The Tidewater railroad is HO scale . This is an effort to capture the feel of a waterfront railroad. The era is pre-1956 with steam locomotives still in use.

This was a 99% finished scene from my last incarnation of the Diamond River Valley Railway. I titled the shot "around the bend" It is a Santa Fe RS1 returning light from a transfer run.

Wheeler Farm (late Summer in the 60's)

This time we'll leave Philadelphia and head west to Harrisburg. The trip will take us through Reading and the Anthracite coal region.

Last night I watched the first Scotty Mason Webcast. It was run from his website (www.scottymason.com I think) and it was great. Scotty showed his scenery techniques and showed how to use them. Now this isn't the firts time I've seen this kind of demonstration. But what was interesting about Scotty's was that he took his time and explained everything and spoe about some of the things he does.

http://www.grandepacificmodelrr.org/html/tall_timbers___santa_fe.html

While sitting in my Train room this Morning I realized today is Thanksgiving in America. I know other countries have similar celebrations but for U.S. citizens it's our end of harvest season party and is celebrated on the last Thursday of November. It was actually started before America was called The United States By the early settlers and the Native American Indians coming together with that years Harvest grown by the settlers and the wild Game the natives brought to a feast celebrating Peace of the two peoples.

Okay, by now most of us know what a chainsaw layout is. I can't quite say that I've ever had one - and with the current size of mine, it isn't likely I'll be tearing it apart anytime soon.

But... my layout has a sublayout of sorts. As an excuse to buy Z scale equipment without totally changing scales (according to my very perceptive wife), I decided to put in a Railroad Park type railroad on my layout. It's definitely not 7.5" gauge, more like 15", but it's as small as I can get without having to rerail cars with a set of tweezers.

We continue to roll through the Allentown area as we approach the station there. There has been a lot of interest in the use of foamcore for structures. There are other uses for it as I'll be pointing out. I don't know as yet how to go about doing an article on the subject. Anyway, let's continue our trip around the PWRR.

Where should I start? I could tell you how I'd laid all the track and gotten my trains but that would be a lie. I haven't really done anything on the layout since the beginning of the month and that was about 3 weeks ago. I cold tell you that I've been thinking about the layout and doing some more research, but that would be a lie as well. So, to tell the truth I really haven't done anything except read the messages here and read MRH and other magazines in an effort to get me off my duff and to actually get something done. That hasn't worked either.

While its good to spend time letting folks know about all the modeling we're doing, it's also good to take a break and look at how someone else has done it.   I did just that this past weekend, with a trip up the line to the N-scale NYS&A of Todd Treaster.  Todd hosts open houses through out the year, and this was the first one I had the chance to attend.

Coming in the basement door, the yard sits off to the right - and what a yard it is: