WEEKEND PHOTO FUN 6-12-15-??

Continuing with the series of Observation cars, last week I posted the scale Polar Express in the traditional blue & maroon colors. It also had the observation deck retooled.

This week, I present the new Gold Edition.

Here's my contribution this week....

Paul

My row houses; soon to be gone.

A little sandlot baseball...

Granny's doin some front porchun...

Your row houses look great, what are you replacing them with?  If you had a band saw you could cut then into 1 inch fronts and backs then line the top of your mountain with them, you'd double the coverage because you'd get two fronts out of each one.....just a thought.

Paul

ANNOUNCEMENT..........

After starting in late January 2014 to wire 23 Atlas switches to 3 AIUs and 5 tinplate switches to an SC-2, we're finished........17 months later.

Major hassles:

1. Time constraints due to full time work/family/etc

2. Burn out of all of my Atlas switch machines due to overloaded voltage.

3. Replacement and rewiring of all Atlas switches with DZ1000s.

4. Wiring issues with the tinplate switches resulting in swap outs of switch motors (see the pic below).

5. My own general electrical ineptitude.

Here's Max and I finishing up last weekend. Thank heavens that Max understands electricity, motors and wiring better than I do.......or else, i'd still be at it!  

Peter

Here is a K-line by lionel B&O 2 Bay covered hopper i bought couple days ago.

Freshly touched up Galloping Goose with TMCC, Cruise, and LED lighting added.  

And I've been cutting down a caboose that fell off a cliff.  It's going into a scrap yard at the end of the railyard.  

The blue glow at the door is an Evan's LED welding kit inside.  

Have smoke,will travel. Super-Chuffer has been installed in this 10 year old steamer. Brought new life to an old steamer.

This steam locomotive is ready to start the day.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

S I R T Rwy.

Scenery is a big part of my layout.  I model a rural setting so not much cost involved because I make my own trees or buy those cheap bottlebrush evergreens.  I paint my cast rocks a gesso white and then layer six different watered-down acrylic colors which I think gives a pleasing translucent look.  A black India ink wash is the final step.  The photo that I’m sharing today pictures my Toad Hollow Tunnel, Bohemian Waterfall and the Isopropyl Distillery.     

An exciting day on the Hi-Rail Train Club's layout in Griffith, IN as a beautiful ABBA Great Northern manifest freight makes time around their wide-radius curves.

Art

A 2014 Christmas layout memory

- walt

Lumber Mill Curve

Sirt; Love this photo. I wonder why?

UPS

Thanks Spence!

in and around Jasper's Rock

Here's a couple.  I decided to purchase some Postwar and MPC trains for future grandchildren before I am to poor to buy trains.  ie: retire. I'll figure some way for kids to enjoy some less detailed, less expensive, trains and accessories, while I keep my modern trains for us older folk.

Here I am testing an NKP 8672 set I just purchased from a fine Forum member.  The CW80 was also purchased from the same gent last year.  The railroad company president looks on to make sure everything goes alright.  The Atlantic runs great!

Here I am running a Texas Special ALCo AA set i bought from an older gentleman on a FaceBook group.  It is pulling the same consist as the NKP above.  It runs great as well!  It may be nice to look for some passenger cars to go with the Texas Special.

My two pals investigating the new layout and track work !!!!!!  lol

Some nostalgic photos from old TMB layout

Roger,  OUTSTANDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

VERY COOL ALEX!!!!  What are there names, Steam & Diesel?  My MINNIE dog would love to play with those two!

I was taking my typical summer bike ride down to the BNSF line near my home this past week.  During sunset I was able to watch this train pass through and took a few quick photos.   

Baseball and the DRG on the TMB2

Rush Hour traffic on the Commerce Blvd overpass.

Well it happened - modern motive power has found it's way to my rails. I have to say - based on the kids ( and mine) reaction to these, I think I'm going to be thinning the heard of older pw & mpc stuff that sits on shelves & never gets run. I asked Lucia why she liked these new ones so much she gave 2 answers - It's stuff she sees when she goes out w/ Daddy & all the sounds they have. Can't blame her. It's cool to see a heritage unit trackside & then go & see it on your layout. Big changes are in store for my layout in many ways.

Some more of 611 steaming home to Roanoke on 5/30/15-
Gretna, VA -

City Farm, VA -

Bedford, VA -

On the way home from chasing 611, I got word that NS 911 was still sitting at the old Spencer shops. I was able to get close enough & shot this pic at 1 AM

We also got to see the Nickel Plate last weekend -

Oh, oh said my wallet!!  He's going to be contacting that Christopher guy again!  You know, the guy with the cute kids who love trains!!   

2NYC box cars arrived this week & got me running back to basics again great fun.

The NYC gondola is older than me 1949!

Laz, there names are Dobie, and Rocky one is 13 years old and the other is 10

they have the energy of a 4 year old dog.

Alex

Action on the Seattle & Yakima RR

Big steam, first time I had 3 running at the same time.

MTH SP&S Z-6 on the 081 main

Lionel Northern Pacific Challenger on the 072 main.

