HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to all.   I'm hoping that 2011 will be a better year.  I' a glass half-full guy but it's been hard as heck to keep a smile on my face and a positive attitude through this past year.  Whether you still have a job or not the economy has affected everyone - except maybe those folks at Goldman Sachs,...etc.  that were behind much of this mess - define irony anyone?  Our foreign wars linger on, a mega oil spill in the gulf,  and politics in this country have taken as nasty of a tone as I can ever remember.   On the model railroad front, we lost a giant, Dean Freytag, on Christmas Day.   For railfans, the last processor of Kodachrome Slide Film in the world,  shut down on Friday.  

The were a few positive things to remember from the past year - 

For us New Jerseyans, it was the year that all things Jersey became cool, thanks to an MTV show featuring a bunch of out of state 20 somethings getting into all sorts of debauchery at the Jersey Shore.  And don't believe any of that PR generated by the local politicians, chambers of commerce, and Sons of Italy,...etc.  what you saw is pretty much how things go during the summer in Seaside and probably Wildwood too to the south.     What I think struck a cord was the brutal honesty of their own ridiculousness.   New Jersey has always been an honest (excepting the local politicians) what you see is what you get type of place.  

For us Steel Mill Modelers - the turn out at the annual Steel Mill Modelers Meet was the largest ever.  

On a personal note, I was finally able this past year to visit a number of the Pittsburgh-Ohio-West Virginia Steel Mills that I had wanted too for years.

Looking forward, ie New Year's Model Railroad Resolutions - 

Continue to press forward with the remaining ancillary trackwork on my layout - staging yards, engine facility,..etc.  

Build three more Free-Mo modules this winter, finish scenery and structures on existing module.

Update blog in a more regular fashion 

Join the NMRA 

Get insurance for my layout

I'm going to include some photos in this post of Chesapeake City, MD taken on New Years Eve.  If you have never been there it is an interesting "city" to visit.  It is located on the western end of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal - this canal is operated by the Army Corps of Engineers and connects the top of the Delaware Bay with the top of the Chesapeake Bay.  It is a wide canal used by both pleasure boats and commercial shipping.  There are no locks, however, the current varies depending on the sequence of the Delaware Bay tides and the much smaller Chesapeake Tides.   There are a half dozen very high bridges over the canal and one railroad drawbridge, over which all the rail traffic to the Delmarva Peninsula must pass.    There is an anchorage basin at Chesapeake City that I've used a number of times when sailing from the New Jersey Atlantic coast, up the Delaware Bay, and to the Chesapeake.    The Delaware Bay is notorious amongst sailors due to it's size, lack of usable harbors, shallow depth, extreme tides and currents, and large exposure to southerly ocean winds and waves.   Things can go from calm to Washer Machine fast with no where to run to - with about an average of an 12-18hr transit for a sailboat from Cape May to the canal entrance, Chesapeake City is a usually a welcoming site.     From a modeling standpoint, the city offer many HO pre compressed housing, most dating to the early and mid 1800's.  I'm not sure I could even stand up straight on the second floors of many of these houses.    If you visit there be sure to check out the C&D Canal Museum and have lunch at the Bohemia Cafe.