Mt Pleasant Lions Club 2006 Show

On Sunday February 12, 2006 the Mt Pleasant Lions club held their Annual Model Railway Show. It is a small one gymnasium size show. The Mainland Modular Railway Society has been there for the last five years. My three modules with HOn30 on them were part of the MMRS display.

This is the first local show of the year in the Vancouver, B.C. area. We usually use it to experiment with new ideas and test club equipment to see if any problems have developed over the winter (they sure did!). This year we tried a 50" high module height (instead of the 40" height the NMRA standard calls for). It looked good. Also I had installed new backdrops on my three HOn30 modules.
For me it was a chance to set up my three modules with HOn30 track and take some pictures.

Some of them are posted here. As a novice to the art of digital photography, my pictures are far from perfect so please excuse the flaws. I am learning.

Over View of Modules

An overview of my three modules.

The left hand module has a passing siding with three spurs off of it (two to the back and one to the front). One spur (right side) is for an engine house. The other back spur will probably be a loading dock although I have a turn table that needs a home. The remaining spur comes of the front left and will be for storage. The station (not shown here) is in front of the trackage. The final station name has not been chosen yet (I was going to call it Clancy after the now deceased builder of the station model) but I am tending towards Troy or East Troy, two stations that will be on my Dixmont & Winslow Railroad.

The right hand module is currently barren except for the mainline..

Equipment

This is the B & F Train set repainted to more sedate colours. I have installed window material in the caboose but need to repaint the interior.

This is the B & F Train compared to a Bachmann Doodlebug.

The three sets of track shown on the module conform to three different modular standards.

The front two tracks are to modified NMRA HO Modular standards for the Mainland Modular Railway Society that I am a member of.
The middle track with the near white ballast is to Free-mo standards. At one time when I was very interested in Free-mo I built two modules to adapt MMRS modules to Free-mo (a left hand junction (shown here) and a right hand junction (East Troy)). Having since studied Free-mo closer and learned its limitations and biases I have grown less enamoured of the standard (I don't wish to model modern heavy mainline in the SW US).
The HOn30 track conforms to the HOn30 modular standards.

A few Equipment shots

This fuzzy picture shows Dixmont Mineral Railway #8 with a short train.

#8 is a Mocalova Box Cab
The first flat car is a PGP models flat car turned into a low side coal gondola.
The second flat car is a Wesco frame.
The box car is a R la Regina Kit.
The fourth car is a Walthers N Scale modern log car with a load of Pit Props.
The last car is a Polymold Castings car kit bashed into a way car.

All cars except the Walthers car (MicroTrains trucks) have Grandt Line trucks.

This car doesn't follow any exact prototype. This started out as set of Polymold Castings. Being a few decades old the castings had warped and shrunk a bit. I placed each casting in boiling water for a minute and then pressed them, back side down (or walkway side for the roof), on a smooth glass surface until they cooled. (Note use a cloth or wad of paper towel to protect your hands from the heat!). This straightened them out. The sides ended up about 1/32" short so I added square styrene rod to extend the sides. The truck bolsters were moved towards the centre of the car one bolster width to accommodate Grandt Line trucks. The windows are Grandt Line Outfit Car windows. The car still needs window glass, interior painting, truss rods (and like all my other cars) dealing and weathering.

This is a picture of Mavis leaving East Troy with a short train. I liked the look of the equipment framed by the trees. The buildings in the background are on another members modules and are not part of my module although they make a nice backdrop.

They say pictures of your modelling show the flaws. They sure do!

I need to paint the backside as well as the front side of my wheels.
It's time to letter and weather the cars.
It's time to finish the structures for East Troy. (Hmm - looks like I have chosen a name.)
I need to decide what to do with the right hand module. If I make it a scenery module (track winding through the trees) I need another module to the right as a destination. Maybe it's time to rebuild my first three modules (I have a total of five four-foot modules, one mini corner, one inside corner (not ready to use yet)). At the very least I should paint the track on the right module.
Connecting tracks between modules need to be painted.
And lastly I need to work on my photography. It's a good thing digital cameras don't use up film.

Bill Dixon's HOn30 Railway Pages
Last Updated: February 13, 2006, Copyright 2006. W.R.Dixon.