Weekend Update 1-10-2010

[John]

Great day running around with Eric and his dad yesterday.

Talk about people showing up at your door  ;D

[mcjaco]

Some running on MiNi yesterday before we tore it down.  Next stop Harper, at High Wheeler!

[BCR 570]

Tim .. what is the resistor for in the track feed?

John:

The resistor and capacitor constitute a termination of the track bus wire - recommended to avoid signal reflections back along the bus.


Tim

[John]

Tim .. what is the resistor for in the track feed?

John:

The resistor and capacitor constitute a termination of the track bus wire - recommended to avoid signal reflections back along the bus.


Tim

Thats what I thought after I looked at the picture again and saw the cap .. there was a pretty long discussion about this on the digitrax list a while back ..

[Caleb Austin]

Tim, that is going to be one epic bridge.

Thanks for the complements guys.

Here is one more. A definite thanks to photoshop on this one. :

[John]

Caleb .. you taking any art courses in school .. you have a talent

[Caleb Austin]

Thanks John.

Yep I study art. And my mom is a artist so I've been exposed to art my whole life.

[asciibaron]

I traced the track plan of the Pine Creek Railroad yard from a satellite image, printed full-size for Z scale, onto the layout base.
 

 


The project's website is also up: http://pinecreekrailroad.net/

don't forget to put the EBT hopper in the weeds.  i used to live 10 minutes from the Pine Creek at Allaire SP.  good stuff!

[DKS]

I traced the track plan of the Pine Creek Railroad yard from a satellite image, printed full-size for Z scale, onto the layout base.

The project's website is also up: http://pinecreekrailroad.net/

don't forget to put the EBT hopper in the weeds.  i used to live 10 minutes from the Pine Creek at Allaire SP.  good stuff!

No worries. Have lots of photos of the EBT hopper. (Actually they bought three of them; two they just bought for the running gear and torched the bodies.)

I've also joined the Museum; I may wind up as their Webmaster. It will give me an inside look at their operations. Living 20 minutes away helps, too.

[asciibaron]

just got in from a bike ride - 28*F and a snow covered trail = good times

plywood is marked up and ready for the saw.  Tuesday is going to be almost 40*F!!!  i finally might be able to get some wood cut and have the yard in place before the end of the month.

[wazzou]

What, you can ride a bike but can't saw wood?

[RDG_Rich]

Working on the frankenstein...

Needs decals and weathering.

[asciibaron]

What, you can ride a bike but can't saw wood?

i tried yesterday, way to hard to since my assistant told me he was too cold.  and he was wearing gloves!

[atsf_arizona]

Hi, all,

For this week....

I just noticed that the NMRA 2010 Milwaukee Convention Layout Tour
registration web page has a superb collection of photos of the
layouts on the tours:

http://www.nmra75.org/LayoutTour.htm

Regardless of scale or your opinion of NMRA, you'll love browsing the photos.

And kudos to the NMRA volunteers and layout owners, who, year after year,
put on this convention, and open their home layouts for the attendees to
see. It's a quite huge national scale undertaking.

Whoever did the photos and built that web page, my hat's off to them.
Great job.

And, I do think NMRA conventions are great to go to.

[atsf_arizona]

Eulogy for Pliny Holt, MMR and a great N scaler


For those of you who know who he was, I thought you would want to know:

Pliny Holt, MMR, and a great N scaler, passed away peacefully
at the age of 99, at home on Monday January 4th.

Those of us newer to N scale railroading would know Pliny's layout
through this N Scale Railroad feature done by Bernie Kempinski
back in (date):



Alex Postpischil over on the Yahoo N_Scale Group reported:

-----------------------
> I just received news that Pliny Holt passed away this morning:
>
> Hey Alex - I have sad news to report - Captain Pliny Holt, US Navy (Retired),
passed away peacefully in his sleep around 5:00 this morning.  He is at peace
now - the last few days he was very weak and unable to communicate much. 
It will be some months before he can be interred at Arlington with
full military honors.

> ---------------------
>
> Pliny was a Master Model Railroader and his N scale layout was featured
in several magazines over the years. His layout featured the Oakland (CA)
mole and ferry dock. It was open to visitors during layout tours. He was a
mentor to me (when I lived in his area) as well as other young modelers.
>
> Alex M. Postpischil
> Winston-Salem, NC
>
----------------------

John Sing's comments:

This is not unexpected due to Pliny's age, but it's still a
great loss to us all. 

Pliny was a NMRA Master Model Railroader, and well deservedly so.

I had the privilege of seeing Pliny's
layout back in 2002 (this is the same SP-themed layout that
was photographed by Bernie Kempinski for N Scale Railroading
back several years ago).  It was a magnificient layout - all the
more so when one realizes the level of engineering below the
surface.  It was engineered and built in the 1980s with a
DC cab-control block-forwarding scheme that automatically
forwarded he DC cab onto the next block without a
dispatcher/operator having to throw switches to
allocate the cab.

That was a electro-mechanical marvel that wasn't surprising,
given Pliny's professional expertise for the US Navy. 

What do I mean by that?

Read the following post about who Pliny Holt was in real life.  It is the stuff
of heroes.  Scratch golfer in college, Naval Aviator, WWII hero,
incredible engineer for the Navy.  As part of those jobs, during and after the
war he flew over 100 aircraft types, including every aircraft in the US
Navy's inventory and many foreign types, including most of the captured
German aircraft. Head, Advanced Project Section, Guided Missile Division,
Bureau of Aeronautics, US Navy, Washington DC where he became a pioneer
in the evolving technology of guided missiles. He invented the first airborne
inertial navigation system and manufactured the pilot model with his own hands.
He served in various research and development positions, in 1958 he
became the Commanding Officer, Naval Air Experimental Laboratory.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/thread/1262888223/Another+Giant+Passes+%85


Tells you the kind of person that we
can meet in our model railroading hobby.

Pliny, your contributions to our human race and hobby will be sorely
missed.  My condolences to your family, and may your legacy
always be remembered.

Here's a few photos I took back in 2002 of his layout, doesn't really
do justice:


http://rides.webshots.com/album/173527205kzkseD



Furthermore, Alex sent me some nice additional words
about Pliny's layout:

---------------


There were other things about the layout that I liked:

-as the turntable revolved the doors for the corresponding roundhouse
stall would open or close

-there were speakers above each block and through the cab control
system the sound would be routed to the speaker above the occupied
block so the sound traveled with the engine

-optical block detectors in hidden staging and the train shed at
the pier (somewhat standard now)


Alex M. Postpischil
Winston-Salem, NC

----------------



My condolences to his family, and even though I only met him once, from reading all of this I
am most inspired.  It is amazing what is possible in life.  Pliny, thank you for
your contributions to our country and to our hobby.