Tiger Tracks Train Show - Dec. 12-13

For details visit www.RITtrainshow.com

November 21 Work Session Update

A number of our members attended the WNYRHS train show in Hamburg, N.Y., while others stayed behind to work on various projects on the layout.

Matt touched up his excellent ballast work along the mainline from Lockport through Albion to CP 373. This leaves some of the sidings at Albion to complete, but some buildings need to be placed before work can proceed.

Ben came down to help out in the afternoon. He applied some ground cover around the edges of the transload track in the Niagara Food Terminal to help better blend it in to the surroundings. Next, Ben helped Otto fit in and install a styrene base for Buffalo Road. Otto used 1/16" walnut veneer to simulate the wooden ties protecting the rails at the crossing.

The embankment that will support the B&O Belt Line was painted and turfed. Ben cut a patch of 1/8" masonite to cover a hole and provide support for a future structure.

Otto spent the better part of the afternoon gluing up two structures that had been temporarily taped together as a mock up since last year. First was the Walther's beverage distributor warehouse, which will sit alongside the abandoned customer siding in Niagara Falls. The other is a low single-story warehouse that is being kitbashed from a City Classics kit.

Ben spent the better part of the afternoon putting together an old Proto 2000 covered hopper kit. He learned very quickly that "highly detailed" means cutting and gluing many, many tiny pieces together.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Tiger Tracks Train Show is just a few weeks away!

 

The beverage distributor warehouse needs windows and doors next.

 

Ben applied glue and turf at the transload area

 

Matt touched up his ballast work in Albion

 

Ben worked on his Proto 2000 covered hopper kit

 

Ben shimmed and fitted the Buffalo Road crossing 

 

1/16" walnut was used to simulate wooden ties at the Buffalo Road crossing

 

Otto kitbashed a City Classics building into a warehouse for Niagara Falls

November 14 Work Session

Scenery projects continue to advance all around the layout. Matt continued ballasting the R&IT mainline east from Niagara Falls through Lockport and Albion. The curve was repaired and reglued where the R&IT peels off from the CSX mainline at CP 373.

The Occidental Chemical plant saw additional work at Building 3, with the installation of earthen dams to surround the three large tanks next to the loading track. Joe Cermak continued working on the warehouse building next to the unloading tracks, completing the roof. Unloading racks were completed for Building 2.

Electrical work continues as Charles Rothbart and Dave Stavans worked on detection system installation. Both Syracause and Buffalo staging yards now have full block detection, which will work in sync with our JMRI desktop control system.

 

Ballast has reached the end of the R&IT mainline at CP 373

 

Completed unloading racks for Occidental Chemical

 

Charles wires up additional block detection segments

 

Ballasted main line through Albion

October 31 Work Session

Wrapping up the month of October! Elliot and Joe worked on constructing additional kits for the chemical plant in Niagara Falls. Otto added walkways to connect the two service platforms at the switcher pocket in Niagara Falls. David Stavans cut and glued pieces of masonite for street subroadbed in Albion. Charles and Matt continued to wire up NCE BD20 block detection around the layout. Matt later ballasted a few more sidings and switches in Niagara Falls. Otto finished the through truss bridge that Elliot began constructing for the Buffalo Road overpass, and also completed the scratchbuilt abutments for that scene.

 

David glues subroadbed for streets in Albion.

 

Matt ballasts one of the checmical plant sidings in Niagara Falls.

 

The completed B&O bridge over Buffalo Road near CP 373.

 

Elliot and Joe build kits for the chemical plant in Niagara Falls.

 

The completed service platforms in Niagara Falls.

October 24-25 Work Session

Several members met on October 24. Kits were assembled and kitbashed for use in the chemical plant in Niagara Falls. Joe Cermak also constructed an excellent railroad spike coat rack for use in the club room. Charles installed more hardware for block detection. Otto and Charles did some work on October 25, as well. We meet every Saturday for work sessions starting at 10:00am, come join us! See more photos and updates on our fan page at www.facebook.com/ritmrc

 Charles repairs freight cars.

 Joe kitbashes the pipe bridge over the mainline.

 Assembling tall tanks for the chemical plant.

