Fort Myers, Florida in the 90's - Its the layouts 30th birthday this year - Freemo South 2024

[roundhouse]

Another box car gets even more grubby than it was before this morning. I have been using photos of various McCloud River railroad box cars. This one has an almost completely rusty roof. After a final touch up it will get a coat of matt varnish.

Onto the next ones.

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

A couple more freight cars have had their weathering worked on. Neiopf these will be used at the Freemo meet but they were in the same stock box as some that will be in use. The  Railbox car is being on one that I actually photographed at Fort Myers back in 1993. Back then there wasn't as much graffiti hence there isn't much on most of my HO scale freight cars unlike my N scale that is set in more recent times.

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

Below is the photo that I took of the real Railbox back in 1993. Unfortunately I cant show the one of the Marinette Tomahawk & Western one as thats not my photo.

 

 

Once the decals are on it will have more rusting added etc.

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

This morning I managed to give the current freight cars on the workbench a quick wash of oil paint to create the rust streaks. So a few of the cars will look a bit wet in the photos. Hopefully tomorrow morning they will be dry enough for a final sealing coat of matt varnish .

 

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[z4driver]

Do you have a description of how you do your weathering? I keep trying to pluck up courage to have a go but am always worried about ruining it.

 

Lee

[roundhouse]

11 minutes ago, z4driver said:

Do you have a description of how you do your weathering? I keep trying to pluck up courage to have a go but am always worried about ruining it.

 

Lee

Most of my weathering in the past was done using diluted enamel paints, so it was fairly generic being permanent. In recent years I now ned to use acrylics which can be removed if the desired finish isn't achieved before final mat coating. The last couple of weeks I have also been using a tube of burnt sienna oil paint and associated solvent to add streaks from rust spots that were previously added using acrylics. I have also been using weathering powders on the roofs o blend the acrylic rust patches. Photos of the real thing are also handy to copy.

 

I suggest watching plenty of Youtube videos from Dans Railroads. His methods are excellent and I now use many of his.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by roundhouse

[z4driver]

Thanks for that. Lee

[roundhouse]

The last box car to be worked on form that particular storage box was this Golden West hi-cube. As it has 1993 paint date on the data, it would only be a couple of years old so I have done just a light fade of the blue and tiny bits of dirt on it. In the early 90's on our numerous trips across the pond, few of my freight car photos had graffiti on them so this has remained free for now unlike present day where just about all freight cars have been tagged.

 

 

I have also weathered this By Colony boxcar, a sister company to the Seminole Gulf with its similar logo, yellow & orang bands but overall  light grey instead of blue. I was looking for a photo of the prototype but couldn't find it till after I had completed and sealed the weathering. I mat revisit this car in the future to patch the numbers etc. I saw it in California back in 1995, a long way from the shortline's location in the North East. As to wether it ever made it to Florida, who knows.

 

The last task before I boxed up the freight cars was to clean the wheel rims on those cars that would have passed through hump yard retarders.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

I have just found this video of the Tropicana juice train in 1997. Despite that I can't run a full juice trian on the layout, its one of the ideas that helped give rise to the layout after visiting the area around the juice plant and the associated sidings on the Seminole Gulf Railway plus their yard at Fort Myers on their other line.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by roundhouse

[PaulRhB]

3 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Despite that I can't run a full juice trian on the layout, 

A Freemo meet only set then. Dale yard to Fort Myers  

[roundhouse]

4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

A Freemo meet only set then. Dale yard to Fort Myers  

A nice idea but I only have 3 Tropicana cars.

[roundhouse]

After weathering this BC box car last week, whilst looking for photos of bulkhead flat cars a good photo of a similar BC car with faded and patched bodysides appeared.

 

So this car has been back on the workbench for further work. It just requires a sealing coat then it will be ready for Freemo South.

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

Freight car weathering continues with upgrades to corn syrup tank cars and covered hoppers aswell as a few repairs. A couple of the covered hoppers rocked on their trucks so a few bolsters added under the cars to restrict the movement on one of the trucks on each vehicle.

 

Photos show them all left to dry before further weathering tweeking tomorrow.

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

Another two Railbox cars weathered from photos taken back in the 90's.

 

Thats the last of the weathering for now as I need to check the layout over before it heads out.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

This year Fort Myers is 28 years old with no plans to retire it.

