Rejoining the Corvallis Society of Model Engineers.

In January we began dusting off our collection of trains and stated visiting the Corvallis Society of Model Engineers.  The first visit was during a work night.  We saw some familiar faces and met quite a few new members. 

The club has become fairly organized with its work and operation nights.  Operation nights are on the 1st, 3rd and 5th (if there is one) Wednesday nights.  The other nights are work nights.  

The first week I ran one of my nicest trains, the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha consist.  I think I bought this train from Walthers in 2008 or 2009, right before we moved to Italy.  Its a great running train with DCC sound and lighted cars.  I started adding interior details (paint, passengers, etc)  to the last couple of cars, but still have more to do.  

The Milwaukee F7's on the CSME layout between Albany and Corvallis

Another view of the consist coming around the corner.  You can see that rock work has been completed in some area, but not ballasting.

A log train passes by, heading towards Albany.

The Hiawatha heads out of Corvallis and heads towards Philomath....not something that would happen in real life!

Coming around the corner, ready to cross a creek.  The black sections on the track are where bridges will eventually be built.

Heading through one of several tunnels on the layout, this one between Corvallis and Philomath.

On the west end of Philomath the route begins to climb, through tunnels and around a helix, to Blodgett and eventually all the way to Toledo.  

A few weeks later I ran my BNSF CSDPU coal consist around the layout.  Since then Brandon and I have run almost all of our trains around the layout, checking to see that they still run after being boxed up for over 2 years.  

This is the first scene on the layout that has been completed, the waterfront in Toledo.  It was well detailed by Doug, one of the CSME members. 

The scene includes working lights and waterfront wharf sounds.  

The level of detail is amazing.  I consider myself a good modeler, but this is a level I wish to reach someday.

After several months of membership and operation nights, this past week I returned to running my Hiawatha again.  This is it as it sits on the siding waiting to descend from Blodgett to Philomath.  

I must say that the new layout runs pretty flawlessly.  The track work is well done, making it nice to run for a whole evening with little or no interruptions due to derailments.  

It's been fun being part of a club again.  The only area that is lacking for me is finding something I can work on.  I want to work on the layout, but haven't been inspired with any ideas yet.  To make matters worse, most of my thoughts center around the building of my new modular layout.  More about that on my next post.