Great Northern railway

Radio controlled HO car video:

Priced around $115.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qcwxekMcM

May 18, 2019 ops session.

Last one of this season.  This month, start RC airplanes until September.

The operating signals work well as they allow each engineer to run by just reading the signals.  Four trains from 16 to 37 cars on the mainline with no 'corn meets', plus the SF RDC's.  What I wanted when the layout was built: Multiple long 'scale' trains traversing scenic and mountain territory, single track mainline with passing sidings with two large yards to handle the 'traffic'.

BLI UP 4014 big boy brought by Joe.

4014 at Tye.

Marias pass.

Tumwater canyon.

Hillyard.

Cascade.

West of Wilmar.

West of Waverly.

Waverly.

St Paul.

GN P-2 mountain 4-8-2 at Skykomish.

Scaletrains UP 8500 HP turbine at Tye.

West of Wilmar.

A coaling tower I scratch built back when I was in the early 'teens'.  Seattle's yard.

PFM B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4.  Departing Seattle.

Rapido SF RDC's brought by Joe.  Marias pass.

West of Waverly.

Hillyard.

Operating water tower by BLI.  Have 3 more to install, this fall.  Hillyard.

Hillyard.

GN P-2 entering Seattle's freight yard.

Marias pass.

Seattle.

GN P-2 about to drop off the freight cars and go to the 'escape' tracks. Seattle.

GN C-1 0-8-0 pulling the freight cars out of the incoming tracks.  Seattle.

GN P-2 entering the Seattle's roundhouse facility.

East of Basin tunnel.

Seattle.

Tye.

Tye

Skykomish.

B&O EM-1 at Seattle.

Also, got the Vette ready for summer    Detailed out the truck, also. 

Jaw-dropping.

Including the car (!)

FrankM

Thanks.

Now, if I could just add this to the vette, my 'collection' would be 'complete'!

Sam, if you get that in your collection, I am coming over for some lessons! LOL

Sam - WOW!!!!!  Stunning photos of your layout!!  Great car too

Post pictures.

I'm GN but I like iconic engines and the N&W qualifies with the A, J and Y6B.  Two of them still need to be painted and DCC, etc. installed.

I wanted a Y6B but a Y3 came up at a very good price so I got that, instead.

Custom brass.

PFM

Sunset.

Walther's operating bascale bridge, operating.

Not sure where I'm going to use it but, for only 75 bucks, I had to purchase it, especially since it's motorized!

This holds for one of my motto's:  if I don't buy it now, I won't see it again once they are sold out.

Glad there's no 'upper age' limit!

Daughter and I took a bike trip along old train tracks converted to bike trail at Morrow, Ohio along the Little Miami river. 

Telephone pole must be 100 years old: of course all the green insulators are gone!

NMRA MCR Div 7 monthly meeting.   

After a presentation on early shipping containers and one award we visited two layouts.

Award:

Gerry's V&O.

Pat's CB&Q

I would imagine these are HO layout pictures, all really great and creative. The Great Northern is a beautiful railway. There has been a lot of fantastic work presented in the above pictures. Simply Wonderful....Happy Railroading 

Larry,

yes, they are HO.

Excellent photographs all!  The GN and the HO layouts are all tremendous!

New deliveries.

Three different sets on ebay but all by same seller so shipping was cheap.

Good prices on everything.

Two sets of Central valley passenger trucks and 3 bolster connectors for 27 bucks.  They usually have the old foam all stuck to them but some WD-40 and a brass wire brush does a good job of cleaning them up.  Walthers has nice trucks but they have plastic axles and I like to use a 'spring' type wire on the axle for electrical conductivity. 

12 packs of kadees for @$2.17 a pack.

Having 1500' of hand laid track, I was getting low on spikes and I like railcraft spikes and they are no longer in business.  Some ground throws and wheel contacts were 'thrown' in the set for a total of 20 bucks. 

Old foam all cleaned off of the wheels.

New delivery.

