NMRA James River Meet in Schuyler Virginia yesterday

Yesterday, I traveled down to Schuyler Virginia for our local NMRA meet.  Not a long ride but through some of the better parts of Virginia. Most people do not recognize Schuyler, but it's where the old TV show "The Waltons" was set.  They even have a museum.  Schuyler is about 30 minutes south of Charlottesville.  The area is also famous for it Soapstone deposits and is still mined to this day.  The meet was located at a private quarry garden that is opened to the public by appointment.
Schuyler Quarry Gardens

The reason we were here is that an O scale model railroad is also being built at the gardens visitor center.  The track is laid and represents the area in the mid 1900's, to represent the Nelson and Albermarle RR that ran in the area.  It's probably a year from being totally complete but has a great start.  The layout is being built by a good friend and a great modeler, Mark Chase from Richmond.  Check out his great website below.
http://eastblueridge.com/

No I didn't stop.

If your a fan of the Walton's you will definitely recognize this house!

Soapstone info

Soapstone info

This O scale Saddlebag log represents one of ten the N&A had.

The building were made out of soapstone in real life so a foam core was used to simulate it.

More of the mill facility.  

Mark Chase giving his presentation on the Soapstone industry.  Yes that is a 44 tonner for the N&A!

View from the garden overlook

On the way home, I stopped and took some pics of a fertilizer unloader.  Very simple and definitely could be used on my layout.

The auger to the top of the structure

The actual storage building

Could not pass up this picture in Gordonsville!  That's a '37 Packard

New Edition of Crossties

Out this month is my local NMRA,  the James River division puts out a great publication every even month.  Lots of great articles and reviews of our previous meets and other info.  It's even got my smiling face in it every edition.  Definitely check it out!

Crossties April 2018 edition

NMRA Layout Tour in January

My local NMRA division is the James River Division here in Virginia.  I've been a member for a few years now.  We get together 6 times a year and have a publication sent out between meets.  My layout was opened up for the meet nearby in January.  Here is our Crossties publication featuring the Virginia Midland Railroad and a bunch of other things.  I'm also head of the modeling theme contest for each meet.

Check it out!

Crossties February2018

June 2017 Crossties featuring myself

This is the June 2017 edition of Crossties.  This is the publication done my local division of the NMRA: James River Division in the Mid Eastern Region.  This particular edition has a pic of me doing my presentation back in May:
2017 June Crossties

Besides featuring me, it's a well done and well put together publication and it comes out every even month.

Enjoy!

NMRA James River Division meet this past Saturday

This past Saturday I gave a talk on the construction of my HO Virginia Midland railroad.  The presentation was at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.  It was a rainy Saturday and this was the first time I have ever given a talk at a meet.  It went well and had many compliments afterwards.  Looking forward to doing it again as this presentation only covered mainly the upper level.  Definitely a part is in the works for the lower level.

After the presentation and meet, I had lunch at Arby's and visited a layout just south of town.   Bob Macioni's layout was an HO layout that took up all of his basement.  It looked 100% done and was a large layout.  

I also stopped in the town of Orange on the way back and got some pics of the gondolas at the tie loading industry.

Old PC gon

Seaboard gon

Another former PC gon

Chessie B&O gon

Upclose of the Chessie "C" emblem