Great Northern railway

I like that pun!

Thank you, Sam!  Use it any time you wish!!!

New delivery.

New Digitrax duplex throttle with screen.  Model is UT6D.  Nice in no antenna hanging out of it and comes with a neck strap.

Two TCS KAM4 decoders for the GN electrics.

New delivery plus local modular layout plus impressive video.

PRR P5A boxcab electrics.

These are BLI with cast metal bodies.  I had not planned on buying these but an online dealer had them at 48% of list.  Since I pay 93 bucks for my decoders plus speaker plus LED's plus painting; in essence, for an extra 75 bucks (or so) it was a 'no brainer' to buy them.   I bought two to make sure they can handle long trains.

Used to seeing the BLI boxes with soft foam but, I guess, diesels and electrics get white hard foam.

They are well packed with a piece of plastic that supports the under carriage.

The leading and trailing trucks, also, pick up 'juice'.

With cast metal bodies and frame, they are heavy.

Onto the programming track.  I labeled both 4733 since they will always be run as a set.   Numbers are only on each side of the headlight (4733 and 4744).

Load in the needed data.  For selection there was only paragon 3; no selection for electrics.

A 'throttle' test to insure all's 'good'.

Glad I purchased them.  These are really nice engines with lots of detail.  The ditch and marker lights are not lighted but, from the overhead lights, they appear to be lighted when viewed 'in person'.

Even has chains on the lead trucks.

Plus  sand pipes next to the drivers.

My friend Joe set up their modular layout at a theme park called Stricker's Grove.

Other exhibits were also in the building.

They have a small roller coaster plus a train (tracks are to the right of the coaster).

While going home, went by the old freight station....

plus a train was passing.

Very nice old arch bridge in Hamilton, Ohio.

Impressive model train video of welded rail train:

I'm having trouble figuring out how they could even assemble it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfluA6BwE4g

Beautiful engines you got there!! The illusion of the marker lights is pretty cool.

I especially love that welded rail train! That's really impressive! I thought the real life version was pretty slick and I never thought to seek out a modeled version.

New deliveries:

Got some flat car loads:

6 tractors and several lumber loads and...

Southern PS-4 4-6-2.

Engine made by United in 1976.  It is the last run.  Another engine that I consider iconic especially since it's in the Smithsonian institute.  It was very reasonably priced especially since it is the last run and custom painted.

Holes for the speaker in this run.

Appears to have very little 'run time'.

Whoever painted the engine did a really nice job.

Has a plate deck.  No backhead and an open frame motor; both, of which, I plan to update along with a decoder.

One wire needs to be adjusted.

Very nice engine

Thanks, Mark.

=====================

New delivery.

UP 4-8-2 #7002 streamlined.

A Balboa 'Masters' series, factory painted and made in 1971.  I'm a sucker for multi-colored engines so this was a 'no brainer'.  Balboa made them unpainted but there are no decals for this model so I had to buy the factory painted model.  They did a real nice job on painting it and I would have a 'hard time' duplicating all those fine lines on this model.

The old saying to never buy stuff (except stock) thinking it is a good investment, usually, 'holds true' especially when the label say 'collectors item'!  This engine cost $150 in 1971 and sounds pretty cheap; until you figure inflation bringing today's price at $1006 which is way more than the going price.   This is a hobby, not an investment portfolio.

Appears to have little or only 'test run' time on the engine.

Basic 'in cab' detail.  The open frame motor will be replaced though it runs well.

A nice incandescent yellow bulb for the headlight.

This had to be 'fun' to mask and paint!

Some stuff was hand painted as the silver lines but not bad for a 50 year old engine!

Never have seen this arrangement where a short piece of roof rotates....

and covers the deck plate.

The original center section of foam must have deteriorated....

so I cut a new piece of foam.

That really looks great, Sam!  I wouldn’t have wanted to attempt to paint that one!  The word ‘attempt’ is what it would be.  Yes so many of there are 50 years old and have never or hardly ever been run!

