Weekend Photo Fun Christmas & Post Christmas 2014

This is from 2012's Downtown Winter Festival. Jack "The Apprentice" Kemph and I posed with a celebrity who happened to show up during a break from running trains. More importantly, he showed up with A FOOD TRUCK!

And one from this year's Winter Festival:

Here is two items i got for christmas.

Here is a video of my Lionel Monopoly cars running on my layout at home;

Here's the latest addition to the WIHABL Railroad locomotive roster--a recently-released MTH Premier Lehigh Valley GP38-2.  Happy Holidays...and have a great weekend everyone!!

I see he got escaped from Minneapolis' Pillsbury headquarter!  

Action on the Seattle & Yakima RR

Joe:

Love that "Shooting Stand" Where'd you take that photo? Great "borrowed view" background.

Here's a Korber Grocery building flat i just finished

A life size Pillsbury Doughboy....AMAZING!!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas is about being thankful for what we have been given, family, food......and then, trains.

Christmas 1999, and now Christmas 2014.....

Then, the food......

Here is a PennCentral employee making reindeer cookies for the train crews   

Then frosting for pumpkin squares......

....and finally, the trains......

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!

Peter

Brooklin's and the North Coast Limited passenger cars, it doesn't get much better than that.

Just picked this up as a Christmas present to myself. The rare Canadian Pacific Service Station Set. It has never been run.

Now that the Polar Express is pulling 8 coaches up the spiral its caught its tail.

Wow....cookies, Italian sausage, trains!      When can I move in?? 

- Mike

Very, very funny. 

Kessler Jct.

A few Christmas pickups.

Lionel "old" and "new."

The old.  Cattle car and platform for my postwar layout. Amazing condition. Like brand new.

The new. LionChief Plus B&O Pacific. Looking forward to the LC+ NW-2s next year.

We have a 3469 modified dump car that dumps candy to unsuspecting visitors.

Dad had a good laugh....

Always one of my favorites and that's a nice one!

I bought that set new back in the 70's.  I forgot about it until your post.  Nice set!

PTC - Santa was good!

Glen - That's a good one!

Hi to all

Look like a lot of you have had a nice Holidays!

here is mi contribution for this weekend.

Tips to see the pictures better:

- Right click in your mouse.

- Click "view image"

-A photobucket screen will open.

- position the mouse over the picture, in the right top corner a menu will open.

-Press the magnifier glass.

- the picture will open to the normal size.

enjoy!

Got a few train related items but the big thing "Santa" brought me was a top of the line GOPRO camera.....so....real videos of the layout will be coming soon!!

Alan

A quick shot my dad took of the Lionel WP F3's I received yesterday.  These are the scale ones from 2004 and are really nice looking locomotives.  I have a B unit coming in the mail which will hopefully arrive today or tomorrow.

An RS-1, just out of the weathering shops

Fantastic work John, top to bottom, left to right!

Photo by John Harper, grain elevators were built by Fred Koester.

Just put my SD40E on the tracks of my temporary/repairs layout. More pix and a video to come, but for now here are some pix:

I love this engine! Great detail, awesome sounds and quality, just a great engine overall. If you're considering getting one, get it. It is well worth the price. Now all I am missing is the Dash 8, SD80MAC, and SD45.

Jake:

This is a super F unit set. Congratulations. I have this set pulling the famous CZ.

"so....real videos of the layout will be coming soon!!"

Now Alan, we don't expect the new videos, we demand them. 

My all-time favorite Lionel accessory. Still have mine from the 50's.

WOO HOO and the Juice train continues to grow! I need to find you one Vodka car to go with it!

Gilly

Great shots guys!

Alan

Brian...I am downloading some software as we post!!  I found that the GoPro folks don't support my media center xp computer and I don't want to spend hundreds for Windows 8 yet so looks like I may not be able to use GoPro software.....so....we shall see, may have to return the camera and just use what I have now..??

Alan

Alan, does the GoPro work with Mac?  If so what operating system version?

Ron

Thanks, Matt:

I can't take credit for that photo!  I bought it from a fellow TCA'er at a local show this past Fall.  He took this photo of a pond near his home up here in New England, and then printed it out and attached it to a foam-core board.  He said he used it at one time as a back-drop on one corner of his layout. 

When I saw it for sale at the show I knew right away I had to have it as I was already thinking about building a shooting stand for my train photography.  Besides, autumn is my favorite season!  I built the diorama in an attempt to match the look of the back-drop...

We are at the beach house  on eastern Long Island (about as east as you can go and still be on land) in the Hamptons. Train stores are non-existant out here. The only "train" things are the occasional passage of the diesel passenger trains. Freight trains don't even run out here anymore. Winter is very isolated out here...summer is MUCH different! These days, it is common to see very short, nearly empty passenger trains. In the summer, it is not uncommon to see trains long enough to require two or three EMD diesels. Also, the Friday afternoon Cannonball Express is a VERY impressive train - 10-15 bilevel cars and two or three diesels pulling and pushing. With custom drumheads on the front of the engines. 

The local garden center is a authorized Lionel dealer but they only have trains at Christmas. I took a ride over to see the layout. It has been years since I saw it - seems smaller than last time. Last time I saw it it had tubular track, different buildings, and seemed bigger. I'd say the Layout was 5x9 or similar. I also saw a "Vision Line Big Boy" poster but I doubt they'd stock such a thing. Regardless, I remember them stocking many different RTR train sets. I was thrilled to see and learn from them that all were sold this year. 

The train station...the white are sea shells. The Freight station across the tracks was torn down in the late 1990s, probably when the new trains arrived. There is a run around track here and there was a small yard but I believe the switches were cut recently. It wasn't much of a "yard" but I remember seeing it used for storing track equipment and setting out a bad ordered freight car, etc. 

Not working......just went to railfan.....and, I'm glad I did!

Peter

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the guy inside that Poppin' Fresh costume is glad you resisted the urge to take the picture while poking him in the stomach with your finger...

I'm thinking that's all the poor guy gets wherever he goes... 

It's no Vision Line Big Boy, but it's still a pretty cool 3rd Rail Northern!