Turntable Discussions Episode 3 with Al Mueller

One common theme with these discussions is that my guests who model railroads of the American Civil War are all remote. Al is from the Milwaukee area. This is from my visit in February. As this was a rare opportunity to visit with him, I spontaneously decided to use a portion of time to shoot the next episode of Turntable Discussions. This is my first attempt using Adobe Premier Elements video editing. I want to apologize first for the blurriness in some footage. I used my iPhone 4S as well as trying to shoot while I was mobile. LOTS of lessons learned! The entire interview ran about 45 minutes. I edited much in order to meet the less-than-15-minutes allowed via blogspot. Additional footage will be posted at a future date.

Al Mueller's Orange & Alexandria RR

May 29-30, 2014

Another productive and fun visit to Al's O&A RR The following video was recorded with my iPhone. This features the Mueller Machine Works factory, an extremely highly detailed interior and exterior structure. Details include belt driven machines, winches, tool benches with tools, drafting tables and many scratch-built elements. Al is consistent with the quality of his modeling skills. The locomotive is the Dr. Thompson. This is an engine with the Atlanta & West Pt. RR., and is one of mine that I bought to 'Dr' Al, with some performance issues. As seen here it runs as good as it gets. The passenger cars are brass models that of course were built and painted by Al.

Al Mueller's Orange & Alexandria R.R.

October 1 I visited Al Mueller at his home in WI, also the home of his HO scale Orange & Alexandria R.R., depicting 1861-62 Virginia. He plans to run both Union and Confederate operations and has the fleet of locos to do so, 10 to be specific and nearly all Mantua Generals that have been re-motored. Two of these are featured in a video posted a few days ago.

Al is fortunate to have a huge and nicely finished basement. In the background is a layout he built but depicting the 1950's. He has since seen the light and now models a most colorful era for locomotives. He has posted many photos of his locos on our yahoo sight Civil_War_RRs@yahoogroups.com. 

Al has been extremely helpful to a few of us as he wrote a manual for re-motoring the Mantua General. The two 4-4-0's in this photo however are of my W&A which I brought here for fine tuning by the master. Although seemingly basic, we were able to adjust everything from CV's in order to standardize speeds, learn differences between decoders as I use 2 different manufacturers, and some 'general' tips to increase performance. 

Al has set up the digital readout to the left on his fascia to show loco speeds. One of his talents is his engineering mind and patience, key skills especially for me as I continue to educate myself on the modeling nuances.
In his past he had a passion for rebuilding cars. Although slightly distinguishable, the black and white photo on his wall to the right of his cloud backdrop is him next to one of his autos. 
 

This is the Lincoln House by Laser Art Structures. The portico and columns were Al's addition. He is currently building a foundry with unbelievable detailing. Look forward to a posting once completed.

I had to show you the scope of his "workshop". Every tool a modeler would not mind having or at least access. Thanks Al!

The Orange & Alexandria R. R. A Visit to Al Muller's Layout

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to spend two and a half days learning from one of the masters. Al wrote the MANTUA GENERAL REBUILD manual for converting the basic General into one that runs with precision quality and to be extraordinarily detailed. Of course I brought along several of my 4-4-0 Generals to get Al's "laying on of hands" and came home with more than I could hope for as we fine tuned, machined and took my work to the next level. You will be seeing these in action in a future post... I hope! For now, here are 2 videos I shot while visiting Al's O&A. 

In the video below, the first train is led by the 4-4-0 Senator. The second loco is another of Al's transformations, the Lexington, also of the O&A. The second video is Al's Warrenton pulling a passenger train of resin kits by John Canfield.

As it passes the town of Atlee VA you may notice the young man butchering the pig as it hangs from the post. Al's rolling stock is BTS, Alkem, Classic Miniatures, Concord Car Works and a few resin Passenger cars. The structures include kits from BTS, Bar Mills, Blair Line and several scratch built. Enjoy the sound in these beauties,  Soundtraxx Micro-Tsunami decoders,TSU-750, #826001.