End of the year 2019......a year that brought big changes......

As I had mentioned, we moved to Charleston SC (retirement) and are closing on our new home here tomorrow afternoon. Yeah!
I've got a POD full of stuff to unpack next week (and a "house" full of furniture to purchase thanks to my wife and daughter's efforts at selling all our previous furniture in Va. Beach using social media.....
I would take a photo on my I phone and turn it over to my daughter and the next thing I knew I was helping load our very nice leather sofa (very old and very comfy!!) into some smiling couple's SUV....."don't worry dad, they already paid you direct to your PayPal account!!
Not too bad, considering my wife has no idea how to access PayPal. Prior to this adventure I only used the account to sell off un-needed railroad items...(and of course buy needed railway items)

We were able to sell a ton of stuff that I had collected over many years. It was a mental struggle but I really didn't need them.

Duplicate and triplicate?? hand held power tools......did I really have 3 working lawnmowers!!?!
Let's see, that's 3 working compressors....I'll need 1.
3 aluminum 14' extension ladders........Let's see, I'm moving to a brand new, "hurricane ready", bombproof single story home in Charleston.......your right, I sold all three to a local young man starting his own painting business.

Lot's and lot's of hand tools, hammers, screwdrivers, way too many socket sets (cheap).....I did keep the Craftsman stuff.

I remember a guy at the garage sale who thanked me profusely for selling him an old 6-12 volt battery charger......he used it for "plating" and told me the newer models didn't work. I even sold a bunch of board lumber that I swear I had moved from the garage of our first home in Convent Station, NJ over 40 years ago!! (just could never let it go.........) That said it was really nice, old straight pine shelving that could have easily been used to build any one of my first 5 layouts!! Oh well. After a couple of last trips to the Va. Beach landfill to dispose of the old layout scenery and 40 yr. old 8' florescent 2 bulb commercial lighting fixtures. (boy did those heat up the layout room in the summer!) It was done.

The next morning we closed on the house and I drove the "Beverly Hillbillies" Ford F150 loaded to the gills with the remainder of the "critically needed" stuff I hid from the garage sale people and headed south.

"For the times they (may be) changing"........

I've been "retired" for just over a month now and some things are becoming obvious to me......with no commitment to "the daily grind of a job" (mine was never really a "grind"!) the days seem a lot longer!
We're in the process of having a new home built in Charleston and completion is scheduled for Nov. In the interim we are living as "guests" in my daughter and son-in-laws home here. Happily for us and them it's fairly large and we have our own section of the home so we are able to hide away and give them the time and space they need to survive our extended visit.........
So far it's been a lot of fun playing with my grandson every morning before day care and in the evenings before "tubby time" and bed time.
We've had some time to get out and explore our new digs and have been pleasantly surprised with the convenience of accessing downtown Charleston and living about 20 mins away in the Charleston suburbs.
So far, so good........

Of course, paramount in my mind has been the future plans for my modeling efforts. There's a lot to think about because the increased free time means there will be more options open to explore.

In the past 40 years of model railroading I've always built layouts that could be "operated" by small groups of guys who were really into the hobby and shared interests similar to mine.  I've modeled in HO, On3, On30 and lately have been researching the Irish 3' narrow gauge lines using 45mm. track (G gauge) and a scale of 1:20.3. While I haven't made any decisions yet, I can see some measure of large scale either outdoor or indoor.

More time to spend researching as well as seeing what a garage space of 20x20' can accommodate in On30 Maine narrow gauge.......

Lot's of fun converting an old Bachmann "Big Hauler" ten wheeler to an Irish 3' passenger loco.

Big Move.......Retirement!

Things have moved pretty quickly for me......I retired and put the house on the market.....it sold quickly (maybe too quickly!?!) and we were asked to move out in 30 days.  The offer was too much to refuse so we rented a POD packed up everything and headed to Charleston SC to be closer to grandkids.....
Having a home built so planning will begin on the next layout. Lot's to think about in the next 8 months while the house in being built.....we'll see what can be done.  Stay tuned.....tom

A bit more of Andrews yard......