MTH Northern Pacigic Mallet on the 054 main.

     Bill T

Peter, have you considered Max as a rent-a-pup to help with some really tough electrical projects? You could throw in a nice steak dinner for him as well. This could be very lucrative. 

Sensational photo, Roger.

That is a great photo Frank, nice job!

Paul

Paul;

Thank you. We had an excellent bridge builder in our club, his work, to include this trestle, has been built into TMB3.  I'll post TMB3 pictures tomorrow.  Here's one more shot of the DRG Challenger.

Excellent idea, Brian!  You should consider it, Peter!

 Did some more work on building the town and finished up this Reading work caboose. 

A coworker and I drove all night from Michigan to work the Sunday N&W 611 trips out of Manassas as car hosts. The long drive was worth it, since 611 is one of my top favorite locomotives. What better way to see her than fired up and pulling her first excursions...

We spent the night in Manassas, and drove to Baltimore on Monday to visit the B&O Railroad Museum. I had been there once before, but never got to see everything, and my coworker had never visited, so it was definitely a worthwhile stop.

During my previous visit, these two locomotives were still damaged from the winter roof collapse that occurred several years ago. Seeing them restored again was really neat.

We regularly see C&O Allegheny 1601 in the Henry Ford Museum when we're working, so seeing her sister 1604 was pretty cool

I had the pleasure of volunteering this past weekend at the Painesville Depot as we brought in the Lincoln Funeral Train.  It was nice to see the huge crowds that this drew over the 2 days. 

Not a good photo (snapshot, really), taken a few months ago, but, as this is Weaver Week, and the loco is an early-90's Weaver Century Dreyfuss w/PT tender, bought new back then for a big price (I ERR Cruise Commander-ed it last year), I thought that I would show it:

Western RR locomotives on the National Capital Trackers Celebrate Fairfax layout, last Saturday, June 6.

Neat, looks like fog rolling out.

Don

run this set on my desk at work.

Have A great weekend.

Made a much needed layout improvement this evening....

I've been moving some thing around slightly over the past few months. One thing was moving the trolley from table top level to an elevated straightaway. When I first put it up, I could tell I wasn't going to like it. It literally blocked all of the buildings and inner loop. 

See before (iPhone photos)...

And After.....The trolley got wedged in-between the inner and outer loops. The elevated loop will obviously stay. I keep the old trolley loop. I've got a new module for National Capital Tracker use under construction. I think I may chop the trolley track in half and use it at shows on my module....the kids love those bump and go products!

A few from the 611 trips from Manassas to Front Royal Virginia and back last week. 

Passed this unit on the way to work!

Not being a slave to scale or exactness of replicas, here a few pictures of my humble layout.

New Zamboni ice resurfacers on a Grand Trunk Western flat car moving through Michigan over the Grand Trunk Western to Detroit.

Andrew

Dave,

If you help me withstand the onset of Christopher's surplus sale, I'll help you!  ;-)

sounds like a plan Mark......were should we meet for our support meetings...The Underground RR?

Andrew,

Thats a fantastic load!  It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh,

Dave, that's a great plan!  We won't buy from Christopher, but will be tempted by Lou's stash!  Hmmmm

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

UP TIME!!

I just bought this Williams B&O GP9 Powered Engine -Early Version off of Mario's Trains an hour ago.

Here are some pictures of my 3rd Rail Budd car I just finished restoring after it had been sprayed with several coats of dull coat when I bought it. I stripped off the dull coat and Installed all LED lighting and all new window glass.Just needs decals now. Boston and Maine of course! 

PRRfan, very nice layout. Would like to see an ovall shot.

Neither my wife or I are big Thomas fans.  Here he is on our layout

Here's a shot of our modified snow plow in action at the Club.

...and here's a couple more custom cars in action

This is our old bridge, back at the home layout... those support legs are actually hangars from wardrobe boxes.

Last weekend I removed it...

...and replaced it with the new 48" truss bridge.  This thing is huge, and was fun to assemble (one could even say the experience was... riveting)!

Here's a better shot of my recently completed yellow submarine car.  The sub is held to the car with magnets so I can pop it off if need be.  I might also make other magnetized loads at some point so I can just swap them out.

-Dustin

Have a Coke and a smile!!!

In two weeks, the TCA Convention will be in NYC.  One of the tours will hit a few Long Island club layouts to include the under construction TMB3.  Here is a sneak preview of our TMB3 layout;

The Control Tower; 

We have the Sopranos' layout right under Pastore's picture;

A salute to Weaver. Woodsided reefers are well represented in my Beer train.

The TOFC are from NJ Hi Railers. These are favorites...

Happy weekend!!!

 A few shots of the yard at West Mansfield. It's gone through a few changes. The latest was the removal of the Ice House. It was a good size structure that worked well as a view block but didn't offer much opperation wise. In it's place. I found a structure on the Buy Sell Forum built by Stu Gralnik that fit the space perfectly.

 The last few shots show a glimpse of the bolt and screw factory. Scrathbuilt from wood. It now features a brick extension using a Korber kit. The concrete platform originally was for unloading autos and farm equipment. It now in the war years is used as a team track.

