For this year’s Bring and Brag contest, the January category was Anything Goes. We had seven contestants with an additional two entries for display only. After member voting, the winners were chosen, as follows:

1st place went to Erik Fritzberg for his submission of an O scale 70 foot Pullman Club car in New York Central’s 20th Century Limited livery. An extensive interior was added to reflect 1930s-era appointments and fixtures, including furniture, figures, and ceiling lighting.

2nd place went to Richie Jodon for his entry of a Twin Engine Shed in N scale. It was scratch-built using craft sticks, Tichy windows and doors, styrene roof sheets, and gooseneck lights. The structure was then weathered using various other materials.

3rd place went to Rick Montgomery for his HO scale Sinclair Service Station It was built from an Atlas kit, “Al’s Victory Service Station,” which he changed to a Sinclair station along with signs, gasoline pumps, and the iconic dinosaur. The display includes Atlas Trucks.

Four additional entries were submitted for the January contest Anything Goes.

Bryan Seip, who is active in the DARE Model RR Club, brought this wheelset load he built for operating sessions. He also brought prototype photos of such wheelsets being loaded on a P&LE gondola.

Jake Atkison brought a BLI N scale Mikado locomotive #1000 and companion caboose decorated for the P&WV Railway.

Jim Braum brought four HO scale No. 4 turnouts that are “works in progress,” which he is building using Fast Tracks, a track-laying kit that includes an aluminum fixture for aligning and securing rails while you solder them to PC board “ties.” Next he will add wooden ties to complete the turnout and then paint the ties and rails before placement on his layout. Note: You can download templates gratis from the company website by searching “template.”

At our public Free-Mo displays, guests often ask group members what goes into the construction of our modules. Free-Mo evangelist Dave Martinelli decided to show what is “Behind the Curtain” with the new module that he and son Dominic are building. This module is an otherwise conventional 2 foot by 4 foot module, built to Free-Mo standards, but with half of it built over plexiglass (instead of insulation board) to reveal the lesserknown “underbelly” of the hobby: plywood construction, turnout controls, and wiring.

For display, Jim Whipple brought a vintage S scale locomotive, essentially kit-bashed by his late friend Jack Sudimak from a tender kit plus assorted boiler detail parts from Kemtron, and scratch-built frame, cylinders, and pilot.

Also for display, George Pandelios brought the January/February 2024 issue of O Scale Trains Magazine that features his article on scratchbuilding telegraph poles.

This page is copied from the Keystone Flyer, Bring‘n’Brag article by Tracy Boyd/Richard Terek.