Cex-Tex Division NMRA Meet 2015

Photos from the Operating Sessions and Layout Tour

There were a dozens of fantatic layouts on the tour this year. The full list, with more pictures and layout information, is online here.
We also had operating sessions at four layouts this year. Here are some pictures from Pete Guy's Conundrum and Pacific:


    

Pete's layout is built for switching, and is a fairly realistic representation of the three railroads around the Portland, Oregon area. Selective compression is typical in our hobby, but Pete's approach, selectively compressing out all of the scenery, allowing him to fit as much track as possible onto the layout, is unusual -- but successful! Pete's layout is great railroad for beginners to operations. The process (and rules) are not as formal as some, and he has lots of great signage, controls, and directions around the railroad.

Another great railroad to operate is Jack Merkel's Lone Star and Santa Fe (more pictures and track plan here):



    
    
Jack also has a lot of tips to help beginners - as used by a first-time operator this weekend!
By the way - at Jack's, Brian Helms had a great tip. He's found that the speaker from iPhone 4's (not 5's or 6's) work as a fantastic speaker in his HO locomotives equipped with Tsunami decoders (they're about 2"x.4"x.2" and only 99 cents online!):


Riley Triggs' layout, the Port of New York, was also open for an operating session. Riley's layout uses wireless, battery-powered DCC (no power to the rails at all) and features a car float "cart" that connects the layout in one room to a small yard in another (more pictures and track plan here):




One of the layouts on our tour is Jim Zwernemann's Proto 48 (O Scale) layout, which is just beautiful. He has scratchbuilt most of the structures and some of the rolling stock, including the box car pictured below. Note the attention to detail that really makes a scene, like the trash around the sidewalk or the mud flowing down to the drainage grate below the bridge. Jim's layout is out in Cedar Creek, but definitely worth the trip, especially since he's literally a block from Steve Nelson, whose layout is also pictured below.






(Backdrops don't have to have just clouds on them!)

Steve Nelson is no stranger to our Division meetings, having recently given a clinic on making realistic trees. So it's no surprise that his layout has some fantastic scenery. The hill and tunnel pictured are actually prototypically modeled (literally they have the same contour mapping as the originals). His ballast is actual Katy ballast from the prototype area that has been crushed to HO scale. The corn field contains over a thousand individually twisted and hand-planted stalks of corn. Even a moonlit night is modeled, complete with a drive-in movie.












Finally, some pictures from Mike Barrett's layout which is still under construction. Mike uses S-CAB wireless DCC - no DCC signals or power to operate goes through his rails. (He does have steady power in some parts of his layout which is picked up by the locomotives to recharge the onboard batteries, which are shown below under the DCC board - the orange tubes). Fans of David Barrow's original Cat Mountain might recognize the bridge pictured. And check out the nice backdrops; they are made from styrene sheets!





We hope you all got to tour some of our other great area layouts. Thanks for coming to the 2015 Meet!