Some Press for the 1:1 Scale Railroad

In a diversion from our regularly scheduled program, I was interviewed at work by Jim O'Grady from WNYC and The Gothamist, one of the papers in New York City.  The topic was Newark Penn Station, one of my professional concerns, and it was fun to bring some good press to the railroad for which I work.  

Take a read and enjoy!  

Newark Penn Station Interview

~Dave

The Book! Guide to Signals & Interlockings - now available for presale!

 I am excited to announce the presale for my new book - Guide to Signals & Interlockings , now listed at Kalmbach Media:   https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/12824

This book is the culmination of 2 years of effort from a variety of contributors and reviewers, as well as the art and editorial team at Kalmbach.  Writing the text and assembling the photos was a major part of evenings and weekends for me through much of the chaos of 2020 and in many ways was a bright silver lining to a difficult year.  Special thanks are due to many:  Eric White, Lisa Schroeder, Hal Miller and Carl Swanson at Kalmbach, Tony Koester, Jerry Dziedzic, Mark Hemphill, Dave Barraza, Joe Relation, Rich Wisneski, Jack Trabachino, Bill Darnaby, Nick Anshant, J. Alex Lang, to name a few.  The greatest thanks are due to my wife Kristen and my kids Susie, Teddy, Pete, who had to deal with a lot of nights of me being distracted and preoccupied!  I am grateful for all the support of each of these people.  

In a small reminder of life going on, it is listed with a shipping date of March 8, 2021.  March 8 is the birthday of my late sister who would have turned 43 this year, and who without question would have been thrilled with this.  She wasn't a train person, by any means, but she was a family person that would have been very excited for her big brother.  It's something worth reflecting on.

It is still surreal to see the cover for sale online, at a site I have admired for years.  I am really pleased at how nicely the Kalmbach team made this look, and am very excited to see it in print!  I am hopeful it will help readers understand railroad signaling more, and that it will inspire beginners and advanced modelers alike to work and include signals where prototypical on their railroads.  It is an exciting time in the hobby and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute at this level.

~Dave

More Live Remote Operations - This Time, Night!

 This coming Saturday, January 16, we will again be doing live operations with remote operators on the Onondaga Cutoff.  Just click on https://www.facebook.com/onondagacutoff/ on Saturday night at 9.

This time, we will follow a popular request to film with the lights down to simulate night time.  While that reduces visibility, it does add a different mystique to the sessions, and so we will take a chance and see how it goes!   I think we can all use a break from the political frustrations and selfish chaos we see too often in the news.  There is no better way to do that than to spend time trackside with friends.  

If you miss the live event, the video will still be stored and available for you going forward on the OC Facebook Page.

Hope to 'see' you there!

2021 - May it Exceed Expectations

Happy New Year to you, and to your family and your community.  While it is just another turn of the calendar, this one has a larger feel to it, or at least it seems to be so.  I am excited to share that there are a variety of exciting projects that will be coming to light this year, which we will discuss a bit further down.

Today I think it's important to remember that small steps are the beginning to all of those projects, no matter how much work we have to do to finish them.  Let's take a look at layout photography.  Some of my best shots these days begin with curiosity - just experimenting with a smart phone.

Recently, in developing some ideas for images for a coming submission, I took this shot of TV10X rounding the big curve west of MP 277.  It's a neat wide angle shot, but let's look harder.  The hue (color cast) is too red, too warm.  The 5088 is sharp on front but the depth of field - how much of the different parts of the image are in focus - leaves a lot to be desired.  The foreground and background are out of focus.  The back left is also too dark - underexposed.  

So, there is a lot of room for improvement.  And those improvements are not difficult. But make no mistake - this simple snapshot proves to my eye that the concept of this shot works, and that is a great place to start.

How about this one?

Here we have the daylight yard job, YAON-14, spotting a car.  I added a figure to include a 'human' element, got out the old smartphone and snapped another shot.  Again we see some issues with depth of field, but overall this shot too works nicely.  

Both images were subsequently re-shot, with better additional lighting in place, with my DSLR.  The camera is placed on a tripod and manually focused and adjusted for exposure using a high 'F-stop.'  The higher the F-stop, the better the depth of field.  Then, each of the shots are loaded into Helicon Focus, which takes the sharpest parts of each photo and combines them into one photo with a superior depth of field.  This takes quite a bit of work, but since I had experimental shots, I knew the results would be worth it.  Successes like this help to bolster our spirits against some of the tough energy we see in the rest of the world.

