Running Around

I’ve not seen one in ages, but model railroad magazines used to publish switching puzzles. They would present a situation where a train arrived on a scene and had to deliver some cars and pick up others. The game was to complete the job in as few moves as possible. Over the years, these switching […]

Bring in the next victim

Despite my success with Percy, I still don’t feel ready to tackle 622 and 10 again. So, I procured a Bachmann Spectrum “modern” 4-4-0. I’d always wondered what made this a “modern” engine, and it wasn’t until I was checking if it fit on Pembroke’s turntable that I noticed. Almost all eight-wheelers kept their fireboxes […]

Daily except Sunday

There were no trains on the Pembroke branch on Sundays. According to the schedule, even the first class to Ottawa ran daily except on Sundays, and freight trains were outlawed by the Lord’s Day Act, of course. So, on Sundays the branch slumbered. Starting on August 1st, 1905 and running one or two trains almost […]

All trains will register…

With a visiting nephew occupying the train room, I had an enforced break from modelling. That didn’t mean progress would stop, however. Being an easterner, he went to bed early, leaving me at loose ends in the evenings. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, my Mum used to say. In this instance, I was possessed […]

Impending operations

Now that I have Percy operational, and most of the turnout controls are in, I am starting to turn my thoughts once again to operations. The layout doesn’t operate well enough to share it with others yet, so Marc Simpson is in no danger of losing the bet. However, it won’t get any better if […]

Turnout controls installed just in time

With the Railway Modellers’ Meet descending on Pembroke next weekend, I have installed the turnout controls just in time. I still need to paint the rods on which the handles pivot, but that is cosmetic and might wait until after the guests have left. The controls almost meet my vision, but they need some gap […]

Ten handles

The handles for the turnout controls need to be strong enough to handle. So, rather than printing them, I fabricated them from brass. This was one of the many times I’m happy to have a small layout. Ten was just enough: any more would have been tedious.

Railway Modellers’ Meet Clinic

After several years of trying, the Railway Modellers’ Meet finally accepted one of my clinic proposals. On Thursday, I delivered Reinventing Wheels: A Pembroke Update to a packed Zoom room. The title was a nod to Mark Dance, who once noted that if there is a more difficult way to do something, I will find […]

Fiddling the shelf

“Sounds fiddly,” my darling wife said when she heard the plan to fill the space between turnout controls with half-inch channel. Boy, did she get that right! Despite the provision of recesses on the sides of the turnout controls allowing for 1/16″ of overlap, every single piece – there are ten so far – needed […]

Percy visits the paint shop

I found only the dried out dregs of a bottle of paint when I went to paint Percy’s new parts. The dregs looked almost viable, and I wanted the project done so I pressed forward with thinning and spraying. It was one of the worst airbrush experiences of my life. That’s saying something as my […]