Douglas
Hess’ Ohio Central Railroad Open House
Report by
Lee Stoermer Aug. 2019
The Potomac
Division NMRA July 2019 open house event was hosted by Doug Hess.
Located in a 143 square foot, fully finished, climate controlled lower
level room in his home, Doug is working steadily on creating a recent
era, freelance version of the Ohio Central Railroad. He jokingly
commented that he had been ‘in the process’ of building for a while as
progress came in spurts. He added that the open house spurred him to
push on with a couple items to help show some extra progress. I have
heard that statement of the impending deadline as an added incentive
from many open house hosts!
23
visitors took advantage of this time and were able to learn of his
design goals, current projects and future plans. Doug has space
constraints, as most of us building a layout do, which have caused him
to implement some unique construction techniques that can definitely be
used by others on their own home layouts. The layout is built on a
series of 30 inches wide units in an around-the-wall style, leaving a
wide-open central space.
The
room is a comfortable, well lit area. Lighting is on two circuits, one
being the center ceiling mounted room lights and the other being the
around the room track lighting. Doug demonstrated the dramatic effect
of turning off the center ceiling lights and leaving the track lighting
on. It gave an excellent shadow box effect, drawing your attention in
to the layout operations area.