 New abutments in progress for the B&O bridge over Buffalo Road.

 Otto works on scratchbuilding new bridge abutments.

Tim assembles tanks for the chemical plant.

October 10 Work Session

David Stavans and Charles Rothbart traveled to Hamburg, N.Y. for the "Just Trains" Show to drop flyers for our upcoming train show in December.

Many small projects were worked on today. We cleaned the room to get ready for Brick City Reunion Weekend and the Open House that we'll be hosting on Saturday from 12:00-4:00pm. All the exposed styrofoam used for land contours has been painted.

 The mainline tracks in Niagara Falls were ballasted, except for one switch at the east end of the yard. More foam was installed around Lockport near the Erie Canal scene.

 The diamond leading to the helix was messed around with to make it slightly more reliable than it has been in the past. Also, more of Matt's Santa Fe power began to take over our railroad.

Meetings are Tuesday nights at 7:00pm in Room A420 in the lower level of the Student Union. Our next event will be our Brick City Open House on Saturday, October 17, from 12:00pm to 4:00pm. Admission is free, and we will be running trains for the public to enjoy. Come on down!

October 3 Work Session

Getting back into the swing of regular work sessions, the club members tackled many projects. Matt got plastered and worked on the landforms at CP 373 and Irondequoit Yard. Charles and Nick installed more Tortoise switch machines and BD20 controllers. Joe designed and built a nifty new locomotive storage area and book shelf. Some more ballasting happened in Niagara Falls.

Saving a project with custom 3D printing

What do you do when you mess up the fragile underframe components of a resin craftsman kit? No worries, we live in the future now, so you just print out a new one. Eliot is assembling a Funaro & Carmelengo kit for a Lackawanna wood boxcar and needed to replace the underframe. He designed a new one using SolidWorks CAD software and printed the new underframe using an Ultimaker 2 3D printer. Having these options available to the modelmaker open up a new world of possibilities.

We meet every Tuesday at 7:00pm in Room A-420 in the lower level of the Student Alumni Union, and we hold work sessions every Saturday starting at 10:00am. Come join us, no experience required!

Meeting Mayhem

We had another fun meeting last night running trains and getting to know the new members. Some alumni dropped by, including Kyle, E.J., and Otto. Trains were run, Matt said important words, and plans were made for our work session this Saturday at 10:00am. Join us if you want to pitch in, we've got a lot of projects to work on, from electrical to woodworking and more.

Welcome New Students!

Welcome to another exciting year at Rochester Institute of Technology. You definitely want to join the RIT Model Railroad Club. Why? First, we are building a large HO scale model railroad that includes parts of Rochester, including famous landmarks like High Falls and Nick Tahou's!

We'll show you how to build realistic scale models as we construct our cities and towns along the railroad. Trees and hillsides, roads and rivers, houses and stores and factories, too. Every kind of scene imaginable from city to country.

Our trains use a sophisticated digital command control system that allows us to control everything from trains to switches and signals. We can write our own custom software interface using Java. There's also electronic controls to design, and much more.

We also volunteer at the nearby R&GV Railroad Museum where we work on real full-size trains. We also like to go railfanning, take pictures, and ride trains whenever we can.

August 22 - New Student Club Fair and Open House

Look for our table in the Gordon Field House this Saturday from 12:00-4:00pm. You can also visit our model railroad in Room A420 in the lower level of the Student-Alumni Union (SAU). We're down the hall from the Ritzkeller and across from the Tech Crew offices.

August 25 - First Meeting: East Snacks, Run Trains

 Join us for snacks and trains! Run trains on our large HO scale model railroad, enjoy some snacks, and meet some of our other members. We promise the snacks will be tasty. We get started at 7:00pm, so come on down! We are located in Room A420 in the lower level of the SAU.

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April 25-26 Work Sessions

This will most likely be our last official work session for a while as we're getting ready to host an open house for Imagine RIT on May 2, followed by hosting the NFR NMRA regional convention on May 16.

 After constructing some supplemental support structure, Otto and Dave installed fascia at CP 373. The mainline and yard tracks in Niagara Falls were masked and painted. Nick D. and Dave polished the railheads so trains could once again operate through Niagara Falls (ballast will have to wait for another time).

