For Old Time's Sake

The Friday Night boys gathered at my place to celebrate Marty's return visit to Ottawa. Marty, along with Trevor, Stan and myself were the inaugural foursome that began operating our trains on the Friday nights. These three lads played key roles in the development of my layout offering solid advice, encouragement and patience.

I decided to pull my bluebirds out of the display cabinet as they were the first two diesel locomotives that plied the rails during those first years even though they replaced the FT's in 1957-58. Because the Bluebirds were created from FT parts over a phase-in period, I am able to run both types of diesels on the layout in my 1958 time frame...an option I still wanted to hold.

The first image captures Bluebirds 1746 and 1701 in tandem hauling a long manifest freight along B&M rails at Haney Gorge. The train is heading onto the New England River Bridge. The rock cut is an effective scenic device that masks the portal to staging at this part of the layout.

Yes, these engines are over ten years old and some of the earliest Proto2000 offerings, but with cleaning (thanks Chris) they still run pretty well! I've always enjoyed the interlaced B&M logo introduced during the McGinnis era.

The train is captured piercing the "viewblock" which separates the Conley Lumber and coal area from the interlocking division point with the Maine Central. That's the Conley spur leading off to the left.

Mere moments after the last photograph, our intrepid railfan captures the B&M crew meeting the MEC crew at the junction. The MEC crew arrived some time ago, but, being the inferior railroad here, had to wait for the meet with the B&M train which has priority into North Dover.

The interlocking tower was a craftsman plaster kit. Always looking for new modelling ideas, I came upon an inspiration right at the time I was about to paint this tower. My daughter Alison was in elementary school at the time and she was colouring a poster with a felt tipped marker. A lightbulb came on inside my tiny head...why don't I spray all the wall sections the morter colour first and then colour the brick with Alison's felt marker...and...it worked. The ink from the felt tip touched only the brick surface and did not run into the mortar lines! Voila...another novel approach to modelling!

I've always liked this particular scene on the railroad. I wanted a curved stone arched bridge on the layout similar to the one at Fellow's Balls...oops, I mean, Bellow's Falls, Vermont! The only problem here was that the bridge would not only have curves in its side, it's location on the layout was on a curve in the track as well! Yikes! What to do now? Simple! Call Stan! Stan is an engineer and he could assist in the making of a jig for my plaster pour. It worked beautifully and I spent hours carving all the necessary little stones.

Our train is spotted departing the state of Maine and entering the state of New Hampshire once across the idyllic Salmon River. You can just make out in the distance beyond the gazebo the base of a covered bridge.

After the B&M train has performed its chores in town, the patient Maine Central crew follow its vanishing markers and arrive the station tracks at a crawl. Their job today will be to exchange tanker traffic. In fact, those are the lifts for the day spotted on the south siding in town (to the left of the locomotive) by the North Dover crew. With the exchange complete, the Maine Central train will enter Meek Tunnel and travel under the main street of North Dover where they will pick up their Maine Central tracks a few miles south of town.

Thanks to the crowd who came out to see Marty again. We missed Trevor on this night as he had to head back to Toronto midweek. One thing is for sure...both these lads have made (and left) a tremendous impact on the model railroading scene here in Ottawa over the recent years!