GNRW operating session, July 24, 2021.

Video:

DM&IR yellowstone 2-8-8-4 crossing Chumstick canyon trestle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63kt-ksqeyE

The usual, pizza first.  Summer, with vacations, some 'regulars' were 'out of town' but a few new faces showed up.

Mark brought his own train set to run.  A diesel and some modern covered hoppers.

Joe did his usual dispatching.

Alan ran the DM&IR Yellowstone leaving Glacier.  Below is the relatively new passenger yard.

John had a freight drag with an SP AC-9 2-8-8-4 departing Seattle's freight yard.

Seattle's freight yard and engine facilities.

DM&IR yellowstone taking water on the functioning water tower at Wilmar.

Mark's diesel at Marias pass.

Neighbor and his grandson stopped by.

DM&IR 2-8-8-4 west of Waverly (top) and SP AC-9 2-8-8-4 leaving Hillyard.

Alan's yellowstone west of St. Paul.

Ben at the throttle of a SF 2-10-10-2 which I call the 'baseball bat'!

Mark's diesel at Glacier.

Johnny operating the functioning water tower.

SP AC-9 west of Waverly.

DM&IR 2-8-8-4 waiting for the SP AC-9 to pass.

Ben's SF 2-10-10-2 at Wilmar (top).

DM&IR 2-8-8-4 at Marias pass.

SP AC-9 west of St. Paul.

Alan shuffling freight cars at Seattle.

John's SP AC-9 taking water at Tye.

SP AC-9 at Skykomish.

John's convertible.

We ended with creamcicles and 'train talk'.

Ben brought a Aristocraft engine that needed some TLC as it may have moved a 1/4" when power was 'applied'.  Some disassembly to clean the motor armatures, oiling, etc got it running pretty smoothly.

Looks like it was a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing. Were you able to get any videos of Ben's SF 2-10-10-2?

Videos of the SF 2-10-10-2 a year ago when I painted it and installed a decoder and lights.

Tumwater canyon trestle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeWHjaFjtn4

Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3_I4genYLI

A video Ben took while operating the train:

https://drive.google.com/file/...D29IPppYQlpA6jR/view

Van Wert, Ohio train show.

Miles: 120.

Held in 4 buildings at their county fairgrounds.  Lots of all gauges.

Amazing: didn't find anything that I needed, but still had fun!

I've got lots of these!

Have built a few of these.

Lots of layout modules.

On the way home stopped at Armstrong's museum; for those who forgot that he was the first man to step on another world.

All born in Ohio:
First in flight.

First American to orbit the earth.

first to step on the moon

invented the light bulb.

In memory.

Americana.

Wow what a busy weekend!  It looks like everyone had a great time at the operating session!  John's convertible is a winner on warm evenings!

It looks like a really nice train show at Van Wert!  There were a lot of nice looking modular layouts.  The Armstrong Museum certainly was worth stopping at as well.

Installing signals in the upper interchange/staging yard.

The upper staging is a 3 track, 8' diameter return loop.

When there are one or more trains in this interchange, the engineer doesn't know if there is a train in the next block.

This next block is through a hole in the wall leading from the laundry room to the layout room so the engineer cannot see, visually, the 'next block' train.

3 new signals have been installed in the staging yard.

Extension wires were soldered to the existing LED wires to reach the circuit board.

After making a new CAT5 cable, a tester is needed to insure I got all 8 wires in the correct order and functioning.

A new signaling LCC board was needed.  All signals are operated via the relatively new LCC system that NMRA has established thus not putting a 'load' on the DCC system.

Tomorrow, Joe is coming over so the software can be installed.

This brings the total number of signals to around 33 with around 53 signal heads.

New delivery.

Reading an old 2004 classic trains mag I saw these 2 books were published.

I 'googled' them and found them on Amazon.

