Haha, so last night was my first “club meeting” for the NEB&W. Not really a meeting, seeing as its summer, but John Nehrich and I just kinda hung out and talked about stuff; he gave me some projects to take home and work on. I got a few cars to weather, and he gave me a scrap piece of homasote and a few pieces of weathered ME code 55 rail to practice scratchbuilding turnout frogs with, because the new Addison Branch uses only code 55 and none of the turnouts are actually done yet.
Anyway, the first pictures here are of the under-construction Addison Branch of the Rutland RR.
This picture is of the beginning of the Addison Branch. The track coming towards you crosses a lift-out bridge that is only put in when running the branch.
Now here we have a cool thing: they made a roll-out section of the layout, because they’re working on a blast furnace (i think), which isn’t yet built, so they made this area able to be rolled out so that they can install it and detail the scene easier. You can see the open area in the picture above.
Aisle view with Burlington/Chateaugay on the right and Port Henry into Vergennes on the left.
And now heres a bunch of pics to make up for the blurry ones I had last time of Red Rocks on the D&H.
Here we have State Line Tunnel in Vermont
And now to wrap things up (while John wasn’t looking… hehe)
That’ll probably do it for today. I don’t know if I’ll get time to put the rest up later; this is a little more than half. Theres some areas I didn’t photograph last night, but I’ll get more of them later. I basically ignored the whole lower-left of the layout, if you’re looking at the trackplan (Saratoga, Cohoes, Troy, South Troy, etc).
Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. It r
yeah, right!! Everything is handlaid. The turnouts are either completely scratchbuilt or done using the Precision Scale Producs frogs and points. Its code 83 mainline, 70 sidings/yard, 55 spurs (and Addison Branch).
The layout is HO.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t run my first train [|(] John switched the power on and all the DCC booster things, but everything stayed red; no green lights signaling everything was OK. He said wiring is not his forte, and that he had no idea how to trouble-shoot the thing. Its been way humid, so he figured some gaps closed up (which is weird, considering they make their gaps WIDE to accomodate the crappy layout room conditions they have there; their stuff actually expands and contracts a lot). The weird thing is that the layout has 4 separate power districts, so its weird that every one of them would be shorted out.
thanks. I feel I owe it to the rest of you to get as many pictures up here as possible. I grew up idolizing this layout, and I know how famous it is, and I feel obligated to spread the wealth.
Greg, thanks for posting. I visited during an open house several years ago. John is a great host, always willing to share his vast knowledge. All the members were friendly, helpful and rightfully proud of their great layout. One of the amazing things is that you have only shown a portion of the layout. I love the fact that they have photos of the actual buildings and locations that you can compare to the models.
yeah, its crazy how much John knows about everything. And you’re right, i have only shown a part of the layout, lol. Its crazy how big it is.
its just a shame that the school treats them like crap. The layout room is actually pretty bad… it was cool down there last time, but it still felt like a sauna. Theres even a giant crack down the mountain on part of the Red Rocks area. The school won’t get them any dehumidifiers or anything to help keep it under control, and they would have to have like 10 regular home ones going 24/7 to even help, which isn’t exactly an ideal situation.
I’m pleased to report that we installed 3 (or possibly 4) industrial-sized dehumidifiers over this past summer; as a result, it was the driest summer on the layout on record. The larger problem now is that the insulation on the heating and cooling water pipes set into the ceiling is starting to fail.
We have also completed the steel mill at Port Henry, and work in Vergennes and on the Addison Branch is continuing. We are also rebuilding the bridge on the causeway to improve its appearance (not the truss part, just the bottom).