Milwaukee 4-6-4 Hiawatha, custom painted.

Whoever painted it, did a nice job. 

I wasn't looking for this engine but, I like multi-colored engines, this railroad competed with the GN and, for only 290 bucks (counting shipping), I couldn't 'pass it up'.

My reference book says produced in 1975 and sold for $190.

That's a lot of work painting all those colors.

I have four other Milwaukee engines.  Three bi-polars and....

and one northern class S-3.

New delivery.

Twelve vintage silver streak freight cars.

At only $6.42 each, had to get them.

WOW Sam! very nice, That should keep you busy for a little while! LOL I cant wait to see them done!

New arrival.

Last batch of silver streak cars arrived.

Again, all seven were sold as a set.   These sold for $6.57 each counting shipping.

Sam, those sure are going to keep you busy! But you need one more to make it an even 20! LOL I cant wait to see them on your layout!

New delivery:

Double swing bridge by Walthers.  Also, got the motorize unit. 

Made foam inserts for last engine that arrived as there was none.

Sam, sure looks like its going to be a nice addition to your layout! I look forward to see it in action!

Sam, I agree with Mike.  I think those swing bridges are neat!  You don't see them here in the Appalachians!  The foam insert and plastic wrap is a good idea when you don't have factory padding.

What is the difficulty level of those nice kits? THANKS. in advance!

The silver steak have a wood frame with cast metal parts to be applied.  CA can be used to secure the metal to wood parts.   The sides are painted but the ends have to be painted.  These aren't bad to build.

The metal parts have some flashing that has to be filed away.

Some even have paint included.  With today's high quality paints, the ends can be brushed on.

The results rival my brass cabeese.

Ambroid is usually all wood and requires a lot of work but you're not going to find these kind of cars 'production made'.  These require complete painting.

The Athearn and Varney all metal cars are my favorite.  They aren't bad on assembly.  These are already painted with the under frame needing some black paint.

Finished all metal cars.

Cars I picked up at a local train show:

This is rare when so many cars were being sold by one person and  I bought around 25-30 of them.

Mostly all metal Athearn and Varney:

https://ogrforum.com/...71#84072378339859071

A video of some of my vintage freight cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOb7SgZTLWA&t=3s

Watching a string of these freight cars 'makes my day'.  For me, it's like watching a 'whos who' for freight cars!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd0EvVIojA4  

In 1965 you could buy an Athearn all plastic (shake a box kit) for around $1.50. That sounds cheap but, in today's dollars, that's  around $10.50.

The Silver streak, Ambroid were in the $5-$10 dollar range which is around $39-$79 in today's dollars.  

Not cheap, but buying them, now, in today's dollars makes them very cost effective.

NMRA MCR Div 7 post meeting layout visits.

Curt's PRR:

Ed's PRR layout.

Wow!!  Curt and Ed have wonderful layouts!!!  Thank you for posting photographs, Sam!!

New delivery.

Picked up 3 sets of CV 3 axle passenger trucks and bolsters.

As usual, had to use a brass brush to clean off the old foam that stuck to the bottom of the wheels. 

Two conventions this w/e in Cincinnati, Ohio.

S gauge convention.

Welcome desk.

Dealers.

Layout modules.

Contest room.

What most of us started out with as our first train!

C&O convention:

Layout testing.

Sunday, I'm having 'open house' for the S gauge convention that's in Cincinnati, this weekend.

Did some testing and all seems good.  After 2 months of idle, only found one jumper wire needing soldering between two rails. 

Joe brought over some new engines and we ran those for testing.

I had an open house on my GNRW layout for the S gauge convention.

They had around 330 signed up for the convention: impressive turnout.

Joe brought over his new diesels to run.

New delivery.

Central Valley passenger trucks.  Picked these up on ebay.  One seller was selling 14 sets and I won 11 of them, all for the same price.  

As usual with these vintage trucks, the foam deteriorates and affects the wheel sets.  

Before/After.

