I have been working on the coal operations for my layout as of late as this is the heart of railroading in the appalachians. firstly i have been working on the loadout.

I have finally got back into the train room to complete more scenery on my layout focusing on the trestle area around North Fork. The forest canopy was done using my method of woodland scenics forest canopy foreground trees blending into puff balls.

I have finally made some more progress on my scratchbuilt loco that i posted earlier in my blog.

I have finished the Keystone locomotive Works cab interior and i am very happy with the way it came out.

If there was ever a point for me in this hobby that has influenced me greatly the one that would be right up there was when i first saw the picture of QN tower... set deep in the heart of the new river gorge and everything about the viginette screams Appalachian Railroading. Ever since that point I knew i wanted to recreate it either in a strict prototype scene or as the centerpiece of a well executed proto-free lanced scene. Here is the photo that started it all...

This is my first layout video so i thought i would share it here.

CSX coal drag led by Dash 8 7677 and 2 SD 40-2s lug a coal drag up the 2.85 percent grade over Kelly creek on the way to Sandcutt West Virginia.

Enjoy

Dan

Recently i stumbled across some nice pictures of some high capacity wood chip hoppers and couldnt help myself so i decided to scratchbuild a pair. I followed 2 different designs for each and one of the cars was made following a MR article on sp woodchip hoppers but the design for the car was the same.

Here are the prototype cars

I have completed a couple of bridges to span the gaps in the roadbed and this proved to be quite an enjoyable process. the first is a combination through truss and deck girder bridge. The truss is simply a walthers kit and as in the past i have found this kit to be a joy to assemble. The deck girder section is just some micro engineering girders. There is still a bent to be fitted on the last girder joint.

This Easter weekend the kids and i did some railfanning with the main objective was to explore the Mt Lofty line out of Adelaide. This line leaves Adelaide South Australia and climbs the Beautuful Adelaide Hills up to the Highest point at Mt Lofty and then down the other side on to Melbourne Victoria. The grade through to the summit runs At approximately 2.25 percent so its not an easy run. Multiple diesel lashups and long intermodal and grain trains coupled with beautiful surroundings make this a favorite spot for me. As i model The Eastern United states..

I have recently completed a heritage CW44-9 painted in chessie paint.. I liked the end result so much i am considering hypothesizing that the system was not absorbed into csx but seaboard was absorbed into it. So the system Survives into the 1990s.  The unit is fitted with a TCS t1 decoder and runs fibre optic headlights and walkway lights. 1.5v microbulbs for ditch lights. Sorry for bad pics but they were taken off my smartphone as the electrons in my camera no  longer want to hold hands.

Enjoy

Dan