My club, the WVMGRS ( http://www.WVMGRS.org ), holds a monthly operating session at Jim Strong’s Woodland Railway. This was my first time participating in an ops session though I did view one there last summer. It was a beautiful day (80’s low humidity) that started at 10 and we began with 45 mins of track clean up and maintenance and set up of rolling stock in all the appropriate places. There were 7 operators breaking up into 3 teams of 2 and a fourth solo operator running yard switching and helper service. the three teams ran two freights and one passenger service. Cliff and the crew of the Dunkirk ran a freight. I did not get pics while operating but took a bunch last year. We (me and my navigator Dave) started out up at Tall Oaks, servicing the Dunkirk and picking up our train of box cars and log cars.

We meandered over to New Castle to pick up more freight and then down to Woodland Junction.

Woodland Junction is home of Kevin’s famous (or is that infamous) hand built combination 3 way and dual double slip switches.

It makes for some very tricky switching, especially when your train gets split in half to let the passenger service run through because you got held up for 30 mins due to the other freight having troubles at Woodland Junction earlier. We managed to make our way through the Junction down to Gumtree Falls(?), though we managed to leave the wrong box at the sawmill at the Junction. From there onto Willow Flats.

The day 2 run (after lunch) took us back up to Tall Oaks and went much smoother. I did manage did get a pic of the Dunkirk on the big trestle (seen in Bachmann videos) at the end of the day -

For a slide show view of all the pics (sorry not in order) click here and hit the RESUME button http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/altterrain/woodland%20railway/?action=view¤t=dunkirkWRy.jpg&slideshow=paused&interval=3 -Brian

Monthly operating session? Hmm…perhaps I should rejoin the club! When’s the next one?

Thanks for shareing the pictures of the good looking layout , the buildings look as though they have been there a long time , looks real .

Does Jim have a web site? Would be interested to see a track plan.

One hell of an interchange with 3 double slip switches!

Regards, Greg

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH I really need to visit the little brother!!!

Bruce,

The next ops session will probably be towards the end of September. The Sept. meeting is in Sterling. The Oct. meeting is at Scott Loomis’ in Reston featuring some live steam. I did not realize you were a wvmgrs dropout.

Greg,

I have never seen a track plan. If there is one it would certainly come in handy for us rookie ops guys. I will ask Kevin if I get the chance.

-Brian

Dad’s railroad was profiled in Garden Railways in the December 2005 issue. Kalmbach has the article on line, and there’s a track plan in there:
http://www.trains.com/grw/objects/pdf/woodland_ry.pdf

Bruce (and others in the area), you’d be more than welcome at the operating sessions. Dad’s in “the book,” or you can e-mail me and I’ll get you in touch.

Dennis, most of the buildings have been there a while (at least 10 years, some longer.) Many of them are concrete over styrofoam, so once they’re out, they stay out.

Greg, we don’t have a web site for dad’s line yet. It’s on my “to do” list, but so is updating mine to reflect the fact that I’ve actually built a new railroad. So, I’ll leave it to your own interpretation as to when I’ll finally get around to doing one for dad. See the above article for more photos, though. The photos in the article were taken before developers cleared the land behind dad’s property. There’s definitely a difference in atmosphere now. Though the plants do get a bit more light now, so not all is bad.

Later,

K

Kevin Strong said:
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Greg, we don’t have a web site for dad’s line yet. It’s on my “to do” list, but so is updating mine to reflect the fact that I’ve actually built a new railroad. So, I’ll leave it to your own interpretation as to when I’ll finally get around to doing one for dad. See the above article for more photos, though. The photos in the article were taken before developers cleared the land behind dad’s property. There’s definitely a difference in atmosphere now. Though the plants do get a bit more light now, so not all is bad.

Later,

K

Kevin,

If you need a “Round-To-It” here’s one. Print on 8.5 x 8.5 card stock.

Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Kevin,

If you need a “Round-To-It” here’s one. Print on 8.5 x 8.5 card stock.

That’s the problem. My desk is already covered with those little buggers. They keep multiplying. And the introduction of a kid into my life seems only to have encouraged them to reproduce quicker.

Later,

K