Photos of the FREMO americaN Meeting. Read the detailed report of the meeting in Delmenhorst in 2022.

Setting up the layout Modules ready for the setup This year, we had the chance to use a room of the Nordwestdeutsches Museum für IndustrieKultur in Delmenhorst, near Bremen. During the meet there were 11 attendees. We had prepared a plan and a concept for operations to siumlate the traffic around the year 2005. Unpacking all modules, setting up the layout and installing the loconet wiring for the boosters took about seven hours.

This article gives an insight into the operationional concept for a typical modular meeting of the americaN chapter of the FREMO. The Layout Overview of a modular layout made for operations Never the same layout. For every modular meeting, we plan a new layout. The layout is planned to match all the given constraints, like the room, the attendees and the available modules, the choosen era. A layout may vary in size, shape and the order of modules.

In the last few weeks I spent some time to replace Wordpress to maintain this page and replaced it with Hugo. Why? For the main part, just because I can. There was a custom static site generator I had built a static site generator on my own, for my - now derelict - homepage, about 20 years ago. Back then I used Coldfusion and later migrated the engine to php. But it never had any advanced featues.

For me, there are three main reasons to build modules instead a home layout: Space, flexibility and they are achievable. Modules take up less space Looking at 10 m of straight N-Scale track. Modules are flexible There are two aspects to this: The layout itself and the focus of your modelling interest. Schuppen Eins in Bremen in 2017 Schuppen Eins in Bremen in 2020: Same room, different layout If you like this flexibility, building modules and joining a club might be a thing for you.

A few members of the FREMO americaN group wrote an article for issue december 2020 issue of the N Scale Railroading Magazine. During a small modular meeting we took photos of the operations. We choose to follow a single train during operating session and explain the thoughts and operations in detail in this article. A small selection of the content we choose for the article. >  >   <>   <

Paints, powders, cars and small parts dominated this weekend. In January 2020 we had another Workshop-Weekend. We decided to add more cars to our arsenal and worked on our rolling stock. Some cars needed additional weight, new wheel sets or couplers. A lot of weathering techniques were applied to the unsuspicious victims. No car should leave as clean as it arrived. >   < A relaxed working atmosphere with lots of chatting and relaxed work.

Cascade, Idaho. Is consists of eight segments and has a total length of about six meters. It has three industry tracks with a total of about 14 spots, a three meter long passing siding and a wye to connect a to a branch or turn trains. The prototype Photo: RICHARD STEINHEIMER, 1960s, private collection Photo: LEE RUSSELL, 1941, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS The Module Trackplan for the Cascade module (dark) with two extensions.

Close to the deadline set by our participation at the US Model Railroad Convention 2019 in Rodgau, I ran out of time and kits. I had the kit for a small diner at hand but I had seen this structure on at least two modules in our group and wanted to create a different version of it. So I had to improvise a solution to fill some spaces on my module.

Like every second modeller, I had bought a sample of the Walthers “Co-Op Storage Shed”. I have seen it on some modules before, sometimes modified, sometimes not. I needed a ground level storage shed for a small business on my Cascade Module. Today the “Lake Cascade Sport & Marine” is located at that place. I have no Idea what has been there in the 1950s, but I chose this kit as a base to build my shed.

South of East Mill Street in Cascade Idaho are some interesting buildings. At the far south of the town there is a Rodeo arena with its stables. Due to space limitations I decided not to model it, but I added a freelanced workshop and wanted to add the diner I already had bought. >  >   <>   < The workshop is completely scratch built and freelanced. I just created a structure to use the left over plastic parts for a roof and some windows and doors I had lying around.

Northeastern Scale Models offers a nice Structure “One Story Section House” in its Small Trackside Structures (STS) Series. I got three of these. I used them to kit bash two neighbouring houses, that look very different. The long one The kit contains parts for square house with a veranda at one end and the entry to the basement on the other end. I used two of the kits to create a longer version.