T

Dave C:

The overall impact of your layout is excellent.  I really like the way it is all tied together with your subtle weathering.  Well done! 

Work on the Weaver FEF-1 project continues.

ERR, Super Chuffer, and fan driven smoke unit tested, wired and now installed.

 Setting up the smoke unit components:

Unit/components installed in boiler:

 Finished view from above:

 Working on domes now:

Hope to have domes/PSC detail parts installed this week.  Still need to build the front end of the boiler.

Jeff,

   Are you going to save any B&O or Chessie for the rest of us.

Bill

Beautiful job in restoring this piece, Chris.

The bridge looks like the P&LE bridge over the Ohio River between Beaver and Monaca Pennsylvania.  Very impressive.

My younger daughter would like the Yellow Submarine.  She likes the Beatles and had a Yellow Submarine sticker on her laptop computer cover while she was in college.

Yes, It shimmers!!  Very impressive!

My wife and I made a day trip to Trenton,FL which is about an hour and a half north of where we live. While in Trenton I saw the old train station and my wife stopped by the quilt shop.

On the way home we stopped to see this engine by the side of U.S. Hwy 19. Definitely a great day!

Nope Bill ROFLOL!

I've ridden behind such a loco.....would like to have the WbB version too.....

Here she is at Elkins WV waiting to take us to Spruce WV and a meet with Cass Scenic WM #6....great trip!!!

And when we got to Spruce the Cass crew challenged us to a race.....which we allowed them to win....respect your elders and all....

NS nighttime freight action!

What? No photos of the quilt shop??? LOL. My wife enjoys quilt shops too. Why is it that I know the names of quilt patterns but she doesn't know the names of my locomotives? ��

A photo from the Spruce to Elkins train while the Spruce to Cass train also departs....

This was 2013....what a train weekend!!! 

This passenger car was destroyed in a wreck  with a logging truck later that same year.....a real shame as they had restored it so well. No one on the train was killed but sadly the log truck driver was......and no reason for the wreck was ever found. 

One of my favorite from that day......

On my way to the Saturday work gathering in the Large Scale Division of the MSMRRE on JBER the Elmendorf AFB gate I wanted to use was closed this weekend for construction. Just my luck! So I used the Post Road Gate in the Ship Creek Valley. My reward on this sunny beautiful day was noticing these components of the Alaska Railroad.

Does it surprise anyone to see ARR does not paint every car and engine Blue and Yellow?

Well I did take this photo on the other side of the station that had a quilt mural on the wall.

Dustin,

 Who makes that 48" bridge, I really like it?

Mike Orite

More fun with flickr's photoshop...

I was in Mississippi last week and saw this. I have a coalporter car with a rotary coupler, but I'd never actually seen a rotary coupler. Thought I'd share.

We have had a lot of BRAND NEW engines showing up recently in 4 units consists on their 1st trip out of the shop at GE. Here's a couple at San Bernardino after we put the train away and took the power to the diesel tie up tracks for fuel. Not even the wheels have any grime on them yet.

Caught a southbound Amtrak Downeaster during my Sunday morning walk. 

(Not sure if the video uploaded)

Last weekend we took a drive 20miles south of home to visit the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunk, Maine.

Dogs are always welcome at the Museum. Our rescue dog Maggie (corgi / husky mix)

Best thread of the week

--Greg

Icy Train Gene,

Thanks for the great photos! 

Also, I thought I had not seen your photo or name before, so I looke up your profile and saw you are relatively new with us.

Welcome, and thank you for your contribution!

Hi Mark, Thanks! And yes I am relatively new to OGR. I have been learning and enjoying OGR friendships and great deals on used cars for the past 3 months or so. The week before this past Christmas, I finally I got the my 55-56 Post War Lionel out of the original boxes after ~45 years. I impressed my 4 grandkids, ages 2 to 5. So we got their two families each got a Lionel Ready-to-Run set. Since then I have been stocking up on additional cars for each family, and purchased an additional Ready-to-Run set for each. We are almost ready for another fun Christmas. I also joined the MSMRRE club and enjoying getting up to date on O scale, especially in our LSD (large scale division, no relation to Timothy Leary) room.

    Gene

That's great!

I have been on OGR 3 years now.  This has been the greatest place for sharing information, encouragement, and just great fellowship.  I had modeled in smaller scales since the late '60s up until 3 years ago, when I switched to O gauge because of eyesight and handling larger models.  I love it!  I just wish I had more time.  We don't have any grandchildren yet, but I have bought some older items that I think kids would like and not break. The way we are going, I'll be retiring by the time Grandchildren come along.  

Mike,

I bought it from Steve Canfield.  He's a seller on ebay (trains04nw) who specializes in custom bridges. 

My email address is in my profile.  If you shoot me a note, I can send you a link to the listing and some more info regarding the bridge and the assembly process.

-Dustin

Interesting use of a skid.

Don

These two Daleks would be invading Earth by flying their robotic shells, but they have run out of power and are forced to travel by rail.

Andrew