Gemperline's Bike and Train Film Productions (Gemperfilm)

November 2011

AJ Gemperline — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:47:36 +0000

Excellent bike riding weather through November. I have been out on my Giant road bike a few times. The other day I took a hike through the town woods and determined that despite the October Nor’easter and Hurricane Irene, a couple of the main trails are clear. So I may pull out by C-Dale F3 mountain bike for a spin and to burn off some frustrations. The only problem is that it is almost dark when I get home. Stay safe for now.

Ayer Rail Trail

AJ Gemperline — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:38:35 +0000

I have ridden the Ayer Rail Trail twice. Once in the summer at a leisurely pace on my mountain bike and the other this past Sunday November 13th on my road bike. I really wanted to push it this past ride, but the number of limbs down narrowed the trail in many spots where only one bike could get through at a time. The limbs also made it difficult to see ahead in several spots, which was a speed limiter. Overall, I managed the trail end-to-end, up and back a distance of about 24.5 miles. I did this in about 90 minutes, which comes out to almost 16 mph, per my gps. I plan on doing this trail again as it is very scenic, and hopefully next time the limbs will be clear and I can keep my speed up. However, if I want to do a fast ride with no cars I guess I will negotiate the baby strollers, dog walkers, joggers and roller bladders on the Minuteman Bike-way.

I have added two pictures taken from my low quality cell phone camera and posted them in my photo gallery on bike rides. A.J.

Changing Up the Site a Little

AJ Gemperline — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:21:24 +0000

Besides model railroading and train watching, my other passion has become the non-motorized bike riding. I now have a mountain bike and a road bike. I have done some rides on some on three rail trails in eastern mass. One in Ayer, MA that runs to Nashua, NH and two others that start in Lexington, Ma. In Lexington there is the famous and busy Minuteman Rail Trail that goes to Alewife Brook T-Station. The Ayer Rail Trail is more scenic. You can ride a regular bike on both. There is also the short Narrow Gauge Rail Trail that heads north out of Bedford, MA at the same spot where the the Minuteman begins. The narrow gauge trail starts out on pavement but quickly goes to gravel, so you should have a fat tired bike to take on this trail. There is also a book on Massachusetts Rail trails and I plan to explore some next spring and post about my regular bike rides as well. Just thought I would update you all. Expect to see a page set up for my bike rides.

Some New Pictures.

AJ Gemperline — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:27:15 +0000

Hi all! I finally got around to doing some updating. I was down in Pennsylvania twice in May and June of 2010 and managed to get a few more pictures added. I was also down in Memphis in August and had a nice find. I still have some more Memphis pictures to add, but that will be at a later date. Check out the Memphis and Pennsylvania Galleries. A.J.

What’s New?

AJ Gemperline — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:27:29 +0000

The other day I was down in the layout room and I decided on some changes. Basically the changes are minor to make future expansion more feasible and looking at a couple of industries. It is something we all do if we have layout. Something does not look just right and something better will fit here instead of there. So I will have a few more things to to do over the summer.

I also have a modeling project. I picked up two brass ALCO Models ALCO T-6 Switchers. The motors are tiny open frame and I just can’t get them to run. I disassembled them cleaned them and lubed the gears. The mechanisms were not that great so I am going to switch out the chassis and drives and just leave the shells. I have an old Proto 2000 SW 9 switcher which I thought would be a good candidate. It will work but there will have to be some serious grinding. The couple pockets will have to be removed and some minor grinding of the motor cradle will also be needed.

This is what I observed:

1. The circuit board or DCC decoder would have to be changed to a smaller one.
2. The coupler pockets on the chassis of the SW9 would have to be ground off
3. The sides of the motor cradle would have to be ground down a little.
4. The cab floor in the T-6 would have to be partially removed
5. The length of the chassis is correct.
6. As with any grinding the motor would have to be removed first.

So in the meantime I am going to look for an Atlas or Athearn switcher underframe and see how they will work.

A.J.

June 2010 – Updates

AJ Gemperline — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:25:38 +0000

How do you like the new format for the site? I like it and I guess that is whose opinion really matters I have added a few more photos of the old NVRRA Bolton layout. I had these on my computer but I just never had the time to get around to posting them. Check them out. It shows what a nice layout it was. If you notice, you will have to use the drop down menu from the Other Model Railroads button to get to the tribute. You also have a couple of choices when you click on the Appalachian Northern menu button.

As for my layout, I just received my custom decals. I have about 7 or 8 freight cars to paint, one undecorated locomotive to paint, with two more on order from Atlas, which should arrive around Christmas 2010. I also have three locomotives that need new decals and minor touch up. Time for me to find my airbrush and go to work. It looks like a rainy weekend coming up so I may just get my chance to work more on the layout.

I also managed to get down to Pennsylvania again this past May. However, I had very little time for railfanning, about an hour or two. I got a few shots when the sunlight was about gone for the day in Cresson. The next morning I saw a train climbing the hill westbound at Gallitzin. I managed to get to Cassandra ahead of it. It was pouring rain. I hope to add those shots to the Pennsylvania Gallery soon.

Feel free to leave comments and please know that you can contact me, A.J., at ajgemp@gmail.com Stay Safe! A.J.

May 2010

AJ Gemperline — Thu, 13 May 2010 18:46:05 +0000

Hello Again. I have been busy lately and have not had much time to work on this page. I had some minor flooding in the layout room. No damage was sustained, it was just a headache to keep ahead of the water. The layout room is cleaned up and I have settled back down to working on the layout and some projects. I have also ordered a decal set and plan to paint some rolling stock for the Appalachian Northern. I will post some more pictures as the progress moves along.

I have also edited the model railroad page regarding the fictional history of my model railroad, the Appalachian Northern. Check out the changes.

I have not been track-side much either. CSX runs up near here and the traffic during the daylight hours has been light. There is more traffic at night, but this is not conducive to photography. Besides, I have been spoiled by my trips to western Pennsylvania over the years with all the traffic down there, it hardly seems worth the effort to spend a whole day track-side in New England and see maybe 6-8 trains vs. that same number of trains in 1-2 hours in Western PA.

Hang in there and please come back to visit. If you need to contact me about wanting to use some pictures, please email me at ajgemp@gmail.com. I apologize if you tried to contact after this past October. I switched internet providers and forgot to update the email settings on this page.

A.J.

Pennsylvania Gallery Update

AJ Gemperline — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:18:01 +0000

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.

The Appalachian Northern Replaces My Gauley River (Model) Railroad)

AJ Gemperline — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:00:44 +0000

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.

New Page Added NVRRA Bolton (Nashua Valley Railroad Association)

AJ Gemperline — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:26:34 +0000

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.