 

The layout attended its second Freemo meet this year, this time it was in North Worcestershire over the weekend just gone. This meet was a little different to previous meets as it was spread over two halls with switching yards situated within an L shaped corridor between the two halls. Fort Myers was on one of three branches off a junction in hall 2. The dispatcher for the whole set up was in a small room off the corridor, so two way radios were used between the operating crews and the dispatcher. Numerous stop boards along with location codes enabled easier reporting locations. Apart from a few sticky turnouts on Fort Myers and wifi drop outs every so often, all worked well. I soon sorted the sticky turnouts by using Kadee couplers 'Grees em' powder which worked well in the fiddleyard turnouts on Banbury recently.

 

I think that more passenger services ran at this meet than any other that I have attended. Fort Myers storage yard was  used to handle these.

 

A superb weekend, made even better by the numerous pubs and breweries that a number of us visited Friday afternoon and Saturday night within the Stourbridge area.

 

Operations at the meet ended at 3pm and once Fort Myers was packed up, we were back home in Surrey around 6.30pm. The leg extensions have now been removed as the layouts next outing will be the NMRA convention in Crewe in November where it will be a stand alone layout.

[brynna79]

Thanks for sharing the update and pictures.  Its looks like everyone had a fun time and some fantastic layouts in the overall 'grand running'. I really like the hidden sidings in the last pic as well. 

 

Hope the pub visits did not affect running too much! 

 

Cheers 

Bryn 

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, brynna79 said:

Thanks for sharing the update and pictures.  Its looks like everyone had a fun time and some fantastic layouts in the overall 'grand running'. I really like the hidden sidings in the last pic as well. 

 

Hope the pub visits did not affect running too much! 

 

Cheers 

Bryn 

The hidden sidings is the fiddleyard when Fort Myers is run as an independent layout. It could do with being larger but bear in mind that when I first built the layout it would fit in a Ford Probe. It wont now as the boards are a few inches wider and an extra 4 feet longer. It now fits in a people mover along with 4 operators but no space for a larger fiddleyard.

 

We had to be sober to drive to the venue each morning so knew when we had to stop drinking. These days we don't tend to be out late either.

[long island jack]

1 hour ago, brynna79 said:

 

 

Hope the pub visits did not affect running too much! 

 

 

 

Definitely aided some of us through the day!!!!!!!!

[doctor quinn]

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

The hidden sidings is the fiddleyard when Fort Myers is run as an independent layout. It could do with being larger but bear in mind that when I first built the layout it would fit in a Ford Probe. It wont now as the boards are a few inches wider and an extra 4 feet longer. It now fits in a people mover along with 4 operators but no space for a larger fiddleyard.

I remember seeing Fort Myers in the early days at Tolworth and being suitably inspired, glad it’s still around

[Prof Klyzlr]

OT question, but it's something I'm wrestling with at the moment. From the pics, it looks like the Fort Myers sections are thinner than some of the others. Given IIRC Free-mo spec says "modules will be 6" thick", do I take it that Fort Myers are only 4" or so thick? If Yes, would love to hear the whys-and-hows behind making it thinner, and any issues with integrating into Free-mo (6" thick) module arrays...

 

Happy Modelling,

Aiming to save material, while maintain "legit Free-mo status" with a current PoC build,

Prof Klyzlr

[roundhouse]

13 hours ago, Prof Klyzlr said:

OT question, but it's something I'm wrestling with at the moment. From the pics, it looks like the Fort Myers sections are thinner than some of the others. Given IIRC Free-mo spec says "modules will be 6" thick", do I take it that Fort Myers are only 4" or so thick? If Yes, would love to hear the whys-and-hows behind making it thinner, and any issues with integrating into Free-mo (6" thick) module arrays...

 

Happy Modelling,

Aiming to save material, while maintain "legit Free-mo status" with a current PoC build,

Prof Klyzlr

When Fort Myers was built it was long before the thoughts of making it Freemo compatible. The frame is built from 2 x 1inch softwood with 12mm thick MDF top, so overall its only 2.5 inches thick. As Freemo uses just G clamps to line and hold adjoining modules together it still works. I did modify the wiring so that there are banana plug / sockets at each end with wiring running from a double pole on off switch next to where the track power would normally be plugged in, only one track power source can be connected to the track. Luckily the turnout decoders are run from a Digitrax Loconet and a separate power supply, so my touchscreen PC can control the turnouts just on Fort Myers.

