Weekend Photo Fun 1-29-25-??

Working the farm fields.

Rail service to the North Pole.

The city zoo.

Photos and video show my Railking Imperial model (30-1866-1) of Raritan River Rail Road #20, a USRA 0-6-0 steam switcher with PS3 priced at $479.95. The train is passing through the narrow cut on the O-36 inner loop of my 12’-by-8’ model railroad.

The layout was originally built with an open area in the middle of the table but I didn’t like the way it looked, so I filled in the center area. Since the O-36 loop is so small, I tried to fill it with interesting scenery (the rock cut) to make the small size of the loop less apparent. I run small locomotives and short slow trains on it.

MELGAR

Some cabooses I custom built and painted;  Top photo a MTH caboose that I painted to match a custom run engine and freight cars by the CTTA club. Other cabooses are ones that I have custom built from the original plans for real cabooses that were custom designed and built locally by a local short line railway, they still use these cabooses in active service (though a different paint scheme now). I cut out the cabooses from sheet styrene with bracing. The blue caboose I built on an old 1960's O scale atlas frame and the yellow one I just finished; I built on a MTH caboose frame. The wood piece photo 3 showing the saw is a jig design I used for cutting vertical blind pieces for curved roof pieces, at an angle to fit the sloped cupola. Photo 5 finished caboose with our CTTA club custom run engine. Last photo peanut and jam stickers I made for box cars for my grandson for his trainset, guess what his favorite sandwich is!

I swapped some Williams trucks under an MTH E unit to get away from the blind rear axle plastic wheels. It was a bit windy and got a little camera shake, sorry about that.

The early posting of this thread caught me by surprise, but here are a few pictures I had on my phone of the town of Mapleton. This is very last scene on the layout to be  finished. I expect to have it, the final portion of the layout, completed in 2 to 3 weeks after over 27 years of work on the layout. There’s a picture of the completed town as well as one showing some of the remaining area to be finished including the fascia. There is also a picture of the overgrown entrance to the eastern portal of the original Spruce Creek tunnel, which in the 1990s and early 2000’s was used by maintenance of way vehicles. About 10 years ago the roof caved in and now it’s no longer usable by maintenance of way vehicles, railfans, or hikers.  The final picture is an image of the prototype, and if you look up on the hillside, you can see the tallus rock slopes that I painted on the backdrop in the first image
That’s it for this week. Enjoy!

On the layout currently.  Amazed this thread gets no love on the Facebook page.  Some of you guys have incredible skill!

A great Open House last week.......

Have a great and safe weekend, folks!

Peter

Busy tracks.

A few short videos from the Open House:

1. A Rock Island Legacy FA set pulling a beer train. This is a run from MrMuffin and I believe he has some left.....

2. A Marx tanker unit train.

3. An Army GP40 pulling a military train.

Have a great and safe weekend, everyone!

Peter

A 2024 Christmas Layout Memory

Continuing with the back right section - town and Halloween parade

- walt

I showed this before, but reposting for perspective

The parade thru the town

Thanks Scott for getting us started!   For this weekend:  "ICONS of The Rails"

This past Sunday was my club's last scheduled setup until the Summer, a small train show in New Eagle, PA.  I forgot to charge my battery , so I only got a couple of shots of my double-header and a short video of it pulling my reefer train.  You may spot the new TCA Pennsylvania beer reefer (Lancaster Liberty Ale) near the front of the train.  It arrived just a few days earlier along with my new METCA Jim Beam reefer.

Andy

Chain gang hard at work

PW Lionel F units

Lone switcher

Switching reefers on the Union Freight Railroad.  Slowly making progress on the model build....

'Counterfeit' Lionel Lines scale Hudson and 72' Lionel Lines Madison cars.

Caught these 3 K-Line 72' heavyweights with the classic names of 'Madison, Irvington, and Manhattan' recently and paired them with the K-Line scale Hudson #5344 to replicate Lionel's classic scale passenger set from some years ago. These are lettered for The New York Central however. I will add a couple of dark green Pullman cars as well as a NYC grey baggage for a nice consist

@Randy Harrison, where did you get the fence for your zoo enclosures?

@coach joe posted:

@Randy Harrison, where did you get the fence for your zoo enclosures?

@coach joe

Joe:

The stone walls and the cage enclosures are old Department 56 Village accessories. Probably the only place you might find them is on the Bay. I have forgotten what the official name of these are for search criteria.

I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful.

@fast freight posted:

I swapped some Williams trucks under an MTH E unit to get away from the blind rear axle plastic wheels. It was a bit windy and got a little camera shake, sorry about that.

Love the Opel GT, first car I ever owned.

Pulled the 249 down off the shelf for some run-time:

PD

Well fellas, we just finished unloading the boxcars, let’s get this last trailer loaded.

Gene

Southern PS4 1403 running in Baton Rouge Louisiana during Christmas when I visited my sons and lone granddaughter. Huge layout. Pulling 'City of Miami' passenger cars.

@pd posted:

Love the Opel GT, first car I ever owned.

Pulled the 249 down off the shelf for some run-time:

PD

That picture truly reflects the appealing charm and simplicity of vintage 3 rail!

Love it!

Andre

@Putnam Division posted:

A great Open House last week.......

Have a great and safe weekend, folks!

Peter

We need more than a heart to click on. Great would work for this.

@Jim Van Every posted:

We need more than a heart to click on. Great would work for this.

Thank you. You are too kind.

Peter

MTH PREMIER B&O Chessie System waffle side box car

Atlas O Premier Port Huron & Detroit 40' box car 

Andrew