This site is dedicated to my model railroad, the HO scale Virginia Midland Railroad. This layout comprises a 12X9 room with two levels. The upper level is complete and the lower level scenery has just begun.
I do a handful of train shows in the Virginia/Maryland region with Makin Tracks. I also can help you find that freight car/locomotive or other hard to find item.
Email: virginiamidlandshops@gmail.com You tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/Virginiamidlandrr/
In my last post, I said I would have a post up by Sunday/Monday. Well it's Thursday night and the post is finally here. I had a sinus infection on Sunday and actually missed work on Monday. So nothing got accomplished those two days. Did get another snow day on Wednesday and got a little done that I had wanted to get done earlier on in the week. The mainline is finished through the area I started on. The mainline comes out from the helix and through the wall to the lower level. It comes through a set of turnouts and continues to hidden trackage that leads west.
In this view, we are looking east towards the "hole in the wall". The mainline is the trackage in the picture. The roadbed on the right will lead to the branch line.
In this view, we see the hole to helix and the branch line trackage the bulkhead is on. I will put a curved turnout where the foam starts for the runaround track for the branch line.
The mainline west. There will be another turnout added for a runaround track for the branch line. Tortoise switches were already installed for the On30 track. I used the same basic layout I had so I did not have to move the Tortoises.
Norm Wolf did a custom MOW tie hopper for me. He delivered it to me on Wednesday. It's an Athearn blue box Ex SCL hopper. Norm did a sensational job on it.
He even added a scrap tie load to the interior.
It will look right at home with my other MOW cars like the side dump car is coupled to.
I recently made a nifty little I-phone holder to video trains on the layout. I finally put it to work the other night.
All my videos and photos are from my I-phone. It does an excellent job:
I also had a heck of an idea at all places, work. For some reason expansion has gone into my mind. I have not done much with the On30 layout under my HO layout. It runs well but doesn't have scenery. I even have lights directly above it. So if I put a small helix in the garage, I could access that level. It's only 9 inches and could be done in 2-3 rotations. It would be a small helix and frustrating to build. I do like challenges and if it does get built, the line would represent the line to Orange or another branch line. Stay tuned!
