September 2011

September 2011
Volume 80, Number 4

Special features
40 Perspective: Keeping it clean by David Leider
After emptying its ballast cars, the Wisconsin Southern washes them out before they are used again.

42 The PRR Williamsport Division, circa 1935 by Jim Wing and
Darren Ferreter
Steam rules the rails on this HO scale layout. Set in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains in 1935, there is plenty of action with coal drags, local freights and passenger runs all plying the rails.

77 NMRA 2011 Convention report by William C. Schaumburg
This year’s NMRA gathering in Sacramento had some fine modeling on display. Here’s a sampling.

Modeling
54 Scratchbuilder’s Corner: A high end build by Bob Walker
This month we look at an O scale model built to Proto-48 standards.

56 Thinking outside the blocks by Bill Gill
Using Lego® blocks on a scale model railroad? It may sound fishy, but the author and his son have found a variety of uses for them–just check out the bridge piers they built using Legos.

60 Installing a working three-position semaphore by Don
Fiehmann
The author explains how he installed a pair of working semaphores on his HO scale layout.

63 RMC/Dremel Kitbashing Award: Kitbashing a Guilford GP40-2W
by Richard Johannes
An HO scale Athearn GP40-2 and a Detail Associates comfort cab kit are the starting points for this kitbashing project based on Guilford’s ex-CN comfort-cab locomotives.

68 Ice cream: A can, a bottle and a bucket by Preston Cook
Here are three unique ice cream stands that would make great modeilng projects – especially in the warm weather.

74 Fences on the Rutland by Randy LaFramboise
Much of the Rutland Railroad right-of-way was fenced with either woven wire or barbed wire fencing. Here is how they can be modeled.

Prototype
50 “Babies and contractors:” The 7 and 10-ton Shays by Mark Fry
These small, narrow gauge geared locomotives were used by contractors in the years between the two World Wars when large trucks and earth moving equipment had yet to be fully developed.