Hello World!

[TMo]

Found this site a few weeks ago and thought I'd try joining.

I'm 55 and have been modeling in HO since my boyhood.  It's been fits and starts until around 2006 when I decided to devote some of my basement office into a model railroad.  Still a lot of fits and starts, but some progress has been made.  The website in my signoff line is devoted to the creation and ongoing efforts.

I model the "Rainbow Years" of Conrail in the Lehigh Valley Gorge - former bankrupt railroads amalgamated by the U.S. Gov't.  All diesel, nothing under wire, no diesels newer than 1975. 
Who would have thought that eventually this monstrosity could turn a profit and get sold off to CSX and NS?  

My formative years were spent in the Poconos of Pennsylvania where I regularly saw the mainline of the Erie Lackawanna and could travel south and see the Lehigh Valley, the Reading and the Penn Central.  I could travel west and find the Delaware and Hudson.  Then (eventually) came Big Blue and many changes in rail lines near my home.

Track is laid and I've been running trains for more than 10 years while I add scenery bit by bit and do things like weather my fleet.

I like to share techniques and learn from mistakes - thought joining this site might be useful for both!

[TMo]

I tried adding an attached photo to the previous post by dragging and dropping onto "Attachements", but no image ever appeared there. Wondering if anyone knows why that might not have worked for me.

[UP SD40-2]

TMo, WELCOME!

Glad to have you aboard!   

We LOVE pics here, different folks do it different ways here, personally, I use IMGUR, its free, and after you upload your pic you just click on the BB code copy button, then come here and paste it to the thread you wish, its very easy and works every time for me. Others might chime in with different ways to post pics, thats just how I do it  .

WELCOME! 

[ezdays]

Welcome to Big Blue. If you want to upload to Big Blue, you can click on th "click or drop...." window, it'll take you to your computer, then select the photos you want to upload then click on "open". They will all upload, then you can then place them where you want in your post. To drag and drop them means that you have to keep two windows open, one for you computer files, the other for Big Blue and that's kind of a pain.

[Charlie B]

Welcome to Big Blue TMo. 
I have uploaded many photos but I have to upload one so I can realize how I do it.  I just tried to drag one in and I don't do it that way. I click in the big box that says "click or drop files here to upload"  That will give you a window to browse for your photos. select a photo and open it.  Files have to be less than 500 kb and work better at 250 or less. The file will upload and below the click or drop box you will see the file name of your photo and to the right is the option to remove it or insert into post.  Place your cursor where you want to insert the picture and then click insert into post. 

We are all looking forward to having you spend some time with us.  Look around and get the feel of things. You may enjoy our picture of this day in the past thread where I try to post old Conrail pictures daily.  

Charlie

[TMo]

Thanks for all the tips on photo uploads. I'll try to post something tomorrow if things don't get too insane - got visitors tomorrow and a burial ceremony at Arlington for my mother-in-law.

[Charlie B]

Hello again Todd. I just checked out your layout and it is really well done. Nice scenery and it looks like you may be an ALCo fan. The ALCos were plentiful in our area in the early Conrail years. I am not that far from Conway or Mingo Junction so I got to see them a lot. My property bordered the Fort Wayne line on the south side and I worked where I was only 100 feet away from the track so I saw a lot of trains. If you need moral support be sure to pass it along because this hobby seems to run in spurts.  
Charlie

[jim currie]

hi welcome to the forum. you will find a lot of talent here to help you if you have any need. we have kit builders, bashers, scratch builders and scenery makers galore

[FiatFan]

Welcome to the forum. As has been mentioned we like pictures.

Tom

[Tyson Rayles]

Welcome, nice looking layout you have going there!

[TMo]

Sounds like the perfect group of people to be around to hone my craft.  I think my image files are too large for the Attachments widget.  I'll have to figure out how to decimate them or as others have suggested, web host the files to share.

Good to start talking about this stuff again because it fires me up to get back into scenery - the last few months have not been ripe with opportunities to devote a decent amount of time to work on the layout.

[Charlie B]

Hello again Todd. 
      Many of us that have the windows operating system use a free program called Windows picture resizer. It installs quickly and creates another right click function to resize the photo. You have the option to resize the original or just make a resized copy. It can do an unlimited number of photos if you select them all. Sometimes I copy all the pictures to another folder and resize them all there. I have, at times, resized over 1000 photos at a time and it usually takes less than 2 minutes.         
Charlie

[TMo]

Thanks to Charlie!  Downloaded the Image Resizer to add the photo below:

   

That's a Conrail Rainbow lashup if I ever saw one - beat up mix of GE/GM and Alco power rolling under Route 80 in White Haven, PA.  The leader is a U25B I believe (Stewart) that I modified with CR patches on the front nose, sides and rear followed by a Bachman Spectrum GP30 (bought it as a B&O unit) in Penn Central livery, followed by a CR patched C628 (Stewart undecorated), followed by another C628 Stewart still in LV colors.  All of the power has been properly weathered to represent the bankrupt railroads where these beasts were pulled from in 1976.  The bridge is a brainchild of mine inspired by work with Clever Models paper kits - they have some freebies, one of which is a lattice girder and column kit combined with their girder bridge kit.  The deck is a piece of foam board and then it's finished off with some plastic jersey walls.  I only have the eastbound span in this picture.

[Charlie B]

WOW Todd, that is very impressive and is so typical of the consists that were running through here for several years. The scenery is really great and the bridge is spot on great. Did I read right it is paper?
Charlie

[TMo]

Yep, paper. I detailed it's construction in one of my blog entries on my website (the bridge construction is near the bottom): https://morristhemoosetm.wixsite.com/rai...with-paper. The abutments are styrofoam wrapped in spackle and then painted.

Finished shots are located in a different blog that I shared with Clever Models: https://morristhemoosetm.wixsite.com/rai...ver-clever

For those who don't know about Clever, here's their website: http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/ I've put a few of their kits together (the first blog entry talks about them) and I can vouch for their quality. The price point is absolutely fabulous once you procure some cardstock, a nice sharp knife, the proper glue and some ink for your printer.