The annual Tidewater Big Train Operators (TBTO) Holiday train show is the largest and longest lasting display that our club sets up. We take over an entire gymnasium and the show runs for eight days. 2017 was our second year with our own layout in the show and our first year setting up along theContinue reading “Holiday Show 2017”
Author Archives: dcrrsophie
White’s Nursery Fall 2017
This was our first show at White’s Nursery where we did not set up in the glass house. The shows our train club does here are a bit different in that each member has a different area to set up in, whereas at the larger shows members may do a layout within the confines ofContinue reading “White’s Nursery Fall 2017”
Golden Spike
In September of 2017 we had the “Golden Spike” ceremony for our layout in conjunction with the club’s annual picnic. A Last Spike is the one driven at the completion of a railroad construction project and when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific rail lines were joined at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869 they usedContinue reading “Golden Spike”
SCARM
Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeler All of our layouts have been designed with a piece of software known as SCARM, or Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeler. There is other software available and this is not the one that our club uses, but when we first started SCARM was free (it was still in beta) andContinue reading “SCARM”
White’s Nursery Spring 2017
Birdhouses and Bubble Boy The decorative wooden birdhouses you can find ‘most anywhere work great on a garden train layout, though the scale is just the tiniest bit too small. They work well on an indoor layout that is, they do not hold up at all outside. Do not ask how we know. We haveContinue reading “White’s Nursery Spring 2017”
Holiday Show 2016
The annual Tidewater Big Train Operators (TBTO) Holiday train show is the largest and longest lasting display that our club sets up. We take over an entire gymnasium and the show runs for eight days. This year was the third year for us as members of the club and the first year that we hadContinue reading “Holiday Show 2016”
White’s Nursery Fall 2016
Our second holiday themed show at White’s Nursery in Chesapeake, Virginia. This was the debut of our Dinosaur Train. Kids in general love trains so one goal of our train club, the Tidewater Big Train Operators, is to keep them interested in the hopes that they’ll grow into big kids who love trains. Kind ofContinue reading “White’s Nursery Fall 2016”
Construction Aug 2016
A neighbor with a mini-excavator was hired to dig the canal and the larger pond. We did NOT care to dig all of that by hand. But there signs at the far end of the layout that completion may actually exist. The small pond is starting to fill in. The inner loop of track isContinue reading “Construction Aug 2016”
Construction July 2016
The roto-tiller abuse continues. Obviously we’re taking a break from running trains at this point, but many loads of dirt taken out and many of gravel put in and parts of our layout at least are starting to take shape. The gazebo is mostly finished as is one end of our water feature. We hadContinue reading “Construction July 2016”
Construction June 2016
This is about the time that the neighbors begin to wonder just what we are up to. We got all three tracks in place. We ran trains. We contemplated and navel gazed for a bit. We decided we were really going to do this. And then……we got to work. The large blob of deadness inContinue reading “Construction June 2016”
Dismal Creek Railroad 