Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, November 12, 2022
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location
Brandywine Town Center
4050 Brandywine Parkway
Wilmington, DE 19803
Located near the intersection of US-202 (Concord Pk.) and DE-92 (Naaman’s Rd.)
Held at the Community Center in front of the shopping center near the fountain and pool.
Categories
On Saturday November 12, the Philadelphia Division returns to the Community Center at the Brandywine Town Center for our late fall meet. The time is 9:00am with doors opening at 8:30. Maps and directions can be found on page 7.
Clinic #1: Proses Locomotive Shop by Division Superintendent Joe Walters, MMR:
In the beginning locomotives were basically rolling boilers on steel wheels. The engineers stood behind the boilers on an outside platform. These early locomotives were simple machines compared to the monsters of today. Locomotives have been built in many configurations involving various wheel arrangements and larger boilers, ultimately maxed out by the Union Pacific’s “Big Boys.” As these machines were being produced, locomotive facilities were being built to shelter the work forces that maintained the fleet—designs ranging from simple open sheds to multi-track roundhouses, with 200-ton coal storage, and 10,000 gallon water storage tanks.
Back shops and heavy repair locations even built their own locomotives for their carrier. Steam locomotives were expensive to repair and required a large number of maintenance employees. Around this time, diesel locomotives started appearing and performing as well as steam. They also required a lesser degree of maintenance. This made the decision easy for management to dieselize their railroads. Diesel shops that were being built were different than roundhouses. Both facilities had complex maintenance schedules. In this clinic we will look at the Proses Locomotive Facility. This is a two-stall diesel shop. The model is a laser-cut structure produced by Proses of Germany. The structure has interior lighting and a control panel for the operating doors. All electronic equipment comes complete with the kit. The user supplies a 12-volt power supply. This is an eye-catching facility when viewed.
The discussion of how this kit was assembled will be the focus of this workshop. Joe will have an open house after the meet if you would like to view this structure in person.
Clinic #2: PRR Chestnut Hill Branch circa 1958 by Ron Hoess:
Ron Hoess will describe the construction of his pro-totype layout depicting a portion of the PRR Chestnut Hill Branch known as the Stifftown Branch, circa 1958. After almost ten years the layout is nearing completion. Ron will discuss some of the strategies he used in planning the layout and of course some lessons learned. This being a prototype layout, all of the structures on the layout have been scratch built to accurately convey the appearance of the prototype. This requires considerable historic research, and some of the resources that made this possible will be discussed. The layout will be open in the afternoon for those interested in seeing it firsthand.
Ron Hoess is a retired molecular biologist who was a researcher at DuPont and Bristol Myers. Since his re-tirement Ron has pursued his interest in both trains and Philadelphia industrial history. Currently he has combined these interests in constructing a train layout that depicts North Philadelphia circa 1958. Using a variety of archival resources all the structures are being scratch built in order to accurately portray this area of Philadelphia. Ron has published some of this work in Railroad Model Craftsman and also the online magazine The Keystone Modeler.
All attendees are encouraged to bring a model in any level of progress to the meet for our display table and show and tell. As usual we’ll hold our 50/50 raffle, draw for door prizes, and have coffee, donuts, and Philly soft pretzels.
The afternoon promises to be a real treat with several excellent model railroads open for your viewing pleasure courtesy of the November Open House Model Railroad event. Hope you can make it!
Very unfortunate timing, since this is one of the weekends with the most OPEN HOUSES of the season and many of them are at a considerable distance.
See http://www.modelrailroadopenhouse.com/m111222.html
I really need to be on the road to the layouts, when the NMRA meeting is going on … and so will everyone else who wants to see them.
I think it would make more sense to skip the November meeting and have an early December meeting instead, after the OPEN HOUSE season is over.
Joe, please think about it for next year.
Andreas Nesemann