Some WD-40 and a wire brush gets off the old foam.  Final air tank spraying cleans up residual parts. 

Took a little over an hour for clean up.

Now have 19 of them.

Plus a bunch of CV freight trucks.  They never came with foam so they require no cleanup. 

The CV's will replace the original brass trucks as they have a lot of drag.

Most need painting and interiors, etc. 

I've been thinking about cutting a hole in the paneling on the left side so one of the passenger tracks can run through it and go  into a passenger yard.  The yard would be about a foot below the above shown scenery and be about 2' wide.  The wall length is almost 14' long.

New delivery:

RPO heavy weight passenger car: Came with nice CB trucks.

NMRA MCR Div 7 meeting two post layout visits:

Our usual visit to two layouts in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area, after the meeting.

We are fortunate in this region as we have around 74 layouts registered under Div 7.

L&N layout.

Georgia models the southwest.

samparfitt posted:

Gerry's V&O.

 

 

Whooo boy... reckon' that Hogger ought to put his feet up on the heater an' git comfertable... lookin' like he's gonna' be there a spell. Even gittin' past that Approach... ain't nutthin' but red boards fer as you kin' see!

Andre

There is a lot of great modeling around the Queen City of the Ohio!

New delivery.

Although I only have one set of diesels (E-1's), the Alco's PA are iconic, especially in the SF colors. The set is A-B-B-A, all powered and DCC so they should have no problem pulling a long string of cars.

I don't claim to be an expert on diesels but the front coupler pocket is huge and I'm surprised they don't give you an alternate piece to fill that void.  I haven't read the manual and checked all the DCC variables but it appears the number boards are not lighted, nor the class lights.

There is a fan on top.

The diaphragms look nice and the silver (stainless steel)  sides look good.

Trucks looks good and separate handholds.

No cab detail or lighting.  Paint looks crisp.  Diesel sounds are good: at least for this uneducated diesel person.

For me, I'm disappointed that class lights and number boards don't light and no cab interior.  The BLI E-1's have more 'bells and whistles'.   My first non steam was the Scaletrains UP 8500 turbine museum series and I'm comparing all other diesels to that.  I guess when the price is only 300 bucks for an A/B unit and both powered and DCC, I guess 'bells and whistles' are not in the 'package'.   Overall, a nice set that should pull well.

This should, about, complete my SF roster;

Four PA's, two E-1's, two 4-8-4 northerns, one 2-10-4 texan and one 2-10-10-2 that I call the baseball bat!

I've managed to paint the 4 steam engines but have a decoder in only one (2-10-4) so far.

'Go figure':  I paid less than $300 for each of the nice brass engines and less than $600 for the 'baseball bat'.

NMRA MCR Div 7 monthly meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio layout visits after the meeting.

An original Alco's builder's plate for the NP 2-8-2 that Joe got when he was 12 (a few years ago!).

T-Trak presentation.

Kit bashing presentation clinic. 

Cincinati Model RY club's O gauge club.

I ran a 'Great Southern' 2-8-4 that was part of a large layout down in Texas that was in the MR mag, many years ago.

Also, ran a C&O Allegheny.

Rick's SF layout.

New delivery by another railroader!

A friend brought over his PRR electrics.  Last time he only had one electric and it couldn't handle the 29 car train but, with two, no problem.  These are really nicely detailed: even has chains to the lead/trailing trucks plus sand tubes by each driver.

video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

We put the pantograph up for this shot.

Also, up for this shot.

He also got a new diesel switcher.

We changed the addresses (and reversed 'normal' direction on the back two) on the Alco PA A-B-B-A to 5372 (lead and trailing engine numbers).  Will always be run as a set.

Test run of new Walther's Alco SF PA's.

Videos:

Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Tumwater Canyon Trestle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Waverly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

They ran the entire length of the 400' mainline at about 40 smph with sound and engines all operating perfectly. 

42 car train: no problem with all powered!

The PAs look great running on your great looking layout!!