The Name Game

My grandfather was a family man and when it came to his model railroad, he believed including others to make the experience better for them. He was known for naming buildings and other things after people, past and present.

Dave and I decided we would carry on that tradition. Out of the many things we salvaged from my grandfather's pieces, only two were named. There was of course the Adamsville sign and the Ruth Adams Airport, which we renamed the Ruth Adams Memorial Airport.

Most of the named items in our current layout reside in Adamsville, where the people make their homes. When we recreated Adamsville, Dave and I modeled it after a town you may find in the Thumb. We have a nice main street, with plenty of businesses and action going.

Since Adamsville is where many of the surviving buildings from the Lack of Money & Sufferin' Railroad (that was the name of my grandfather's railroad) are located, it has an "older" feeling too it, but that's fine - it's what separates Adamsville from Souva City.

The signature piece in Adamsville is the James W. Adams Memorial Field. This was the creation that Dave and Steve put a few days into. When they began it, I wasn't sure what it would look like, but it surpassed all expectations. As I mentioned last week, we finally have a team playing there.

The newest addition to Adamsville is Ray's Campground - named after my father-in-law Ray Chumbler who passed away earlier this month. Last week, my mother-in-law Donna had a chance to see it and was very surprised and happy that we made it.





Going West out of Adamsville, there is a Pabst Blue Ribbon refinery. It doesn't have a name, but it means something to Dave and I since this was something my grandfather actually created it.

The factory was just an ordinary factory, but he slapped a few Pabst decals on - and it's a cool refinery.

There are plenty of places to eat and drink in Adamsville as we have a KFC, Baskin Robbins and a 7-11. The 7-11 is owned and operated by my good friend Chris Ogryski. Also, you’ll see the Eagles’ Club, the Adamsville Fire Dept. and Joe’s Diner, which may be some of the oldest items currently on display.







Finally, there is a Shell Gas Refinery located near the trackside area in Adamsville. It doesn't have a name, but is one of the most prominent features of Adamsville. It began with an oil drum we salvaged and we purchased the rest.

The other side of our layout is called Souva City. It's named after my best friend Steve Souva and his dad Bob, who did all the wood work. Again, without their help, we would have been lost.

It's also named Souva City because Steve put together and painted many of the buildings from a city kit we purchased. Souva City has a lot of features of its own as it had a theatre, Ace Hardware, Barber Shop and Sof's Saloon - and that's just the downtown area.

Sof's Saloon is painted specific colors, they are the colors of the Detroit Tigers.


Also in Souva City are Dave's Dinner while Pat's Place (named after my dad), which are two passenger cars Dave repainted. Pat's Place is painted with the actual paints we saved. Green and orange were the colors of his railroad. Our colors are red, black and silver.


Edna's Eatery is the newest addition to Souva City; it's named after my mom.

The industrial area, including the switch yard are all part of the Peter Karle Sr. Industrial Park, named after my other grandfather of whom I shared the same birthday with.

That's all for now, enjoy the photo. Next week, the D&P Railroad goes Hollywood.

The New Project 5 - Changes

Model railroading is all about improving and tweaking your layout. Dave and I knew once we started the new layout, things would be changing quickly. However, we couldn't have predicted how quickly.

It's been a little over a month since the new project was declared finished. Dave and I both thought we were going to take it easy after that and just enjoy running the train. That was until we discovered Junction Valley Railroad. JVR is everything we've been looking for from a train shop. It has all the buildings, scenery, people, cars, engines and detailed pieces we've been looking for. Did I mention it's cheaper than any shop we've previously been too?

In the past month alone, Dave and I have been to JVR three times.

The biggest and most important change I want to talk about first is the addition of Ray's Campground. As you all know, my father-in-law Ray Chumbler recently passed away. Shortly after his passing, Dave came up with the idea of a way to honor his memory. Since Ray was an outdoors’ man and loved to camp, we decided we would create a campground with his name attached to it. Most of the campground items were purchased from JVR.

Sticking with the name theme, we have added Edna's Eatery, named after my mom and we have officially added Ogryski's 7-11.


You'll also notice that a team finally showed up to play at James W. Adams Memorial Field. They're just having a practice, but we're hoping to have enough players for a full game.





Also, I have provided a full view of our truck stop. It's still one of the coolest features we have as it lets us display a good number of our many trucks.

In the Peter Karle Industrial Park, Dave has put the finishing touches around the factory he built. There are more fork-lifts, pallets, boxes, cars, people and a nice fence to box in the factory. I think it turned out real well.









In the Park, we have added a memorial monument. It's hard to see, but it's actually a Vietnam Memorial. There are also some more benches and sitting people in the park.





When I went through the initial photos, I noticed I didn't have very good shots of a couple of our churches. The big church in Souva City features a wedding scene while the one in Adamsville has a hearse, which should make Rick happy.


In the city shot of Adamsville, you'll noticed that the buildings on the right side are all pushed back off the street to create more space and let the area flow a little better. Also, behind Ruth Adams Memorial Airport, there is a nice build up of brush. The same can be seen under the Adamsville sign.


I hope you enjoy the photos.

Coming next week, we'll play the name game as I will begin a two-part series on everything that is named after someone. We'll start with Adamsville and conclude with Souva City. After that, the D&P Railroad will go Hollywood.

The New Project - Part 4 - Souva City

Finally, things are starting to settle down around here following my father-in-law Ray's passing. Now that I have a little time, it's time to finish the posts on our new project.

Today, we'll get a look at the more "modern" side of the layout - Souva City/Peter Karle Industrial Area.

The history behind Souva City is pretty simple. Back when we were putting this layout together, we were looking for buildings to fill our tables. I decided to purchase a city building set from Woodland Scenics. Although the buildings were nice, they needed to be assembled and painted. I had no experience at this, but my brother and especially Steve did. Steve did a lot of the very fine work - and to thank him for his effort, we named the city with out a name - Souva City.











As I've said before, Souva City is where the people of Adamsville make their living. There are plenty of places to work, including the many factories that make up the Peter Karle Industrial Area. In Souva City, there is a theatre, an Ace Hardware, barber shop, toy store, hotdog stand, a city hall, Dave's Dinner, a motel and even the printing shop.

Souva City also features a huge park.






For anyone wondering who Peter Karle is, he was my other grandfather and we felt naming a section as big as our industrial area after him was appropriate.

There are many features of the industrial area, including a very large truck stop, many factories, a huge concentration of the semi-trucks we have collected, and the factory Dave put together.

We also have a nice freight yard to display the old engines we saved.

All in all, the Souva City side of our layout is the perfect contrast to our layout, both sides help the other. Without one side, the other wouldn't be complete. Like the previous post on Adamsville, I have plenty of photos to show the many features I discussed in this post.

I hope you enjoyed the series on the new project. But it's not quite done. Since we completed it, Dave and I have tweaked certain areas to make them even better. I will have photos and descriptions of what we have done to improve the layout next week.

Until then, please enjoy the photos.