70 tonners in New England

This report was originally provided by Mike H via email, posted here by Stan for completeness.

"Incredible, Wow, Awesome, Gob-Stopping!!!" All these words were overheard in the layout room and new crew lounge environs. What can I say, Mike! Your layout has been considered one of the great ones around...and, yet, you've found ways to make it even better!

Eight operators were kept rather busy as Mike developed some "new ways" of running trains simultaneously in the layout room. For instance, Barry and I brought a "beauty of a passenger train" into Claremont from the short stub-staging track in the far right corner of the room, the scenicked staging portion of the layout. This train was hauled by a B&M steam locomotive and contained a milk car which would be exchanged for another "milky" from a train we awaited. (which was being assembled at the junction) Having two trains play the exchange (similar to what happens in North Dover) really added to our feel of the railroad doing something. (not that it hasn't before!)

Barry and I later brought a freight into Claremont across the huge lift bridge. This train was in care of an AB set of F-units painted in the "shall we say...interesting" McGinnis black, white and blue scheme. Yes boys, McGinnis attempted to leave his mark on the venerable F's as well! This train, though, was a colourful one...a railfan's delight!

...and these were only the first few moves of the evening!

Let's get back to all those superlatives. Well, Mike has been a busy lad in the last two months. You recall the location where his narrow gauge interchanged with the standard gauge...at the very far end of the layout room looking left from the doorway. This was the location where the narrow gauge track swung back around in the direction of the door entrance past the farm fields and through the nice cut under the wooden bridge. Well, in the very far corner to the left, Mike has created Abbott Jct. There is a country road with a number of brand new scratchbuilt buildings which are phenomenal. "Gus's Gen'Ral Store" is the showpiece here...a building named after Mike and Sandi's cat showcasing many beautiful side and front elevations, an aluminum roof, a cool television antenna, a gorgeous front veranda with hanging plants and a big storefront display window allowing the viewer to see all the merchandise inside the store. Fabulous! My second favourite structure in this area is a smaller garage/gas station scratchbuilt out of wood. Mike tells us that all of the new building (six or seven of them created since Christmas time) are wooden scratchbuilds but one. The location in this corner of the room is called Abbott Jct and there are plenty of industries for your train to work.

Well, the jokes were flying last night. As you recall, the M Man was out of commission for a while...as we say he was "on the shelf"...and speaking of shelves, Mike has spent this time "on the shelf"...creating a new shelf...yes, a shelf layout, not unlike the Howie Man's. Indeed, Mike pierced a hole in the wall at the very far left end of his layout room at Abbott Jct. where he ran track through to the crew lounge.

To mask the opening, he created a truncated version of a covered bridge at both ends. Train crews pass through Abbott Jct. then through the wall where they find themselves on a lengthy shelf layout depicting parts of Claremont proper. The shelf runs some ten or twelve feet and there is a couple of run-around tracks, some trailing and facing sidings, some sidings leading off others and a turntable at the end of the line.

While this new area in the lounge is unscenicked, Barry and I had a blast switching out all the industries while the guys in the lounge bantered about and read books. With all our work done here, we headed back through the wall into the layout room where we switched out the trailing sidings at Abbott Jct. before heading back to the (big) yard at Claremont Jct to put our buggy and 70-tonner to bed!