Large Scale Central

North Central PA Club Meeting

General Discussion
#1

Sorry, I have no idea where else to post this.

Many of you have heard of Shawmut Car Shops. What few know is that Mr. Damerst is also President of a club in the Northern Central PA area.

Yesterday he hosted a club meeting & run day on his birthday. I just happened to have my FRA hours of service rest this weekend and decided to take my oldest son to the meeting.

Here is Logan as he watches Jeff’s Bachmann 2-6-6-2 mallet roll around his “East Broad Top” garden railway:

And here he is watching his first real choo choo, a bachmann davenport, which I picked up at ECLSTS’13 to upgrade him from Thomas. When Jeff put this little bug on teh tracks and hooked up the same train his 3-truck shay was pulling, I thought he was mad. Imagine my surprise when the little beastie walked away with that train without a hint of a slip!

After the meeting, we got a guided tour of Shawmut Shops. Aside from Ridge Road Station, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many trains at one location… and DEFINITELY never in such a high density. There was an amazing number of pieces of equipment in less than 15x30. And alot of that space was also taken up by Jeff’s Union Steel Mill buildings and the Shawmut workshop and other existing things!

After saying goodbye, we headed south to home. On the way, I spotted “Decker’s Chapel”, supposedly the smallest church in the country. Logan stood next to it to give size reference:

Today, I decided to sand the corrosion off the Nickel-Silver straightaways and let the kids play before it rained. Logan was supposed to get to play with his new mogul, which we got from Shawmut Shops for an absolutely amazing price. I decided to hook up my four new(to me) LGB field flats which will eventually be converted into some ore cars which will be modeled after the 18" gauge 1ton coal carts that permeate the mining region of PA. Unfortunately Logan decided to no listen to mommy and had his runtime taken away… no point in Daddy not getting a bit of time. Here baby(for another week or so) Aiden watches as the mogul tows four empty flats around our oval:

After that, Aiden got a bit of time to run his Thomas (handed down when Logan got the Davenport) and then Lizzie got to run her Percy (handed down from older sister Amelia when she got a ladybug eggliner last year).

All in all it was a wonderful opening weekend to the runtime season!

By the way, the shot of Logan’s mogul is located on the Freedom Central’s “Sodor Secondary” track. Eventually that oval will be integrated with the mainline, the side next to the door will be a passing siding alongside the mainline route, presenting the appearance of double-track as it passes in front of the door.

EDIT: I was corrected by a very exacting person, Mr. Damerst’s collection is far smaller than I had originally estimated. I can only assume that the density with which they were displayed factored into my mis-impression of the quantity. Sorry for the confusion & error.

#2

Very cool you and your son had a good model RR day!

I know of two Churches that are smaller. But I’m not sure if they currently hold services at either :wink:

Ralph

#3

Looks like a great weekend. Where in N. central PA was it? Where are you located? You should head up to me in June for our club meet.

#4

Shawn, I live in a tiny tiny town that is so small that it shares its zip code with at least two other towns! Draw a triangle connecting DuBois, State College and Altoona, and I’m pretty much smack dab in the middle of it.

As for headed your way… not unless you provide an Amtrash ticket. Its almost two hours from here to Harrisburg, and better that three hours from there to NJ. (Running both distances as a passenger in Renzenberger jitneys give me a decent estimate of the travel time).

#5

Cool!

BTW, Think about sticking one of your spare c-16 cabs on that mongrel… it takes about an hour, and will improve the looks immensely!

#6

Here is Washington State’s entry into the “World’s Smallest Church,” category. It is, indeed, a small church.

That’s a good looking crew that you have there.

Though there is the Conventions, Shows and Clubs forum, your post easily fits the “General” category.

#7

Nice pictures and good to see you are helping raise the next crop of model railroaders.

A question off your post though if you please, what kind of corrosion do you get on your NS track, and what brand? I thought no corrosion on NS track?

(I’ve never had it outdoors)

Thanks, Greg

#8

Nice pics J.D.,looks like the youngsters are enjoying their Dad time.

#9

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#10

Okay, first off, Decker’s Chapel is obviously not the smallest… however it seems to be one of the smaller. I mis-read the wikipedia entry on St. Mary’s which is where I got that “smallest” bit from. Sorry about the error.

Greg, I bought the rail second hand. The dealer told me it was Aristocraft. It came in 8ft long cardboard boxes, about 2"x2"x8ft. I picked up three boxes, each with 12 sticks of 8ft rail for $100 total. The outside was decorated identical to the average Aristo shipping carton box and the rail matches the profile of the Aristo brass and stainless that I have, so I am inclined to believe it is in fact Aristo-produced rail.

As for the corrosion, Nickel Silver (not to be confused with nickel-plated) was quite popular in HO when I was modelling there for a couple years. The idea was that the corrosion/oxidation of nickel-silver rail wouldn’t be a problem because the corrosion is electrically conductive. So I figured that was a GREAT solution for a garden railway that I wanted minimal maintenance for the kids’ loop.

Well, I’m guessing that the use of coal for heating around here made the winter a bit more corrosive that I was thinking… like high sulfur corrosive! Anyways, a nearly black coating covered the top of the rails, and I could barely get the trains around the loop on full power. Enter my craftsman battery powered sander and ten minutes later our 20x6 oval was operable… course, the two end parts worked fine since they are stainless steel.

#11

JD …actually alcohol on a rag would probably have cleaned that tarnish up

#12

David, I may have to test that theory. An aristo 20’ tank modified to drip alcohol onto a pad like that little HO version might make a good track cleaner then.

NOTICE: I edited my first post, I was informed that my estimate as to the population of Jeff’s layout was grossly over inflated. Once I was notified of this, a memory popped into my head of the quantity being mentioned during our tour. I can only assume that my distraction of trying to picky mouth off the floor distracted me to the point that I failed to hear that bit of our guided tour. Sorry for the confusion.