Summer 1956, Monroe, VA

Railfanning back in the good old days.

Ties to the VBR&S

These are the covers of two issues of TIES Magazine, the quarterly journal of the Southern Railway Historical Association.
The second quarter covered the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway which you followers of this blog know is a short line connection and is partially modeled on the VBR&S. The forth quarter featured a couple of articles by a friend, Garland Harper, on Lynchburg's Kemper Street Station, which is of course featured prominently on the VBR&S. I don't know how this happened, but VBR&S management is thrilled with the publicity.

Here then is my depiction of the cover shot. I can't quite get the angle since in my world there's a wall there but my engines are green and the walkway over the tracks is still in place.

I can duplicate pretty well the post card view at the top. My same view from Park Avenue is below.

At the top, a black and white view from the articles, and then my view.

Finally a shot from the platform looking toward Park Avenue tunnel. Maybe next year an article on Amherst or Charlottesville. Keep up the good work SRHA!

Scenery Session Interrupted by Train

Here I am adding scenery to the Kemper Street Station scene and a pesky northbound passenger train shows up. Now what can I do? Ah Ha, what any rail fan would do, pull out my camera. I was in the park on the left side of Kemper Street Station and grabbed this shot as the train came out of Park Avenue Tunnel. A buddy was on a ladder cleaning gutters on the station and grabbed this one. The train actually stopped briefly, allowing me time to run down to the platform and grab this one. I kept running down to the north end of the platform, and used the zoom on this one. I finally got this one as the E6 stopped for passenger boarding.

Another Layout Work Day

We're getting "Teacher Work Days" this year that we've never had before because we usually have many snow days to make up. I used this one to add the backdrops that came in last week.

This is a classic scene at Kemper Street Station. If you've been there you'll know what I mean. Directly behind the bank that used to hide the N&W's L&D connector was a Craddock Terry building. It still stands and the photo of it was taken just a few weeks ago. Now sized and placed behind the bank (which is itself a series of photos of a generic bank along 29N) the view from Kemper is getting real.

Another angle, this time looking south toward Park Avenue (the tunnel's hidden by the walkway roof).

There's the tunnel and more photo backdrop curved around the backdrop.

And from a slightly different angle.
Next I'll start to add actual scenery materials (grass, bushes and trees) to blend all of this together.
Oh, why did I use a generic bank rather than photographing the real thing at Kemper Street Station? Two reasons: 1st It's hard to photograph the real thing because you can't back off a good photo distance from it. 2nd They've let the thing grow up with weeds, bushes and trees so much that it doesn't look as nice as it used to. This one from 29N seems to look right. By the way it's mounted on foam core, so it's actually set out a bit from the stuff behind it. The top of the foam core will give me a good place to stick scenery stuff to hide any places I don't like behind it.

A bit more progress

Today I got to paint the Styrofoam.  I tried some traffic up on Park Avenue.

Next will come grass, bushes and trees. I've selected and adjusted the backdrop photos for this area. I hope to order them this week and continue work on this area.

Styrofoam is done.

Next, probably this afternoon, I'll remove the hill and cover it with sculptimold, then paint it and add scenery. It actually comes off in three parts so I won't cream the station taking it on and off. I'll actually put most of the grass and scenery material on it before I put it back on the layout. When I put it back I'll glue it together and touch up the segments where they join.  I'll try to post pictures as I do this.

A day later...

I got to work on the Kemper area some more. Today I weathered the tunnel portal and installed it along with a liner (plain ole cardboard painted black inside).

This is the tunnel portal. It's actually called Park Avenue Tunnel, since that's the street that goes over it.

A look down at the portal and the cardboard liner behind it. I also added back a bit of Styrofoam to the hill because yesterdays pictures indicated I had cut a bit too much off. The sculptamold should cover any other screw ups. Funny how you can look and look at something, but until you look at a photo of it, you never see the problems.

A year later.....

I have worked on the railroad here and there, but in the past month or so, I've finally taken the scenery plunge. I'm working on the Kemper Street Station area. Here's a shot of the real thing.

and below a shot of what I've done so far from close to the same angle.

As you can see I've ballasted the track, and cut the foam to approximate the area in the real picture. I had started the foam several weeks ago, but got tired of cutting and using sand paper. My foam cutter I've owned for 5 years, but never used , had no wire in the package. Fortunately I went to Colorado last week and Nate had picked me up some at Caboose.
As I make progress, I'll try to add more pictures in the coming weeks. I'll warn you I'm sloooowwww.

I've been working on the Railroad

It's been a week since our first op session of 2011 and I've been working to fix some things that needed fixing. First many of you said you were directionally challenged on the VBR&S, so there are now North-South indicators all around the layout (and some East-West ones in a few locations that require those).
I've got to admit that even I've had trouble with directions on the layout and I know the area well and built the layout. Of course I am dyslexic, but this will help I think.

The other thing I've worked on this week is adjusting the Walthers streamline passenger car's diaphragms. After testing I found that while they are springy, they are not springy enough for some spots on the layout, so I fixed them. I'll be running all of the passenger trains around the entire layout before the next session to make sure I've got'em right.

I'm also continuing to re-enter all of the freight car data into the CarCards program so that I can eventually print new car cards and waybills and do switch lists on the computer.
Til next report,
Bill

The Lower Basin Revisited

At first glance these pictures probably look just like those from last month, but there have been improvements.
The over all area is pictured here. Whats new is a second row of structure flats behind the main buildings but in front of the city backdrop. Also since Commerce Street is several stories above Jefferson Street there's vegetation in areas where the ground would be visible.

Starting on the south end of Jefferson Street we see Craddock Terry Shoe Corp. and the Schewel Furniture Warehouse, the only plastic kits in the Lower Basin scene.

Moving west Strother Drugs appears to the right of Schewel Warehouse.

A bit more west and Barker Jennings is on the right.

Finally N.B.Handy is to the right of Barker Jennings. I like the effect that three layers gives as you move along the street, different areas of the back drop and second row of flats become visible. I think I learned that watching a Disney episode on the making of cartoons as a kid.

Anyway, it's not finished, but it's getting there.

A Snow Day

We had a snow day Tuesday Jan 11th (without the snow it turned out) but I finally got to do a time consuming project on the layout, the back drop for Lynchburg over the Lower Basin Scene.
This is a panoramic view of the entire thing. You can click on it to enlarge it. The backdrop is from three different poster prints I took of the city last spring. A few modern buildings show, but they will be covered when I do the next phase. There will be an intermediate row of buildings behind the Jefferson Street buildings and in front of the city skyline. These, like the buildings will be made from Kingmills's Commerce Street "Radical Flats", which are slightly smaller than HO scale to add depth. Even without them, and taking pictures from strategic points the backdrop makes a big impact on the scene.

The tall building on the backdrop is the Allied Arts building, built back in the 1930's. At 16 stories it was the tallest building in Lynchburg in 1956. I left out the Bank of the James building, built in the 70's which is now the tallest in Lynchburg.

A lot of church steeples show on the Lynchburg skyline, and they are pretty tall themselves. Plus downtown Lynchburg is built up a steep hill.

Looking a bit further east at Piedmont Mills. Those of you familiar with Lynchburg know that the Expressway Bridge (now Business 29)is just beyond here. It wasn't built until 1960 though so it will not show in the scene either.

Another look at the west end of Jefferson Street. I'll have to build up the street just to the right of the N.B. Handy building and place a RR tunnel in the middle of it.

VBR&S Photo Backdrop Installation has begun

Here are a couple of really quick non professional type photos of the first area on the VBR&S to receive photo backdrops.
This is the north end of Monroe Yard. There will eventually be a tree line from track level in front of the photo backdrop, but even this looks better than the blue sky by itself.

From the Monroe Depot looking northwest. The highest mountain visible is High Peak which is actually visible from the real Monroe Yard site.

Photo ops at Ops session

While my operators were running the VBR&S April 18th, I found some interesting photo ops. Here are the shots.
A Trailways bus has pulled up to Kemper Street Station in Lynchburg with a group for the train.

At Monroe Yard an SW is working hard shoving freight cars.

In Piney River, VA we find ole #7 tied onto #2...the lone VBR caboose.

At Main Street Station in Charlottesville a Greyhound bus has a group for the train. It must be a nice spring day to take a tain ride.

Over at the C&O yard in Charlottesville, we catch up to a Geep and a C&O cab.

Railfanning Monroe in 1956

We arrive around noon at Monroe, VA's depot.
The yard is full of cars, and we get permission to take photos.

If the yardmaster knew we were up on the roof of the LCL freight house he'd probably.....not care. After all this was not a time that the railroad worried about being sued by railfans for being careless. We get a good shot of two freights chortling away near the depot. The southbound on the far track has just arrived from Charlottesville, and the nearer one is ready to head north.

From the north side of the depot another look at the northbound,

and a look south along the mainline.

Here's closeup of the lead RS3.

With an op session coming up, I thought this would be a good way to get everyone ready. The trains are where we left them last time, and our intrepid railfans have taken their pictures. Now lets move some trains!

Since the signals are finished, and I have to wait for spring to begin taking the pictures for the photo back drop, I've spent the last month or so giving Monroe Yard some rock treatment. I'm sure with spring coming some weeds are sure to start growing there too.

Charlottesville passengers now have a depot.

Over the past few weeks I've been "adding to" the flat from a previous layout that has served as Main Street Station in Charlottesville.
It's on the layout now, and I was pretty pleased with the results. I'll probably adjust it's actual location a bit more as the area between the Southern & C&O tracks on the layout isn't exactly like the real thing. I had to shorten the depth of the main building some because of space considerations, but all and all I think it looks good there. If I had been building it from scratch I probably wouldn't have detailed the Southern side since it's not really visible, but since I had already built that part, adding onto it means there's detail on that side too.

Ya gotta hate it when the roof walks end!

At the October 4th VBR&S Operating Session, the Monroe Yard crew employed this guy to handle the close up work. He even walked the roof walks on a moving train until interrupted by a lack of more roof walks. See more shots from the session by pressing "Operating Sessions" on the right.

A quick tour of some nice spots

With all the signal work lately, it was nice to look around the layout as I cleaned track for the next op session. Here are a few shots of buildings waiting for scenery around them.
I built the Amherst Depot a few years ago. This one is in my home town and still exists, although it was moved from track side a couple of years ago. The real thing is awaiting money to be made into a welcome center for the town of Amherst. The backdrop here is about the only area I've painted and I'm not sure I'm happy with it. I may experiment with actual photo backdrops.Kemper Street Station in Lynchburg is probably the most complicated scratch built structure I've ever built, but it came out okay and resides at the south end of the layout in Lynchburg.

This is a Walthers kit doubled in size to represent Quality Foods an actual industry near Monroe. It is not meant to replicate the real Quality Foods which is a rambling single story affair.

Lynchburg's Lower basin is home to a lot of industries on the VBR&S as it was on the real Southern in 1956. Most of the buildings here are from Radical Flats and are of the actual buildings that still exist in the lower basin. Here we're looking at NB Handy on the right with two other actual lower basin structures visible beyond.

At the other end of the Lower Basin along Lynchburg's Jefferson Street we find Piedmont Mills. This is a temporary version from the guys at Radical Flats as they are still working on the roof details on this building.