Let's be clear - besides the hobby of model railroading, 2020 had been a challenging year in a challenging era.  Chaos in the news - a continuing pandemic, the continuing restrictions that cause economic hardship, and worst of all now, the descent from peaceful protest to treason in the US capitol on January 6...this is disturbing for all Americans and for many around the world.  There is no question that all of these things take up an increasing amount of our consciousness.  These things tend to divide, and so it is no surprise that the more the negative news, the more the divide.  It's a direct relationship.

So, what is there to do to improve things?  Well, look - it is up to each, and every, one of us to focus on something positive.  What do we have in common with others?  Yes, we must sit with the darkness, and yes appreciate it for what it is, but make a decision to focus instead as your day continues on something that brings people together more than it pushes us apart.  Protests are part of democracy.  We cannot however allow, encourage or tolerate violence in protests.  We also cannot allow ourselves to universally condemn or dehumanize those we don't agree with.  In a nation of laws, we must follow the laws and hold ourselves accountable to perseverance, to working to create community instead of focusing on divide.

Model railroading is a big part of that for those of us in the hobby.  Use it for what it is: creative, thoughtful, mindful, and able to build communities.  It must start with you, and me, and each of us.

In that light I have been pushing myself lately, and have some fun things to announce.  First, I had articles in both the December Model Railroader magazine and January Model Railroader as well, this most recent one on Remote Operations.  I have several new pieces for MR under development and also now have a sample cover for the book which is due in April.  Here's a tiny sneak peak of the cover!

Best wishes to you and to your family for a happy and healthy new year - may 2021 become a year that exceeds expectation!

Join Us Live - Virtual Operations!

As the pandemic caused by COVID continues worldwide, more and more of us are trying to find ways to deal with the challenge of staying safe while still having interaction with others. Earlier this year, Rich W., one of the founding members of the OC thought that one way we can participate in this is by 'virtual' remote operating sessions. 

Therefore, the next in the series of 'Trackside on the Onondaga Cutoff' will air on Facebook Live Friday night, December 11, at 9 p.m. eastern time over at https://www.facebook.com/onondagacutoff/ - we hope you can join us!  Note that you don't need a Facebook account to watch - just close out of the box asking for you to sign in or sign up, and scroll down to see the event link.  

If you look around the page, you will also find an archive of other such videos available for viewing at any time.  Feel free to check those out as well, or to catch up on the most recent if you aren't available tomorrow night at 9 p.m.

It's a small effort in the larger push to outlast this virus, and still be able to find some community and have some fun!

~RGDave

How Model Railroads Allow Focus on Gratitude

Hello readers!  I am realizing as I write this that while the Onondaga Cutoff itself has been operating for 10 years, that this blog is suddenly more than 10 years old too - another verification of the lasting power that this hobby has.  I feel like we still have so much to do!  

Some recent photo work for Lionel Strang's  'A Modelerslife' Podcast has helped me to take a pause this week and reflect over all that time gone by.  The layout as regular readers know is based in 1994, a year full of wonder and yet at the same time full of pending darkness for me personally.  Regulars also know that sometimes I'm a rather reflective person, and try to sit with memories and the feelings they evoke, whatever those may be.  In 1994 I was 17 years of age and the world was all very much in front of me, but mom was very sick with cancer, and those two realities created a dichotomy for me and the whole family.  

My model of my 1989 Dodge Grand Caravan, the official railfanning vehicle of the Abeles, with a backdrop of the official local power for the Albany Division.

For me in those days, railfanning and the small 4'x8' layout I had at home were an escape for me, a different world I could go to where there was much to learn and so much potential to share.  For sure, many dark nights dreading mom's illness and the uncertainty were made easier by my love of trains and railroading.  I found some peace in its consistency. I passed my driver's test on January 3, 1994, with a family friend taking me to my road test because Dad was with mom in the hospital.  In March of 1994, my dad decided to upgrade to a new minivan with everything going on, and I offered to purchase the family van from him using my savings.  It was a wisely spent $1400!  My plates had the letters 'YIX' and so Yixter became my wheels.  Of course I modeled him for the OC complete with 'woody' siding and a scanner antenna.  

This back and forth of opposites is something I watch with curiosity.  So much heartache is still fresh for me, running in parallel with so much joy.  And I think that's the balance of it all:  being grateful for both the joy AND the heartache, practicing gratitude for the gift of being here and of having made it this far, and for having a wonderful thoughtful wife who is full of grace herself, and for our three healthy, rambunctious and thoughtful kids.  I think many can relate.  So there is heartache and darkness, yes - but I feel compelled to focus on the wonder, while still acknowledging that darkness.  Gratitude for joy and heartache - for being here, and alive, and able to see them both.

