Fremo AmericaN meeting in Bremen Germany

Recently I went to the Fremo AmericaN meeting in the northern German city of Bremen. The trip took some doing as both halves of the train trip resulted in delays. A signalbox failure in Deventer in the Netherlands on the outbound trip meant my planned route had to be changed. On the return trip there were engineering works in the Netherlands on my route and I had to take a replacement bus. As luck wouyld have it, the one on my route was a local bus stopping at all stations and on the other route it was a fast bus. Oh well.
Luckily both NS and DB were very helpful and no additional costs were incurred. Only time delays and they were compensated by new train routes I travelled.

This meeting was the first time we tried out timetable and trainorder operation. While we had some problems I feel we can overcome them with more familiarity with the procedures. It helps of course when yours truly pays attention to the switching and makes it efficient. Oh well, live and learn, right? I had great hopes for this type of operation which is a bit difficult to do on ever changing modular setups. I was pleasantly surprised by the easy with which everyone adapted to it. Normally we use track warrant control or no dispatcher in our meetings. 

See here for the report, here for a plan of the modular layout and here for Hagen Langbartel's pics. You can even see me in some of the pictures...

Thanks to all who made it possible to have a great time despite coming down with the flu.

I started G&M Junction

De kop is er af, that is what we say in Dutch if we have started something, literally the head is off. No pictures yet but the first Fremo america-N module is now on a diet and has had the bottom half taken off. The ony reason the other module hasn't been done to that state yet is the fact that I ran out of battery power so couldn't drill more holes so the jigsaw could be used.

The lower half weighs ~700 grams and the top hald still weighs ~2100 grams.

Still to do:

- cutting at a diagonal

- remove more material to save even more on weight, including on top as the modules had a plate on top.

- New ends

- extra support for when I'm cutting through the top plate.

- glue polystyrene to the sides to hide the holes and less than perfect sawcuts.

And of course to lay track, wire everything and build the landscape. But those are other stages. 

Oh well, tomorrow is another day for doing a little bit.

Reusing old Fremo americaN modules

Was doing some work in the second bedroom in preparation for building a home layout when I was reminded of all the old modules I have. So I went to my storage area and looked at them for some time. Got some ideas rumbing in the back of my mind now.


CGW in Dubuque county Iowa

One idea is to reuse a 1 meter long and way to heavy module and cut it in three smaller sections. By making the cuts at a slight angle and turning the middle section around it should be possible to make a module with a curve in it. As for a theme, I have long been fascinated by an area on the CGW, just west of Dubuque Iowa, where the railroad follows the Little Maquoketa river. There is a palisade like stretch and even a free standing rock named Split Rock. Don't know if it is natural or manmade but it seems a nice theme for a module where you look at it from the inside of the curve. In the 1970s the track was removed. Now it is a trail known as the Heritage Trail.

The wooded palisades could be made removable and stored under / inside the segments that would be screwed together in the original shape to facilitate transportation by public transport.

M&STL Adelaide

The M&StL Adelaide station was a very simple affair, 1 switch. The station was the first station west of the junction at Conde on the line to LeBeau on the Missouri river in South Dakota. Today you can't 

I have 2 Fremo americaN modules that are 50 cm long. Originally they were to be modules portraying single track going to double track but I gave up on that.

Seems to me that since the modules stacked together form a compact unit and since Adelaide had virtually no buildings beside 2 elevators that likely can be stored under / inside a segment, it is an ideal candidate for a Fremo americaN module!

Today there isn't even a trace of this town that didn't even got off the ground. It was located in southwestern Beotia township in Spink county, roughly where it says abandoned next to the border of sections 31 and 32.

Caught - update on planning G&M Junction

Caught the flu before the holidays and can't quite get rid of it. The design for the G&M modules is nearly finished but I haven't gotten around to start cutting them up. I keep finding little things I've overseen and I can only cut them up once...

This is the situation right now. 

I will probably turn the module with the Interstate bridge around if I want it to be prototypical but keep it this way as this gives more of a curve for Fremo America-N layout planners. The scenery will most likely also be made as puzzle scenery. This means that most of the scenery but not the track will be separate pieces. In this way I can model the Interstate bridge in more modern times but with fields in a 1950's session.

All module ends will be conform the Fremo America-N standard though likely some centimeters 'higher' (actually below the usual 10 cm to cater for the new much thinner sections being stored below them during transport to save on volume) than the usual 10 cm.

From any module end there will first be 5 cm of straight track to mitigate potential problems when coming from an adjoining module before any curves start. It's been my experience that if an adjoining module has the curve right up to the end of the module this gives problems if the next module starts with a turnout. Even if the turnout and the curve are curving in the same direction.

A curve, a switch and two modules connecting is one thing too many. I would make it at least 10 cm but that gave too much problems.

Planning, planning, planning

Still planning this module. The flu and the holidays interfered but I'm back on track. I think I have the final idea on how to cut up the two modules and rearrange them, together with 2 extra segments.

I wanted to have the curve south of G&M junction as a separate module but it is so close to the junction that that does not seem advisable. Instead, the two segments will form a module that can have the I-80 overpass or the situation before that, just to the north of the junction. All depending on the timeframe of the operating session at a Fremo America-N meeting.

Inspiration

Working through some ideas for 2 old Fremo americaN modules that were not the best. They were the first I made myself and it shows. Offending parts will be removed as far as is possible as well as the modules will be made as much lighter as can be without sacrificing structural strength (which has held up surprisingly well). New thin sides will be added and they will be a little bit higher to protect the undulating plain that can be found in the area of the prototype.

Basically I'm trying, with the design expertise of a German friend, to realise G&M Junction on the old M&StL. This Junction was a couple of miles south of Grinnell Iowa and here the branchline to Montezuma via Ewart left the mainline of the 10 district. This district was between Marshalltown and Albia, via Oskaloosa, all in Iowa.

The branchline was build by the Grinnell and Montezuma Railroad and ultimately ended up in the lap of the M&StL in 1912. It last featured in employee timetable no 34 of the Eastern Division of the M&StL dated 23 june 1935. It was gone when the first systemwide timetable was published on 2 october 1938.

This is a fragment of M&StL employee timetable Eastern Division 34 of 1935. I got it from a CD-ROM made by the M&StL yahoo group. Note that in the era that M&StL still had 3 divisions, this branchline was part of the Second District of the Eastern Division. Later the mainline would become the Tenth District when divisions were abolished.

The idea is to cut the two modules in such a way that reassembled at Fremo americaN meetings there is a junction module and a module with a curve. The latter are always needed and I think planners will find a use for the junction too ;-).

It looks as if a third segment might be needed. Anyway, everything is to be transported together.

Here is a pic showing the slight curve just to the south of the junction. You can see the trees in the pic above (black dot near the railroad crossing) behind the last locomotives and the photographer was standing near the railroad crossing, which will feature on the module too. It seems to me that the distant trees just to the right of the nose of the leading locomotive probably stand on the right of way of the former line to Montezuma.

I do not own the picture, it can be found here: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=280086

I think the landscape is not quite a featureless plain but it comes close, don't you think? This type of landscape is ideal for modules that have to be transported to meetings by train. Not much in the way of objects sticking up above the railhead yet the curve, railroad crossing and trees offer some perspective and interest in a picture. The trees will be taken of the module during travel and probably stored inside the module. This gives a quite compact package as the modules themselves are 61x40x10 cm at the moment. 

Well, it's about time to bring this blog back to life after a long hiatus due to way too many physical health problems and the attendant mental health problems.

I got a bit farther with this module Featureless Plains but unfortunately the pictures I took of the next layer, gypsum with pigment and white glue, got lost when my laptop was stolen from my house while I was on a company outing. I still have the module but it is in storage at the moment awaiting decisions on what to do with it. Originally I wanted it to be a double track module but at a length of 1 meter it has become too large and above all too heavy. I lost a lot of strength as a result of a botched medical procedure. So I may cut it in two for easier transport or use it at home by redoing everything on top...

So I'm thinking of making this blog now a more general blog about my (model) railroad activities with links to specific blogs where I detail the building of N-scale modules according to the norms of the Fremo America-N group. For more information about those norms you can take a look here:
Fremo americaN

In the intervening years I've managed to get a lot of nice to have informationvia the M&StL Yahoo group (M&StL Yahoo group) with regard to my most favourite American railroad, the Minneapolis & St Louis Railroad. I'm particularly fascinated by the extreme south end in Iowa, the line from Oskaloosa to Albia. A very nice bonus is the fact that there was an interchange with the Wabash Railroad, my second favourite American railroad. I now have timetables, trackcharts etc. that give a good overview of this 23.5 mile long line. I'm in the process of setting up a blog detailing the designing, and hopefully building, proces of this south end of the tenth district of the M&StL in a small second bedroom in my appartment.

There are enough interesting features on this short piece of railroad, most of which is still there even though not in operation by the current owner Union Pacific, such as:
- (former) coal mines south of Albia at a place named Hocking,
- the interchange with the Wabash in Albia (and likely the former interurban ISU),
- a crossing and interchange with the Burlington (CB&Q),
- Hickory Hill,
- Lockman and it's trestles (and former coalmines),
- a long gone town named Coalfield,
- the then new powerplant at Bridgeport just before the crossing of the Des Moines river into Eddyville,
- Eddyville with sand and gravel loader and where a CRI&P line comes in from the southeast and parallels the line,
- crossing at Givin (another abandoned town with coal mines nearby)
- the sweeping curve at Beacon but no station, that was on the CRI&P,
- Tracy Junction, later Fosterdale Junction and finally
- the entrance to Oskaloosa's M&StL South Yard via a wye, underneath the track was a gauntlet track of the CB&Q and, again, the CRI&P.
- Ending at the modelgenic passenger station.
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So, stay tuned!

My father helped me build the first few modules

Sometime ago my father helped me making the first few modules. The modules are made of birch plywood, 9 mm thick. The height of the frame is 10 cm, length is 100 cm and width is 40 cm. This width is conform the America-N standards. Off course I could make them wider between the end plates but you always have to take into consideration that the thing has to be transported. Which is why I will build shorter modules in the future. 100 cm is a bit long when you have to transport a few of them by train to a show....

Here are some pictures of the construction of the frames.