Continuing to look at the yard we come to the coal house sitting on the turntable lead. I based the model on the Albion coal house but shortened it to better fit the space I had. (the entire yard sits on an 80" by 24" solid core door.)

I started on a model of the WW&F's Crosby tank which was located just south of the real Albion yard.  Styrene construction with a "home made spout" made from rolled paper! The prototype tank was shingled but I'll probably paint it up for now as the idea of cutting 1,000 shingles is not floating my boat!

The station in Andrews began life as a model of the little station of Fork's Creek on the Colorado and Southern.  I was able to use it by adding a small extension to the right side which houses the stairs to the second floor.  She looks a bit like her counterpart (in Albion) but her smaller size better fits the space I had available.

The little town of Andrews is beginning to shape up.

It's almost Feb. and I want to keep the blog as current as possible. I've got some guys coming over in February for an operations session and we will be breaking in a new timetable for the trains operating on the railway.
As I said previously, I'm modeling a bit of the WW&F and a bit of the SR&RL's. This allows me to model a branch line which looks a little like Wiscasset and Albion.  Another branch represents the Kingfield area on the Sandy River.  There is also a short branch (in and out of a single track staging yard) called Franklin.  All three of these branches come into the town of Troy, (aka Strong) where cars are switched out, the majority heading down the mainline to the Maine Central interchange at Burnham Jct.
While nowhere near prototypical it allows 3-4 operators to stay pretty busy for a 5hr. session.
The majority of the trains are "mixed runs" but there are a couple of First class Passenger trains running between Troy and Burnham Jct. where folks can board MC trains heading down to Portland.

My end of the line town of Andrews was named for author and modeler Dick Andrews. I was really drawn to Dick's style of writing and his cartoonish artwork in the articles he did for the Gazette.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dick during the 8th National Narrow Gauge Convention as he had done the artwork for the convention T-shirts we were selling.
The town of Andrews tries to capture some of the sights of the Albion yard on the Wiscasset line.
Fellow WW&F modeler (and blogger) Brian Bond had graciously given me a model of the engine house that needed only a bit of weathering.

I've made a start on a small frame turntable for Andrews. It's in place and working however I still need to finish the upper supporting structure, but at least operators can now turn their engine for the morning milk train.

Wow, it's been three years since my last post….shame, shame, shame! That said, a lot of progress has been made on my On30 Sheepscot & Sandy River Rwy. (she was originally named the Sheepscot Rwy. but I felt there was too much of the SR&RL's being built to ignore the reference)

The railway is a composite of the WW&F and the SR&RL's with scenes that reflect (not exactly) actual places on both roads. For instance on the SR&RL's side, my railway begins at Burnham Jct. with a connection to the Maine Central. The line passes through a small junction called So. Troy and then on to Troy, Maine (which looks a bit like Strong on the SR&RL).
From Troy there are two additional branch lines, one to a place called Unity Mills (aka, Kingfield) and a second line to the WW&F section of the layout featuring Sheepscot, a place with the essence of Wiscassett and then finally heading up to Andrews, Me. again looking a lot like Albion on the WW&F.

Confusing, probably, but it allows me to model places of some importance on both lines where visitors who know the the Maine "lilliput" roads will usually recognize.

I built the S&SR Rwy. to "operate" by a small group (3-4) so the three "branches" make sense. Trains begin out of either Troy yard or up in Unity Mills (like they did in Kingfield). The towns along the line were designed to give the operator approx. 30 real time minutes of work before moving on. The way the railway is laid out there are two junctions (not including the std. gauge jct. at Burnham) where trains will meet, adding additional work time to the runs as they pass each other. Ops sessions run so far show  runs of 1 hr. per job.  After a job is run we usually switch jobs allowing each operator to try their hand at each of the jobs on the railway. Ops sessions can easily run 3-4 hrs.