Saturday, January 22, 2011

I'm learning

Hello everybody. It's freaking cold here in New England this weekend. And the snow is getting deeper with each storm. This weekend I will be adding material to a couple of my pages.

Why P:48? I've been modeling since I was 12 yrs old. Back in the late 50's and early 60's is when I got my start. A friend who lived across the street from me had an American Flyer layout and that is where my interest in railroading took form. I modeled in HO for years with side trips into HOn3 and a little HOn2. Not much happened in HOn2 because of lack of proper tools and such. After a tour in the Navy, I came back to HO. When I finally acquired my home, it was decided to go into On2. I started building the railroad while finishing the basement where the railroad was. But after years of not doing much modeling, I scrapped the On2 layout and started thinking about what I wanted to.

Now that I'm in my 60's, the eye sight isn't as good and the hands shake a bit so the small stuff was out. Back in the late 70's I had started modeling in O Scale. So I decided to give it a try again. I then started reading about P:48. I have never understood why 1.25" was chosen for the track gauge. HO was to 4' 8 1/2" why not O Scale? I bought some wheels and when I saw them I was hooked. I had decided from the beginning to hand lay all of the track using Right-of-Way track parts, so the change was very easy as I hadn't started laying rail. Now I am aquiring Rich Yoder trucks and Protocraft wheelsets and couplers. The railroad room is finished and benchwork has been started. More of that in the Construction page. I'm still gathering track stuff, tie plates, joint bars and switch parts.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for more about the Hampshire County Ry.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Welcome

Welcome to my railroad, the Hampshire County Ry. This is my first attempt at doing a blog. I am hoping that by recording the progress and showing it to my friends  on the internet, it will force me to keep building so someday I will have the railroad that I dreamed of and designed.

So, to start things off, I will tell you how the Hampshire County came to be. After many years of modeling On2, the interest decreased to the point were I needed a change. I had modeled in O scale many years ago, so I thought I'd give it a try again now that I had a house, or should I say I now have a basement with a big roof over it.

The constraints were that the layout had to fit into the finished portion of the basement that had been built for the On2 layout. This meant there wasn't going to be any big sweeping curves for large steam locomotives pulling full size passenger trains at high main line speeds. In fact a 48" radius was beginning to look like it was too big. This meant that my choices were limited. Being a prototypical-freelancer, a shortline would foot the bill perfectly. The name came from the county I live in and the time frame of 1968 to 1972 was chosen. All the station names are from actual places that have or had a railroad thru them.

I'll get deeper into the construction, the who's and why's, etc. as I learn more about how to run a blog, so bear with me as I learn as I go.