Pete & Teddy running their layout - November 2020

I modeled my first Conrail SD60 from a Rail Power Products plastic molded shell in 1993.  I did it up as 6860, and it still runs in regular service on the Onondaga Cutoff today.   Model technology has come a long way since 1993, and today Athearn makes a beautiful 'ready to roll' model of the SD60.  Just as modeling brought me peace in my teen years, so it brings me peace in my 40's despite the chaos of a pandemic, toxic politics, life challenges, and indeed - despite so many blessings - some lonely nights.  So, here's Conrail 6852 with last night's work completed, now awaiting several layers of weathering before entering service as part of the fleet on the Onondaga Cutoff.  

I love the length, sleek lines and the massive presence of an SD60.  At 71 feet long and 16 feet high, weighing nearly 200 tons, these are just incredible machines.  Delivered new to Conrail in 1989, this guy will be lightly weathered as he was only 5 years old by 1994.  

The model itself has a curious story too - designed in the US, this was made in China and shipped to the USA.  I bought it in a lot from a fellow in Australia who was modifying the frames for upgrade motors but then changed focus in the hobby.  So what came to me from Australia was what you see in several pieces with a modified frame and loose motor.  What you see here has made no less than three trips across the Pacific Ocean, only to land on the OC, where it was superdetailed, with new sound, new controls, and now weathering to join the fleet.  It's another little story that fills me with gratitude.  

And so looking back on those days, my mind revisits the hopes and dreams of a 17-year-old kid who loved trains and who was damned lucky to have parents and a brother and sister and a greater family of middle-class roots.  I was so lucky to be associated with all of that, to be taught to save money and work hard and appreciate and respect other people.  Mistakes were common but they were learning opportunities - they themselves were a gift in a way, allowing growth by sitting with the darkness of bad choices.  Gratitude for everything, including darkness, always ironically leads to peace.  

May you and yours have a healthy, happy Thanksgiving, and while this time of year makes our hearts ache for those who have gone before us or who cannot be present because of the pandemic or other reasons, maybe it would be valuable to focus on being grateful for what we do have.  

New Starts, and Old Friends

Life is sure a mix of a bunch of different things, isn't it?  

Amidst all the craziness that seems to be universal this year, there has been some opportunity for time spent on the hobby.  Sometimes that requires a conscious decision to stop watching the news or social media, and instead head down to the basement and make some progress.  Progress comes in different forms:  it can be physical progress on the layout, thinking about future projects or improvements, or it can be prepping for operating sessions.

Remote operations on the Onondaga Cutoff really seems to have taken off.  It is a way to keep the trains moving during the pandemic, and I am grateful for that at least.  Each session requires a 'set up night' where a few guys come over to reconsist power, clean wheels and track, and check paperwork.  It's a satisfying and fun way to get ready for a session.  Here's the lineup of power on the Island, cleaned and serviced, ready for the most recent session:

Speaking of the remote sessions, one of the fun parts about the Facebook Live events we have been hosting is that those videos are archived over on Facebook.  If you'd like to see one, take a look at https://www.facebook.com/onondagacutoff/ - and note you don't need an account to watch the videos.  Just close out of the pop-up and you can scroll down to see the listings.

Thanks to some restrictions having been lifted, too, Teddy had his first opportunity to operate on another layout.  Here he is making a move through Sparta Junction on Jerry Dziedzic's New York, Susquehanna & Western layout:

This photo makes me smile.  We all wore masks, per protocol, and kept social distanced, but Teddy's sailing right through the challenges:  he's watching his train intently, making sure to follow speed limits and signal aspects while we made a pickup from the yard.  This bodes well for the hobby as time continues and sure makes for some fun time between Teddy and I.

And, of course, there is always physical work to be done:  here we see an upgrade in progress for Conrail SD50 6707, which wore a special paint job to support the troops as part of Operation Desert Storm in 1991.  It held that paint through 1995 or so, and so wears it on my layout.  It is shopped now getting a sound decoder and new LED lighting including ditch lights, as well as new details including air lines and moving the grab irons to reflect Conrail practice.

As this wild year continues and begins to draw to a close, and as days grow shorter, my mind is always reflecting on the months passing.  I am more and more grateful for each moment - life has a way of improving if we are mindful, if we work hard, trust others, and open our minds up.  Doing those things and being grateful for what we have changes the color of the days to come.  

In mind of that, we have a new author who is going to begin contributions to these pages:  Jack T., who regular readers will know from his involvement in the Onondaga Cutoff from the inception 12 years ago.  I think it will add a great bit of variety and analysis that will make the blog a better resource for you all.  

And finally, book proofs are in and returned - the forthcoming signal book is going to be a really neat piece of work.  I am really excited at how it is coming out.  Two articles in Model Railroader, one each in the January and February issues, will prime the pump on the book.  The book is still on track for an April delivery, and that will build some anticipation through the winter:  Good stuff coming!

~Dave