The Roster

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Springfield, Ohio "All Trains" train show

The Springfield train show was held on December 1st, 2013 at the Clark County Fairgrounds outside Springfield, Ohio.  I've got to say, for a five hour event with very few operating layouts, this is rapidly becoming one of my favorite shows of the fall train season. Partly, I think it's because all I have to do is shop and socialize, unlike the other shows where I'm 'working' the MVSG train layout

This year I found some great bargains on out of production Showcase Line (S-Helper) cars and a good deal on a American Models box car. Beyond that I purchased some old Plasticville fencing material (the white two-rail section fence) that is a great border for the residential community of "Ridgeville" on the layout.

Time to get back to work - there's track to be cleaned!

The ballasting nears completion!

Most of the outer loop is ballasted - just have one outstanding grade crossing to complete (and that's really more about getting the road and grade crossing beams installed than anything else.

I should write that I am done installing the ballast. What remains now is more properly classed as 'clean up'. Going back over my earlier work - especially the first loop that I did - I see that I did a pretty bad job. So bad that in some cases the ballast is impacting the operation of the trains. So....I'll need to go over each rail and scape off excess ballast. It'll give me a change to check the rails as well - there are still a couple of spots that are giving me problems like uncoupling and occasional derailments.

I'm starting on some of the landscape now as well. There are some very simple areas that can be knocked out quickly. (bare stony ground with scrub vegetation). I'm experimenting with the grassy areas. Most of my prior work was on much smaller areas and in much smaller scales. I need to adapt to the level of detail S gauge trains require.