Passenger trains of yesteryear: Westbound and Eastbound 

Installing signals in the upper interchange/staging yard (cont).

Software installed.

We had to update several files.

But all appears to be working well.

Trains entering the upper interchange/staging yard will, now, know if they can depart.

This is the only part of the mainline that is not multi-directionally controlled by signals.  All trains enter counter clockwise.

One of the signals had a defective wire so only 2 are, presently, installed.

The third signal tested good so will be wired and installed at a later date.

Lebanon, Ohio tourist train.   

Miles from home: 15

Nice 1.25 hour ride on a local tourist train.

Besides the train the town has 'tons' of historic houses along with its vintage 'down town'.

Video crossing bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VzE_ldPClA

Joe and I.

Fellow NMRA members, also, arrived.

Chuck with wife and grandkids.

Steve with 2 kids along with their friends.

One diesel and about 7 cars.

Looks like one passenger car was, at one time, a PRR MU powered car.

What gas stations used to look like!

Seats 'folded' to 'front or back'.

Usual baggage car with food and souvenirs.

Has 'UP' in the tile so guessing it was a UP car.

Their 2nd engine.

Spare 'cabeese' and...

passenger cars.

We ate behind the golden lamb (oldest in Ohio) restaurant (casual dress).

Library across the street.

Belt driven.

Excellent food.

Looks like a wonderful railroad!  Also some great company to spend the day with.  I’ll bet the youngsters liked it!

Shouldn't have done that!

The new signals in the upper interchange seem to be working well.

Will indicate if next block is occupied plus if the turnout is thrown correctly.

Lower left corner are the new signals.

Vulcan 0-6-0 saddle tank engine at Lebanon, Ohio.

The owners have 5 saddle tank engines, 3 are operational.  They live around Fort Wayne Indiana.  They use a flat bed trailer to transport the engine.

The Lebanon railroad has about 8 miles of mainline.  There are no Y's or turntables to the train must run backwards for half the trip.

Videos:

In station:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8h49AU7Bo0

Departing station:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DK9yfWjvs

Crossing rt 42:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZzkvzBczzk

Crossing private road:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4mDOfPUQs

Arriving at station:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkdnZQIKW7E

Bring your own coal.  Each trip takes about 12 buckets.

Joe and I enjoying soaking in all the senses.

Excellent photographs and videos, Sam!  Looks like it was a great day weather-wise, subject matter, and taking it all in with a friend!!  It's mice the younger men handled the coal!! 

A friend's video of the Lebanon, Ohio 0-6-0 saddle tank engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoOHr-E5TQ0

UP big boy back on the 'road' video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W9B2yutbkw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zX3uP2iUpE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf8yaQ-8U9s

PRR GG-1 electrics.

New decoders.

Testing a block on the layout that had a loose wire using the GG-1, I touched the loose wire to another wire and 'smoked' the decoder.  The new decoders from Bachmann arrived.

I did each wire, one at a time, and all went well.  Most wires were correctly color coded except the speaker wires were green.  Almost forgot that I had to reload all existing data, including the engine address, back into the decoder.

All worked well so the decoder was secured along with the super structure.  Still have one other GG-1 to fix.  These engines are used to quickly test the mainline before operating sessions as they travel very quickly versus my steam engines.

A fellow railroader brought his engine that wasn't working after a decoder was installed.

A loose ground wire in the engine side was fixed plus the open frame motor had to be electrically isolated.

Last, the tender trucks were previously replaced but were skewed and not conducting electricity sufficient enough for DCC.  Replaced the trucks with some central valley trucks.

New delivery.

Cab Forwards by Church, revised edition 1982 with special builder's edition signed.

Most 'used' train books go for 'pennies on the dollar' and I, rarely, pay more than 20 bucks for one but this book is really nice.

Since I have 9 SP engines ( 8 of them are cab forwards), I've been wanting one of these books for about 5 years but the usually going price of $250 was more than I wanted to pay.

Found one on ebay  for 98 bucks.

