After being in HO and N scale model railroad for nearly 40 years (off and on of course since I was 5) I decided to go a different route. Part of this decision was based on my worsening eye sight.  The other part was that I am not steady with the fingers any more and it was becoming extremely difficult in attaching parts and details to N scale and HO scale equipment. 

Alto has been happening lately so I could probably write a book. I know no one wants to read one so I'll try to keep this brief.

First, I've come up with a name for my railroad:

Bay Ridge and New Haven

I know its not very original but it does decribe the points it runs between which are Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in New York City and New Haven in Connecticut. I have yet to select some other things like colors, logo and the operating scheme but there is plenty of time for that right now.

The area betwween the Landenberg branch and Rt. 82 has gone from an empty space to nearly completed land in the last week.  I started with the small culvert under the tracks and worked outward toward the grade crossings.  The scenery base is pink foam cut into thin strips with sculptamold on top.  I then painted a brown acrylic color and covered it with sand.  From there it is basic scenery with ballast and clump foaliage adhered with matte medium.  The trees are small cedar twigs and still need foliage.

Here are some pics.  Tell me what you think.

These past few months have been a real whirlwind of activity for me, preparing for my first op session, having it, then doing all the follow-up work to correct minor deficiencies that were not so obvious without a group of operators present.  It was fun, no question about that – but now that the dust has settled momentarily, I’ve gone back to doing one of my favorite mrr activities: scratchbuilding structures.

This video was a trial run of the MTH 2-8-8-8-2 Russian Iron engine on our layout, excuse the shaky camera work as this was the first time Alain, son of our member Reynald Lepage, was trying out his camera. The scenery on all of our modules is the work of our member Pierre Watters. Our engineer running the 2-8-8-8-2 is our member Raynald Asselin.

 Part I:

Part II:

In the 1985 November issue of Model Railroader was an article by  Bill Baumann "Third Street Industrial District".
This article gave me the idea for a module. I made it a little bit bigger, not 2 x 10 feet but about 2 1/3 x 12 1/2 feet!

It already december and finals has started for myself. So for the time being construction is down on my modules. I'm also moving to a new apartment, where I will have a bigger space.

What I have managed to do is to finish the final design of the modules.

 I thought I'd share a photo of a custom model I built for a customer. The client was a container crane operator and wanted an model for his office. The model below is in N Scale made from laser cut acrylic and photo-etched brass.

 If there is sufficient interest, I may offer this as a kit.

BCK

I just signed up and would like to start by saying that this is something I believe in - a quality webzine with an interactive website is a good thing! I am really looking forward to this.

A few notes about me: I'm an architect, I'm norwegian, and live in Trondheim, Norway.