Wordless Wednesday #145

Terrafoaming has moved to the Adena wye. Roadbed sections have been cut, shaped and weighted down after applying Loctite Foamboard adhesive.

Wordless Wednesday #144

Steam returns to the Valley! The Nickel Plate Road 765 passes through the Cuyahoga River Valley at Big Bend Trailhead, Akron, OH, 9-17-2017 Chris Ellis photo

Tiny Construction Report: September 14th, 2017

Not much progress to report lately. Any train time I have right now is usually spent either trying out manual turnout throw solutions or running trains with my son up and down the 50 or so feet of mainline. I did however do some layout cleaning as I prepare to start laying track at Adena. It's amazing how much stuff can accumulate on open spaces not filled with track.

Speaking of Adena, I tired of seeing the void behind the yard area where a hillside should be (see the above blog banner photo for the hill view). So with only 30 or so minutes to spare one evening, I started a side project to begin filling that area with a pink foam hillside.

The above photo shows the small start to the hill over looking Adena, the end product will be bigger, hence the tiny construction report. At least now the large void is covered up behind the yard. I've found hot glue works just fine for gluing pink foam together, you just need to work quickly and have extra glue sticks handy. And yes I did move the Berkshires shortly after realizing they were perilously in harms way.

This is one of things I love about building a layout, there is always a small project that can be worked on in small time slots aside from whatever are the current main goals.

Wordless Wednesday #143

NKP Caboose 832 at Zanesville, OH

Not-So-Wordless Wednesday #142 - Train Movement Sheet - Update

Interesting train movements along the Ohio River appear from deciphering a Dispatcher's sheet for the Toledo Mainline and all Branch lines east of Brewster.

I'm still slowly working through Mike Mathie's NKP Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheet I scanned last year converting the data into a couple of spreadsheets. This time sheet covered Brewster to the Ohio River including my modeling area of Adena for the date of 5/25/1950. This kind of data is nothing short of invaluable for recreating traffic and planning for future operating sessions. 

A unfortunate side effect of this data is the desire to purchase a Broadway Limited PRR I1sa 2-10-0 as seen in the Pennsy movement on NKP tracks to the Y&O Dorthy #1 Mine. The PRR and NKP traded working the mine every other year, apparently the PRR had the even years. Coincidentally I have a Bowser PRR Cabin #477188, just a few numbers off the protoype that worked out of the Pennsy's Mingo Junction Yard. I don't have plans (space) to model this interesting movement but maybe a basement (house) upgrade in the future will allow me to recreate this traffic up and down the NKP's Ohio River tracks.

Update:

I could've sworn I had posted sometime in November or December 2016 about scanning NKP/W&LE Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheets. Fellow NKP modeler Mike Mathie was gracious enough to lend me two of his Dispatchers sheets, one for Brewster to the Ohio River lines and the other for the Cleveland to Zanesville lines. Both date to May 1950 and are a fascinating detailed look into a single day of operations on the NKP's new Wheeling District.

Below are a few quick photos I took before I scanned both sheets and stitched them together in Photoshop.

Brewster East sheet

Cleveland sheet, Carrolton Branch

Brewster East sheet, Adena and AC&NA Branches Eastbound

Some Observations...

By the mid 1950's all W&LE engines and caboose still have their original numbers, although the engines would have begun to have their W&LE lettering replaced with the Nickel Plate Road script.
On these sheets no W&LE cabooses had been repainted yet. The P&WV is still running steam and diesels in the Brewster - Rook pool. The only NKP influence that can be seen is H-6 Mikados 633, 643 and 647 have been assigned to duty on the Wheeling.