Not only is it the 1982 last edition but it's the 'signed' edition and saw it via 'googling' for 450 bucks.

'Signed' doesn't make any difference to me but I'll take it!

321 pages.

plus several 'fold outs'.

That’s a great deal you got on it, Sam!!

Train show plus Ohio train maps.

Train show by Great Train Show (non NMRA) in Dayton, Ohio.

Held at the Montgomery county fairgrounds.

Being an 'RC plane guy' took a picture of this book; 'things' have changed a little in the last 60 years!

Some On3 stuff.

2nd building had all layouts.

N scale.  (NTRAK)

S gauge; tinplate and scale track.

Large HO scale layout.

N scale layout.

Bought one 'all wood' boxcar, some heat shrink tubing and Dremel cut off disks.

Kit was by Taylor which I don't remember.  Probably from the 60's.

We stopped by Lebanon, Ohio again for a few more 'steam' pictures.

One more video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfpc8ZQ07lA

New delivery:

Ohio state sent me 2 Ohio maps showing all railroads in Ohio.  Sent free which was nice.

Main map.

By city.

Looks like a nice show!  
Nice photographs from Lebanon.

Thanks, Mark.

========

A little prep before railroaders come over Saturday night.

A few things to fix.

The main turnout leading into the Seattle's yard needed the 'offset' linkage re-soldered.  The mainline is remotely controlled whereas all the yards are 'choke' controlled.

Some dirty track.  I think the soil pipe is leaking so I put a paper towel around it to verify and locate the leak.

Periodic loss of electricity on this section of track in the laundry room on the last ops session.  The rail connector was a little loose so I soldered it.

LCC dispatchers panel working.

Ran a really fast GG-1 along the mainline to check out the turnouts and all mainline track.

GNRW operating session: August 21, 2021.

Please pardon some of the blurry pictures.

The usual first order of business: pizza which was entirely consumed.

Bob's running the new PRR P5A electrics which I just obtained.  This is the first 'road test' and they did very well as he had over 30 cars on  the train.  'Road tests' are good since the trains, usually, run 900' or 1000' on their routes, depending on if it's 'freight' or 'passenger' which can, usually, take from an hour to 2 hours to complete.

Skykomish.

John got a DM&IR M-3 2-8-8-4 yellowstone out of the Seattle's roundhouse and preparing to get a string of freight cars. This engine also had around 30+ cars.  This was one of the largest engines made in terms of 'pulling power'.  The engine was painted several years ago with functioning headlight (engine/tender), marker lights (engine, tender), running board lights (4), cab light and fire box glow via TCS 1517 decoder.

Nice to get some young 'uns in the group.  Ben in the 20's and Paul in the 30's.

Ben getting a GN 4-8-2 mountain out of Seattle's roundhouse.  Engine was paint decades ago but recently installed TCS decoder with all the 'bells and whistles'.

John's DM&IR 2-8-8-4 at Skykomish.

John's DM&IR Yellowstone leaving Tye.

Paul backing a GN R-2 2-8-8-2 for his train at the Seattle's freight yard.  Another large 'pulling power' engine painted decades ago.  The model is pulling around 30 cars.

DM&IR 2-8-8-4 at Marias pass.

Mainline busy with 3 trains at 3 levels.

PRR electrics west of St. Paul.

DM&IR 2-8-8-4 departing Havre.

Tumwater canyon trestle.

DM&IR taking water at one of 4 functioning water towers. This one is at Glacier.  Passenger staging yard on lower level.

Another functioning water tower at Hillyard.  GN P-2 4-8-2.

Bob and Ben.

DM&IR at Wilmar.  3rd functioning water tower.

I had to 'work' the dispatcher's panel until Joe arrived: I only made 2 mistakes!

Ben's GN P-2 at Glacier.

Train meet at Havre.

Chumstick canyon trestle with the GN R-2 2-8-8-2.

