Monthly Archives: November 2024

Checking In

News
Taking a call on the Southern RR steam loco telephone while at the Great Scale Model Train Show last month.

It’s been three months since my last post and a lot has been going on. Between sending my kids off to college, presenting a clinic on the Georgetown Branch at the Mid Atlantic Railway Prototype Modelers meet, a trip to Portugal to watch my daughter compete in the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championship, prepping for and attending the Great Scale Model Train Show for the weekend as a vendor with my model RR club, presenting a clinic on upgrading Proto2000 GP7/GP9’s for the Potomac Division of the Mid East Region, NMRA, Parents weekend at aforementioned kids’ schools (JMU/Quinnipiac), traveling to New England to visit family for a long weekend, attending a Slowdive concert in Philadelphia and a Brothertiger show in DC, layout ops and open houses and much more…

So, yeah, it’s been hectic. The Georgetown Branch project has taken a back seat this Fall to “life” but fear not, it’s still very much active and moving forward in different ways. I have been talking to Kelly a lot lately as he pushes through with his designs of the Whipple Truss bridge across the C&O Canal. He’s been working on this for the last couple years and recently revamped his approach, integrating steel beams for support due to the wide span. Testing of the fine 3D printed parts continues with promising results. I think he’s close to a final design and will be producing test prints soon. It’s exciting times.

Test fitting bridge parts.
The first iteration at the top, with a carbon fiber center spar. Steel beams at the bottom for reference.
Kelly measuring the deflection on the steel bars across the span with the weight of one loco in the center.

Follow along on Kelly’s Blog.

Regarding the MARPM Georgetown Branch presentation, which hopefully some of you witnessed. Fear not. While that clinic was not recorded, I will be presenting it online for the OpSIG group Virtual Meetup on December 8th, at 7:00pm. It will hopefully be recorded and posted to their YouTube channel afterward for public viewing.