Peter March 2nd, 2011
Just a quick update. Rochelle Intermodal is currently up at my club, the Seaboard Southern in its full 23′ configuration. This is great as it allows me to do some work on it as well as enabling other members to run their locos.
However this is just a temporary home as my wife and I are moving to a new house in about a month with a…wait for it…garage! Great news!
So, more on this later.
Peter November 22nd, 2010
Rochelle Intermodal was at the White House Model Railway Group’s show in Hampton, Middlesex this past weekened, 20th November 2010. A successful showing and also the last time the layout will be attending a show for a while, probably at least a year. I’m not sure if I will be putting it back on the exhibition circuit again after that. I’ll decide on that at the end of 2011.
The reason for this is to get the scenery finished, as well as finishing off the automation and the signalling. I’m hoping to be in a new house next year with space to be able to put the layout up – at present I can only put 4 boards up, and only temporarily, which makes it quite hard to work on as I have to keep dismantling it each time.
In the meantime, enjoy the videos I took at the White House show – we were running 4 trains on the main, 2 in each direction – ah, the joy of DCC! We were also switching the Caron Street industrial area, making it a challenge to switch around the mainline trains! Many thanks to Alan Crooks for all his help setting up, operating and taking down the layout – your help is always appreciated, Alan!
Right, here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LypcKMLg7z0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvlVk5E2gUc
Keep an eye on my website for more updates as I get to work on the scenery work. Rochelle will be based in the Seaboard Southern clubroom for a while, enabling me to have it set up all the time and also to allow the others a chance to run on it.
Peter November 10th, 2009
Rochelle Intermodal will be at the 2009 Tolworth show this coming weekend, 14 & 15th November. And great news…it will be the new extended version! With the generous help of Pete Blake, from the Seaboard Southern club, I am almost finished with the two new industrial switching boards…just doing the last bit of scenic work, then will test them with the adjoining boards. Hopefully all works as expected, but am expecting the usual gremlins!
So, come visit me at Tolworth this weekend, otherwise keep an eye on this site for photos of the new modules.
Tolworth Showtrain information: http://www.metropolitanrailway.co.uk/showtrain.htm
Peter January 11th, 2009
Well, the show is over! An early start on Saturday morning, leaving home at 7am to be at the NMRA British Region’s Winter Meet at Benson in Oxfordshire by 8am. All the fields and trees were white from the frost, and there was a thick mist in the air – the poor car heater was working overtime, and just about managing to keep the cold out!
With help from fellow Seaboard Southern members, we got the layout up and running in time for show start at 10am. A good start to the day, everything worked as it should have. Well, apart from one block detector, but I found out it actually helped if the controlling DS64 was actually plugged into the power! Doh!! Thanks to the careful adjustments I had done earlier in the week, all the track joints between the boards behaved themselves and we had no derailments. The only problem we had was with two tortoise motors that were not throwing all the way across – these were the cause of a few derailments, but we made sure the points were fully across before sending a train across. Later in the afternoon we had a strange problem of two dips appearing on the crossover on end board B (the farm board is end board A). I will have to have a look at that sometime, possibly ripping out the points and re-laying them.
The computer system (Railroad & Co.) behaved itself, and the demo ran nicely for those who wanted to see it, apart from one time when I ran the DC Amtrak (still need to get controller for that) during the demo. This seemed to confuse the system and it ended up throwing the points for the Amtrak loco, not the computer-controlled one…! But you have to learn somehow 
So, apart from those few problems, I am very happy with the way the layout ran, considering this was its maiden showing at an exhibition. It seemed to go down well and I received very positive feedback, with a lot of people interested in the Railroad & Co. system.
At the moment the layout is still boxed up in the conservatory, and will remain so for a while as I am going to be starting work on the two industrial switching boards inherited from my friend Jim Bainbridge who is now living in San Francisco…thanks for doing the hard work (ie. tracklaying), Jim! Much appreciated!  Now just to wire it all up and get started on the scenery!
The next outing for Rochelle Intermodal is in September at the annual Seaboard Southern exhibition. More details can be found on the Seaboard Southern website.
So, here are some photos from the show – as usual, just click on the photo for a larger image and a description:
Peter April 22nd, 2008
I have just started the first layer of the scenery, the ground cover. A second layer will go over this (bushes, weeds, rocks, etc), then I will lay the ballast so that it all blends nicely.
Have a look at the Scenery Gallery to see the first bit of scenery on Rochelle Intermodal.
The first section I am working on is the ground between the main tracks and the edge of the layout. The space between the main tracks will be ballasted, so no use putting any ground cover there. I will add some bits and pieces after the ballasting has been done there, but nothing drastic…a few weeds and other detail bits (old ties, parts fallen off trains, etc).
At the moment I am looking at getting a mix of Arizona Rock & Mineral Co ballast which will be close to the colour of the ballast at Rochelle (a mix of Chicago North Western Pink Lady and CSX/SP grey). It looks like Caboose Hobbies in Denver stocks it, and I am hoping to go to Denver at the end of May, so will bring back some ballast from there. I will only be able to bring back a bit at a time, but at least I can then get started on the ballasting.
I am also about to start laying the concrete apron for the intermodal yard. I purchase sheets of styrene yesterday, along with strip wood for support, and I will hopefully be able to start on that over the weekend.
Right, time for bed…I would rather stay up to do some more scenery work, but some of us have to work…no fun 
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