joef's blog

Now that Model Trains Video has a new Ops Live video volume for sale, here's a preview ...

Here's some "best of" photos from the just recently completed Feb 09 op session on my HO Siskiyou Line.

Right off the bat, events indicated this would not be a typical op session on the Siskiyou Line. This session we simulated April 14, 1989 - and since the DRGW has purchased the SP, there's black and orange power starting to show up on the SP. For example, Roseburg had a pair of DRGW GP40s that were available power.

Here's some "best of" photos from the just recently conducted op session on my HO Siskiyou Line.

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Just recently, two personal high defintion video cameras have been released, with street prices in the $140 - $170 range! Check it out ...

If you've been following my blog, then you know I have been discussing doing structures for the Roseburg yard area on my layout.

As I got to looking at the yard area with the idea of adding structures, I realized there are other areas of Roseburg on the layout that need work, namely the backdrop and the yard tracks themselves.

One of the trademarks of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine will be our virtual reality images that go with our modeling project articles. Here's a little example to show you what one of these VR images is like:

As I'm planning out the Roseburg area, Google Earth just keeps making itself ever more useful.

Even though it's not structures per se, I also need to finish the sky and backdrop behind Roseburg - and I've been looking at Google Earth's fly down and look around in 3D capability. Using some screen captures, I built this panoramic view of the Roseburg backdrop using Google Earth:

Here's a video demonstrating how I use Google Earth to study the prototype structure layout in Roseburg, Oregon and to plan the structure placement on my model of Roseburg. Click the image below to play the video.

Enjoy! Google Earth is simply amazing - video's the only way to really demonstrate it effectively!

By the way, this is an example of the rich media content we hope to regularly include in Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine.

If you're saying you prefer a paper magazine to reading a magazine on a computer, then you don't really understand MRH.

First of all, MRH is free - and next it's an interactive magazine. I like to say if a still image is worth a thousand words, then rich media is worth a million words. Many of the MRH articles will have rich media material - and that's only possible because the magazine has been designed from the ground up to be easy and entertaining to read on a computer. All totally free. Click to subscribe for free.

 Video playback problems? Try playing this video from our mirror site.
 Or download a copy (18MB) and play it back locally.

The area highlighted in yellow below represents the area of my layout plan that I'm focusing on. I've noted the various structures in my plan for this area. Zoom in to the larger image and study the various structures and their labels. I'll speak more to each specific structure in future posts to this blog.

Click image to enlarge

I'm taking a hiatus from working on MRH Theater videos for a couple weeks so I can work on the layout.

I want to focus on getting some structures in the main yard area in Roseburg, which is the layout centerpiece when you enter the room. As I relayed in my last blog post, my wife practically insisted we work on doing some structures together because my layout really needs them! How could I refuse an offer like that?