Photos – HO Modular Layout – 2015 – August CVE Fair

Photos from the display of our HO scale modular layout at the Champlain Valley Fair in August 2015. This was our first year of displaying in the Expo North building, and most of our modules were complete or approaching completion.

Welcome to the NWV Model RR Association Modular Layout

An aerial view taken during 2015 Champlain Valley Fair.  The tracks leaving the wye to the right connect with other Free-mo modules, in this case, the National Model Railroad Association’s Green Mountain Division’s Bellows Falls modules.

The corn is ready to be harvested, the hay needs to be cut and the cows are grazing in the field of this farm scene on Paul’s module.  The farm house was scratch built by Paul and features a slanted window above the addition.  This is an architectural quirk that seems to be found most often in Vermont houses.

This is the left module of two built by Chris which depict Burlington, VT buildings from yesterday.  The original Ben & Jerry’s gas station location is recreated.

This is Chris’ right module of the two modules depicting buildings from Burlington’s recent past.

This photo shows the joining of the left and right modules built by Chris, merging the two scenes from Burlington’s recent past.

This bridge was scratch built and given to the NWV by the estate of the late Don Pare.  Don was a Canadian National Railway fan and this bridge is believed to be modeled after the CN bridge that crosses the Richelieu River at McMasterville, Quebec.  This is not an exact copy but it was a memorable fixture on Don’s home layout for many years.  Paul designed and built this module with the deep gully to display the bridge within the 4’ length limitation of the module size.

Jonathan is modeling a small town scene in his module.  In 2015 it was still a work in progress but the layout of the streets and town can be seen from this photo.

Mike is featuring a couple of laser cut modules that were produced by the NWV.  The Swanton, Vermont station along the Central Vermont mainline was a kit offered by the NWV a few years back.  The remaining kits have been sold out.  The real CV station was restored and is a small museum, between the mainline and the Lamoille River.  The round barn is a laser cut kit that is currently for sale by the NWV.  It is modeled after a round barn located in Grand Isle, Vermont.

Mitch’s module features a small yard and industrial spur in addition to the double track main line passing through the middle.  All tracks are spaced 2” apart between centerlines so that other modules with sidings may connect to it.  In this case, the module to the right is one of Chris’ Burlington modules and it contains a connection with the yard siding.

Daniel’s module depicts a carnival scene.  The white passenger cars in the background are replicas of the James E. Strates shows train cars.  In real life, this carnival moves from location to location with dedicated railroad cars and is one of the last remaining companies to do so.  The Strates shows signed a long term contract with the Champlain Valley Exposition and were featured for the first time at the 2015 Champlain Valley Fair midway.  Note:  The Tilt-a-whirl was misplaced and will go behind the orange fence to the right when found.

This is a larger view of Mitch and Daniel’s modules joined together.

Dave built two modules to connect together to form a larger scene which includes a yard switching puzzle.  The intent is for visitors to try their hand at switching cars around the yard during the show.  This can be done without interfering with operations on the main line which passes through the middle of the module.  The second module was not used during the fair in 2015 and was not photographed.

The NWV purchased and built four corner modules from donations by the members during a fund raising drive in 2012.  All four corners are similar in design except corner 1 contains the electronics to power the modular layout.  The corner modules provide a 90-degree direction change to both mainline tracks to allow the modules to be configured in a continuous running loop.

The home layout of the NWV has two staging yards for its point to point design.  These staging yards are removable and were used for the back section of the modular layout to set up and dispatch trains.  Two transition sections were built to adapt the staging yard track spacing to the modular layout track spacing.  With the three 8’ staging sections and the two 2’ adapter sections, the total length is 28 feet which is equivalent to 7 modules. In recent years, we built new staging yard modules compatible with the Free-mo standard, eliminating the need to dis-assemble the home layout to take the yard sections to shows.

Dana built three modules in a wye configuration.  In addition, a mainline cross over and an industrial siding is modeled.  Because the operator can be standing in any of 3 sides of this set of modules, the switches are controlled electronically from 3 different control panels mounted on the facia.  The wye is used to connect to other Free-Mo modules with a single track mainline interface to the left of this picture.  So far, the only connection with other Free-Mo modules has been with the Bellows Falls modules owned by the Green Mountain Division of the NMRA.

The Green Mountain Division of the NMRA (GMD) designed and built a Free-Mo module that depicts Bellows Falls, Vermont back when the Central Vermont and Rutland Railroads served that town.  Those days are gone and so are many of the buildings.  However, with photographs and some selective compression, a recognizable depiction of Bellows Falls resulted.  This Bellows Falls module can be connected to the NWV Free-Mo modular layout through a wye track connection and usually is at public displays of the layout.

A view from the Walpole, New Hampshire staging yard which represents the Boston & Maine Railroad connection across the Connecticut River with the Rutland Railroad in Bellows Falls, Vermont.  By following the track ahead of the RS-3 switcher just leaving the staging yard, one can see the line go through the CV diamond, past the left side of the Rutland turntable and round house, over the truss bridge to the wye connection with the NWV modular layout.  The mainline of the NWV is very busy with two freight trains passing each other on the wye module.

People Pictures

This next section focuses on people pictures from the 2015 Fair: Those who make the layout go, and those who enjoyed watching it go!

Lew setting up the NMRA division modules depicting Bellows Falls, Vermont.

Lots of kids in the crowd…

and some older kids, too.

Engineer Chris highballs through town for the audience.

Carlton and a future railroader!

But mom, that was a U25B locomotive.  You can tell because of the jog in the side railing.

Racing Amtraks to the next town.

Even the “hidden” staging tracks attract an audience.  Check out that string of sweet NWV covered hoppers.

Wasn’t this Amtrak engineer in the news lately???

It’s so hard to capture the shot at the right moment with everyone at once telling you what to do.

The president of the railroad, Spongebob, arrives in his private business car at the Bellows Falls railroad station.  Accompanying him is his associate, Patrick.  You’ll notice that this train also has the rare Yellow Submarine car included.

Vermont Congressman (now Senator) Peter Welch visited the NWV layout (hint:  he’s not wearing a green shirt)

Clean up on aisle 9…

Who let this guy in??