Nick, Dave, and Alex swept and cleaned throughout the club room. Trains were packed away. The workbench was cleared and its surface saw the light of day, if only briefly.

 

 On Sunday, the fascia was primered and Otto cut and painted a stand-in for Route 104 to make the scene look a little more finished for the upcoming Open House.

Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival is a campus-wide event that showcases the innovative and creative spirit of RIT students, faculty and staff. We will be hosting a special Open House on Saturday, May 2, from 10:00am to 4:00pm so that visitors can tour our expanded HO scale model railroad, the Rochester & Irondequoit Terminal! Trains will be running and club members will be available to tell you more about our club and our model railroad. See our progress and learn more about the hobby of model railroading. This event is FREE and open to the public! ALL ABOARD!!

April 18 Work Session

Work is starting to wind down as we prepare for Imagine RIT, the NMRA convention, and finals. Joe and Otto hung 8 more feet of fascia on the Rochester peninsula, Jimmy painted rails in Niagara Food Terminal, Alex helped clean up, Matt sprinkled foam and fixed Joe's engine, Charles installed another throttle jack and did some other useful stuff. Otto later worked on his kitbash of the Walthers Grocery Terminal to make up one of the buildings in Niagara Food Terminal. Over the next couple of weeks, we will begin to wrap up whatever projects are left and start cleaning the room and staging trains for our upcoming open houses.

April 11 Work Session

We're only a couple weeks away from ImagineRIT! More fascia was installed around the Rochester peninsula and painted green. Plans are to extend the fascia as far as CP 373 to the west, and up to High Falls to the east before work in that area will stop. The engine terminal in Irondequoit was ballasted by Matt, and Jimmy and Joe ballasted the mains leading into Irondequoit Yard. Charles continued his project to install cab jacks around the layout as needed.

We are also hosting the Niagara Frontier Region NMRA "Mortimer Junction 2015" regional convention with the Lakeshores Division during the weekend of May 16. We are looking forward to that event as well.

April 4 Work Session and Operating Session

Returning from Spring Break, we continued to prep the layout for our May events. The school year is quickly drawing to a close, with finals just a few weeks away.

Otto, Joe and Dave worked in the fascia surrounding the peninsula. Another 16 feet were hung from High Falls, working towards CP 373. The plan is to have fascia installed all the way around the peninsula by the end of the month.

Matt continued the work started by Elliot to relocate the switch for the Niagara Food Terminal lead. Alum and former club president Chris Stilson was in town and paid us a visit. He was quickly put to work soldering power leads.

There was an accepted students Open House on campus, so we had a fair number of visitors trickle in throughout the day to see what we were all about.

Otto helped prep the layout for the evening operating session. Our club advisor SuperDave came down to help. Trains were staged and a schedule was worked out.

The train schedules worked out pretty much as they have in the past with east and west mainline trains  dropping cars off at Irondequoit Yard. The BO-1 local (operated as a Rochester & Southern train with a real R&S crew) ran from Main Street over to Irondequoit to swap cars for interchange. The ABN-1 Albion local ran late in the day after all of its cars arrived. The NFL-1 Niagara Falls turn ran from Buffalo staging to swap cars. Meanwhile, the NFL and IRQ yardmasters were kept busy throughout the day. The commuter train made its scheduled runs to and from Rochester. A good time was had by all.

We are trying to get as much done on the layout before our May 2 Imagine RIT Open House. A couple weeks after that we will be hosting the Niagara Frontier Region NMRA regional convention the weekend of May 16, right around the time final exams hit. No pressure!

March 21 Work Session

RIT is on Spring Break right now, so the March 21 work session was somewhat quiet, with only Otto, E.J., and Matt participating (and only because his flight home was rescheduled). Most of the day was spent cutting, measuring, fitting, sanding, and priming the fascia panels in Niagara Falls.

 Portions of the fascia were made narrower so narrow shelving under the layout could be accessed easily. Gentle reverse curves were plotted by tracing around the perimeter of a roll of packing tape.

Matt applied two coats of white primer to the fascia panels in Niagara Falls. The next step will be the application of the final color... What will it be? Stay tuned... See more photos on our Facebook fan page!