Greenberg Show - Edison August 11/12, 2012

I will be promoting NJ Free-mo at the Greenberg Edison, NJ show Saturday and Sunday August 11-12, 2012.  Please do stop by if you will be attending the show.  I am at the BRMNA (British Railway Modellers of North America) table.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get in touch with anyone with a finished module to attend, but I will be handing out flyers.

Timonium, February 2012

I joined the Capitol Free-mo folks for the Timonium Maryland show in February. This time we were in a different building with a somewhat small space. This did allow for what I think was a great deal more foot traffic, but also exposed the need of the group to have a way to turn the layout 180 degrees (like a U shape) to better utilize the space allotted. No problems though, we set up and had a good time all weekend.

Photos as usual over on the Capitol Free-mo site, capitolfreemo.org, and I also have some video I shot using the i-Car, a car that holds an iPhone and allows for shooting video down the track, which I picked up the weekend before at the Springfield show. Check it out at the link below:

Capitol Free-mo via i-Car

New England Free-mo

I went up to Springfield, Massachusetts for the annual train show. On hand this year were the folks of New England Free-mo. They had a U shaped layout set up. I talked with them and took a few photos. They have some nice modules with great scenery and structures. I also liked the thin multi-section staging yard they built. Real useful for operating the layout. Here are a few pictures:

Hopefully one day the the New England, Capitol and NJ Free-mo folks can have a joint set up as we could put together a nice sized layout. I do know that the New England guys participate in a show in Syracuse each November, so perhaps that will be an opportunity.

NJ Free-mo Name Tags

I created a simple personal name tag and module name tag in a word processing document. These feature the NJ Free-mo logo and have a space for the module name and owner name, and on the personal tag just the owner name. The module name tags can be applied to the module sides while the personal name tag fits with a standard name plastic tag holder (like the ones you get at conventions).

I have posted the documents to the "News" page of the NJ Free-mo website, njfreemo.org. Feel free to download and make a set for yourself.

Benchwork Paint Color

There is no formal Free-mo standard and participants in NJ Free-mo can use any paint color they want for legs and benchwork. But if you want to match what I used on my Woodstown Jct. modules, here is the info:

Paint from Lowe's

Olympic "Submarine" chip D64-5, this is part of the Green color selection

Lowe's link to sample

Timonium, October 2011

I traveled down to Timonium, Maryland again for the October Great Scale Model Train Show, setting up with the fine folks of Capitol Free-mo again. An early season snow storm luckily did not slow things down too much, but the crowds were a little light on Saturday.

For this show, I mainly focused on getting my bridge section painted and weathered with some basic scenery in place. Here is a look at it (my home layout is in the background):

For more photos, check out the Capitol Free-mo website, capitolfreemo.org.

Module Storage

I thought I would share a couple of photos about how I store my modules when I am not using or working on them. My layout was pretty much designed and all benchwork was built before I learned about and started down the Free-mo path. The layout is not changing, and I am not able to incorporate my modules into the layout. Which is OK because part of doing the modules was to allow me to model a time period after my layout which is set in 1980. So things you would see circa 1996 to 2005 are on the modules and would not be easily integrated into my layout.

So I needed a place to store them safely within the confines of the layout room. I built a set of brackets under the layout and use plastic sheeting to keep dust and debris from above the layout.

The smaller module sits to the side and the legs go underneath. They are safe here and still allow me to work on the layout above with no problems.

These have been in storage since the last Timonium show, but they should be up in the garage in September to get ready for the NJ Division Meet in Delanco, as they will be on site at the Meet location. And then they will also be on the road to travel to the Timonium Maryland show October 29-30, 2011.