there is progress. Anyway there are some shots of this progress in the Model Railroad Gallery. You will see two interior shots of the New River Mine.
A.J.
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September 21st, 2008
I have a feeling this is attention that we do not want. I don’t know what possessed that teenage railfan to come forward and admit to the press that he may have been sending text messages to his engineer friend who was killed in the recent Metro-link crash. He probably figured he may have been found out sooner or later. So I guess you can’t blame the kid. Did this have anything to do with the accident. It is possible the engineer was replying back at station stops. I am sure the investigators will find out.
What does this mean to the average railfan? Maybe we will not be viewed as terrorists, but I am sure we will be considered more of a nuisance. Some local ordinances may appear, and be challenged. Crews may turn in railfans more instead of a turning a blind eye. Only time will tell.
Some commuter agencies out in the western part of the country said that is now illegal to photograph the operation of a train. What constitutes operation vs. just standing there? I am thinking that you better not use a video camera there. The official said it is OK to take a picture of a train just standing there, but if you take specific pictures of the locomotive, the wheels, the locomotive moving back and forth, you would be breaking the law. So I guess if you want to get detail shots for the model you are doing, you may be in trouble.
Personally, it has become harder to railfan since 9/11. Before 9/11 nobody thought differently if you hung out near the tracks, in one spot, for a long period of time taking pictures. Now you will get a look or two. Some people might even report you. So I have found that I do not like to stay in one place too long. It’s as if you feel compelled to get your shots and move on to another location. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it forces you to plan your strategy, consider the train movements and the sun angle when you get to your location.
As for being friendly with the crews. Well I look at it like this. Railroad crews are out there doing there job. I don’t bother them on their job, they don’t bother me while I do mine. Some people I know will approach a crew while they are sitting at a signal. I won’t. In all my years railfanning I have never met a crew that has needed a ride to the head-end. I don’t know if I would offer them a ride or not. I am not being a jerk about this, but maybe the crew needs to walk the train. If a crew is in the siding for a long time and there is a food joint nearby, I might offer some assistance. Then again, you might meet an unfriendly crew.
It is not like even in the 90’s where my buddy once helped a Conrail crew by driving the conductor back to the head end, and taking another crew member over to sub shop to get food. I am afraid times have changed and it is not for the better, if you are a railfan.
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