R-2's caboose.   All 'cabeese' are lighted so the LCC signaling system knows when a train has left a block.

GN P-2 mountain at Wilmar.

Bob's PRR electrics.

DM&IR M-4 at the 4th functioning water tank at Tye.

DM&IR at Skykomish.

DM&IR Yellowstone entering one of 3 incoming tracks at Seattle's freight yard.

GN C-1 0-8-0 'shuffling' cars.

GN P-2 and 14 cars Zephyr meet at Skykomish.  No diesels on the Zephyr: a D&RGW L-131 2-8-8-2.

Very nice Zephyr cars by BLI.

GN P-2 4-8-2.

GN R-2 at Marias Pass.

Paul operating the GN R-2.

Paul brought a Scaletrains museum quality diesel.  Very nicely detailed.

Had trouble with N&W J so had to use the Y-6B 2-8-8-2 for the passenger train.

Impressive pulling power; had 30 plus cars.

N&W Y-6b at Skykomish.

Zephyr on the passenger track bypassing the Seattle's freight yard.

Bob using a SP AC-5 4-8-8-2 pulling 18 passenger cars.  The AC-5 was painted several years ago with TCS 1517 decode and the usual 8-14 LED's for lighting.

SP AC-5 on passenger track.

BLI's very nice SP passenger cars; all are articulated, ie one truck between 2 cars.

Trains passing at Marias Pass.

Ben got out the 'stump puller'; Scaletrains museum quality UP 8500 turbine with all the 'turbine' sounds.  Had around 40 cars. Both engines are powered and are heavy.

UP 8500 turbine leaving basin tunnel.

N&W Y-6B at Havre.

Steve with a SF 4-8-4 at St. Paul's yard.

Ben's UP turbine at Havre.

Ben and Steve.

Paul brought his Key B&O EM-1 so we could compare to my Westside EM-1.  The Key has better detail.  I just painted the EM-1 in the last year and installed the TCS 1517 decoder with all the 'usual' lights.

Bob left before our group picture.   Finished off the evening with creme cycles and the usual 'train talk'.

Great photographs of another wonderful day!  I don't recall seeing Ben there before.  He certainly looks intense getting the engine on the turntable.

Nice B&A layout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRyzoMuVJAc

New delivery.

PFM (United) DM&IR S-7 0-10-2.

Didn't need this engine but it was selling for 45% of the 'going' market.

I have spare functioning booster to add to the tender.

Will add a back head, lots of lights, can motor, decoder, etc. and paint like the previous engine that was painted last spring.

New box for the DM&IR 0-10-2.

The new engine didn't come with a box so I modified an empty spare box that was available.

I took some pictures of one of my United boxes and printed the pictures.

Some carpenter's glue and an acid brush worked well.

Some 'cutting' of the interior foam was necessary.

Final results.

The two boxes are close to the same size with  the 'original' United box on the right.

The 0-10-2 looks like a great find!  You did a great job on the box!!  How many railroads had 0-10-2's? I don't know if I ever heard of one before.

Thanks, Mark.

Only the Union and DM&IR had them that I'm aware of.

I should know about the Union.  It isn’t too far from me

NMRA MCR Div 7 meeting.

Our first 'in person' meeting since April of last year; YEAH.

The Div has purchased all the equipment to still have 'zoom' for those not attending.

Contest table.

Those on 'zoom' show up on screen.  We had 19.

Awards given.  There were many since last April 2020.  Some pictures of people show multiple times for multiple awards.

Back to our 'good attendance'.

Bob Bartizek presented 'detailing PRR diesel road Switchers'.

The usual visit to two layouts after the meeting.

Gary Ossenchmidt's layout.

Besides his HO layout, he has a very nice N scale layout.

Ed Bley's layout.

New delivery:

Picked up some PFM speakers for my DCC decoders.

These were made back in the 70's and 80's.

These don't 'show up' very often on ebay so I have a 'notification' to inform me when they are for sale.