 

I also had to build leg extension pieces to bring it all up to Freemo height requirements.

 

If I were building new then I would follow Freemo standards.

 

EDIT

The end of the layout that does normally join up with other modules is actually about 4 inches deep  due to the board being deeper to accommodate the river and bridge.

Edited June 14, 2022 by roundhouse

[PaulRhB]

16 minutes ago, Prof Klyzlr said:

Given IIRC Free-mo spec says "modules will be 6" thick", do I take it that Fort Myers are only 4" or so thick?

Ian’s made it to work to the RS Tower group freemo module specs at these meets

https://rstowerfreemo.wordpress.com/module-info/module-specifications/

[Glorious NSE]

https://www.nmrabr.org.uk/ho-freemo-module-specs/ is the NMRA-BR version of the same, for completeness. 

Just for clarity, the RS Tower version is 3.5" to 4.5" deep on the end plate, the NMRA-BR version is slightly different at 3.7" to 4.5" deep there, so please don't do them 6" deep. 😉

 

Those are also only the depths of the end plates to ensure they are within a near range so can be clamped to each other without any issues - the depth doesn't apply to the sides of a module, or even any intermediate board joints inside a module - as long as the ends are compatible that's the important bit. If you built it with 2" sides and internal board ends, but 4" deep modular ends, that is still compliant.

 

I think the majority of the community, (including all the folk currently organising meets i'm aware of,) are also pretty accepting of reasonable compromises - in this case making reasonable adjustments to a great layout that existed long before our standards were a thing which they've worked hard to bring as close as they can.

What nobody can do though is guarantee what everyone running an event in future may think, so complying with the specs is a good way to future proof if building new, as well as make events as hassle free (for all!) as possible.

 

[Prof Klyzlr]

On 14/06/2022 at 06:16, Glorious NSE said:

https://www.nmrabr.org.uk/ho-freemo-module-specs/ is the NMRA-BR version of the same, for completeness. 

Just for clarity, the RS Tower version is 3.5" to 4.5" deep on the end plate, the NMRA-BR version is slightly different at 3.7" to 4.5" deep there, so please don't do them 6" deep. 😉

 

Those are also only the depths of the end plates to ensure they are within a near range so can be clamped to each other without any issues - the depth doesn't apply to the sides of a module, or even any intermediate board joints inside a module - as long as the ends are compatible that's the important bit. If you built it with 2" sides and internal board ends, but 4" deep modular ends, that is still compliant.
 

 

Dear Glorious,

 

Many thanks for that, it does certainly give some useful perspective. I got the 6" deep spec from the US Free-Mo site

http://www.free-mo.org/standard/

and (given Aust has almost zero Free-mo uptake or info) figured it was "the" spec accross the planet... (My Bad!).

 

I'll avoid further thread hijack, suffice to say the PoC I'm considering isn't "wedded to Free-mo spec", but was being kept "close to Free/Mini-mo spec" in an attempt to appeal (pander?) to potential US audience. IE no matter how good/interesting/useful the Technique PoC might be, US modellers are seemingly experts in ignoring Anything which is "not the shape/size/format we use"...

 

4" thick would certainly be helpful going-forward, albeit it increases the calc'd leverage forces the End Plates have to withstand by factor x1.5...

 

Happy Modelling,

Aiming to Improve,

Prof Klyzlr

[roundhouse]

What I enjoy about Freemo apart from the relaxed nature, not having to have all the presentation such as skirting, lighting pelmets and be ready for opening etc (despite very much enjoying doing shows) is that we can get all the stock that isnt really suitable for Fort Myers Florida 1990's era out for a run and that they get to travel over a compeltely different set up each time, along with other peoples stock visiting Fort Myers.

 

My other halfs UP and KCS locos had a run.

 

I also enjoy looking to see where my freight cars get to , such as these two boxcars.

 

My NCTD Sprinter that would only be seen between Ocenaside and Escondido in California where the stations have high level platforms. This Piko model has the correct rooftop aircon units and the sound decoder has the correct sounds including all the stops between the two stations. I have added passengers since the weekend.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by roundhouse