Meetings:                  The second Thursday of every month.   7:30 P.M.

Work Nights:              Remaining Thursdays.                           7:30 P.M.

Operating Sessions:  Last Friday of the month.   (See below)  7:30 P.M.

Open Houses:         November 2008 in conjunction with Model Railroad month.

The July 4th. open house had almost more club members in attendance than visitors. We did have a fun run when we pressed throttles into the eager hands of several young visitors. They picked up engine driving skills very fast. Early rain may be blamed for the even dozen visitor count. Strange consists from fallen flag railroads - Seaboard Air Line, Lehigh Valley, Reading  and Atlantic Coast Line as well as the famous Nordel coal drag all made their way around the layout. See you again next year!

Meetings and activities are at the Nordel layout room. Contact us for directions.

Formal operations have restarted this October. Operating nights are far different from the standard Open House perpetual orbiting where trains whirl around and around and around. We have four yard switching jobs, an Engine Terminal hostler job and plenty of regular runs for those who like to do the whole route and pool engineer turns for those who want to really get down and dirty. In the optional plans are several long and heavy consists that require helper engines to negotiate the heavy helix grade. The last session also required a helper assist for a heavy drag westbound out of Hagerstown to breast the steep grade leading up to the Potomic River bridge. So there are all sorts of activities requiring different levels of experience from raw beginner to old hand. New kids on the block can go out as crew with the opportunity to assist and learn the road from up close and personal.

Nordel has begun the 2008 operating season. We are running the railroad as a single track operation under Dispatcher control. The various flat yard switching jobs feed a series of main line trains into meets just as the prototype roads have. The members agreed that this is a keeper. Our loftiest member is the Dispatcher. (The Dispatcher sits high up in the loft, surveying all operations with a godlike view of everything.)

Set up for the operating sessions is the Thursday preceeding. Set up consists of wiping down the trackage with alcohol, cleaning locomotive wheels and spotting the layout with cars for the various runs. We do not even consider the use of abrasives like Bright Boys since they destroy the track. After two years of cleaning this way the track is bright and smooth and clean. Our locomotives do NOT hesitate during operations!

Operations nights see the club members in attendance and we often welcome visitors. We continue to buy steam locomotives, most recently a series of switchers with full sound. We have steam switchers for all the flat switching jobs. As a result of the new sidings, the Strasburg flat switched yard job has grown - this also includes switching the coal mine, the slack coal slate dump and the Mt. Bowen Lumber Co. sidings in addition to the Strasburg interchange and the station team track. Strasburg is the second busiest area on the road after Hagerstown. It's also the southern terminus of the local Doodlebug run. Conowingo - Rising Sun flat switching is the third busiest area of Nordel. This one involves a short run on the main between two different yards. Coal loads are switched into the Rising Sun power plant. Quarry cars and heavy petroleum fractions go to an asphalt plant, while LCL freight is set out at a team track for transfer to local over the road trucks for final delivery.

Work nights continue very well. As we operate, we may find areas where the layout could be improved - this forms a task. These are posted on a whiteboard and members pitch in where their skills are appropriate. Our current taskboard has emphasis on the staging yards in Helixville. Running the layout as a single track road caused this focus. Members also work on various sections creating scenery - Bob Donofrio is still developing an industrial section behind the Hagerstown passenger depot. Glenn Gunter is repopulating the City of Wilmington - he plans an operating city trolley line as his latest offering. Gene Bergey continues to extend the Newark passenger station retaining wall on down the line. Strasburg has a new passenger depot and freight house. Frank Elwood's putting some flesh on Mount Bowen and a new team track work crew with a forklift and Intermodal trucks behind the station. Recent tectonic activity has the mountain emerging from the primordial slime. The tunnel portals at the lumber industry tunnel. are in place An ongoing electrical upgrade project automates main line crossovers with stationary decoders for CTC - The Dispatcher could route trains by remotely throwing turnouts from a DCC throttle when this is finished. Another member, Pete Lancy, is preparing for blue skies over Conowingo and recently replaced flourescent bulbs in Helixville. Bill Scheper is automating the turnouts leading to the Port of Wilmington and Cherry Island. Whiteboard listings are shrinking - one estimate is that the layout is about 94.7 % operational.  That figure has gone up since the heating season has started. The Homosote track foundation is hygroscopic and undergoes rather severe dimensional changes as the humidity changes. Our emphasis is on correct rolling stock (Couplers, wheels, etc., an ongoing project of Paul Welsh.), trackwork and electrical standards to enable realistic, true to prototype operation.  So far - so good. Rumor has it that the relocation of the DCC programming track continues to work. We have a separate programming track and a PR-1 computer interface working on an antique computer running Windows 98. Hurry up and visit before the Smithsonian gets hold of it!

Nordel has a fairly extensive library of both magazines and books of various railroad topics, both full size and model. V.P. Bob Donofrio is the club Librarian. Members are free to borrow or consult any of the materials. A small but growing section has railroad VHS selections for home viewing.

Members who have keys may visit the layout at any time for their own operation sessions known as Fun Runs. Some set up a day's switching in the yard, others try their hand at engine hosteling. Main line running is always a feature of Fun Runs - either a short local turn or a full scale run-through. The layout accommodates them all. If you have a newly installed DCC decoder and want to wring out your locomotive on a really good layout - set your own schedule.

The layout started as + - 12 volt DC polarity reverse with cab control. In those days the practice of power routing stretches of track by connecting rail power through the turnout points was followed. This made some sense until the points oxidized and made poor contact. A short circuit in the power routed section had about one amperes of current through the points. The entire layout was then converted to DCC which rendered the cab controls obsolete - thank goodness since the wiring was an horror. Unfortunately a short now has the potential of five or even eight amps routing through the points. I squared R loss then could melt ties, heat up rails and increase the risk of fire. We are finishing up a concerted effort to identify all power routing sites and jumper them out. We find that operation improved as well with fewer power drop-outs. These were particularly bothersome since the advent of more sound decoders - who wants an entire sound start-up when a momentary interruption occurs?