Blog
This blog is limited to articles; random photos or quick updates are posted to the FaceBook page.
Blog entries from August 2017 and earlier have been migrated from a former site and many of the images are incorrectly linked. These may be repaired over time.
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- Category: Engineering Blog
When the PRR Middle Division was struck by lightning 20 months ago, I had just completed the wiring of the Lewistown Yard control panels. After replacing the Digitrax infrastructure and the many Berrett Hill Touch Toggles on the branch lines, I could have replaced the yard controls in a timely manner.
In the existing design, Touch Toggles were located on each "point" on the track schematic. A complex route might require the yard drill team to activate several toggles in order to clear their desired route. While all of this was going on, Berrett Hill announced a new Matrix Controller, which would allow pressing one toggle to activate all switches along a route. This seemed like a "no brainer", but the code wasn't yet finalized for the board. After many months, the code was completed and the controllers went into production. Once they became available, the documentation was incomplete. Without documentation, I was hesitant to invest in the controllers due to the yard having complex ladders and routes, rather than simple ladders.
Read more: Lewistown Yard Control Panels Finally Functional!
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- Category: Engineering Blog
Still no operations. Still no Lewistown Yard control panels. But that's about all that didn't go well this quarter. The Middle Division is going gangbusters these days!
On the matrix controllers from Barrett Hill for the Lewistown Yard, I plan on cornering the vendor at the Railroad hobby Show in Springfield and again a week later at Timonium. This is holding up restoration of yard operations and is a hurdle for operating sessions. I have a holiday on January 16th and, on that day, plan to cut the panels themselves.
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- Category: Engineering Blog
The dispatching system on the PRR Middle Division has long been a Windows laptop with two HD (1920x1080) additional displays. Using extended desktop in Windows, I could stretch the JMRI/CATS dispatching panel across the two displays. Although no pixels are "missing" when doing this, the nagging two inch space of the display frames has always been undesirable.
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- Category: Engineering Blog
It's been a great quarter for the PRR Middle Division in HO scale. For starters, we have a new URL: https://prrmiddledivision.com. You can continue to use https://pennsyrr.com, but that will take you to the index page whereas the new URL goes straight to the model railroad page.
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- Category: Mechanical Department Blog
The Penn Texas, train 3 westbound, was a New York to St. Louis passenger train taking passengers to the "Gateway to the West". As such, it carried many interchange cars which I recently put some time into completing.
The train passed Lewistown during the early morning hours, so most of the shades are down in the sleepers.
The first car, defined as a MS60, R50 or B60, was a New York to St. Louis mail storage car.
MP 4169 is a stock Walthers car with a user-applied road number decal.
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- Category: Public Relations Blog
In a few weeks, the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet (MARPM) will be upon us (October 13-16). Though this will be my first outing at MARPM, I've been to the Valley Forge RPM several times and to RPM East once.
This year the MARPM is in a new location -- Timonium, MD -- and is being held concurrent with the Great Scale Model Train Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds just down the road. This should prove to be a win-win for both events.
I will be presenting two clinics on Friday:
THE PRR MIDDLE DIVISION IN HO SCALE
A presentation on the planning and design, operating philosophy, and progress of the PRR Middle Division in HO Scale.
POTUS ON PENNSY
An exploration of the glory days of transporting the POTUS (President of the United States) by rail. Discussion includes the Ferdinand Magellan, an armored rail car modified just for the task. A deep dive will focus on one specific trip over the Pennsylvania and the Bellefonte Central railroads.
RPM's are a lot of fun and very inexpensive to attend. If you are in the area, please consider attending!
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- Category: Public Relations Blog
The PRR MIddle Division will present two open houses to the public this fall. The HO scale model railroad depicts the greater Lewistown, Pa., area during the early 1950s when the Pennsy was The Standard Railroad of the World!
The first open house will be on Saturday, September 17th, as part of the Mainline Hobby Fall Layout Tour. The railroad will be open from 12 noon until 3 p.m. Address information will be available at Mainline Hobby on that date.
The second open house will be on Saturday, November 12th, as part of the DE - MD - NJ - PA Model Railroad Open House. The railroad will be open from 12 noon until 3 p.m. Address information will be posted to that web site on October 15th.
The site is not ADA accessible. Please be respectful of posted start and end times. For more information, please visit prrmiddledivision.com.
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- Category: Engineering Blog
In preparation for operations, I continue to test, test, test the mainlines and the trains thereon. I'm also converting all of my advanced consist addresses to best match the train symbol itself. Seems more logical than picking a random two digit number. For passenger trains, it is simply the train number. For freights, drop the prefix (e.g. "VL-9" becomes "9"). Believe it or not, there was only one conflict!
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- Category: Public Relations Blog
The Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society (PRRT&HS) held its annual meeting May 11-15. As a part of that event, the PRR Middle Division held its first open house in three years and, more importantly, its first since the lightning strike!