With my PA Glass Sand plant finally wrapped up, I turned my attention to the final details and interior work on my diesel servicing facility. Usually, I finish everything in a given area before moving on to the next project, but when the pandemic hit, my friend Mark who was helping me out with this part of the layout stopped coming by and work paused on this area until the last week...

And finally, just a bit to the east, here's a photo of "RO" Tower I took and converted to black and white. It's just amazing what you can do with these cell phone cameras!

See ya next week!

Photos from Michigan - “The Grandchildren Reading the Lionel Catalog”

The grandchildren are checking out the Lionel 2021 Catalog Volume II. They ask me why everything in the catalog ends in ninety-nine cents. 😎

Thanks for taking a look & have a great weekend: Gary & my train crew. 🚂

Thanks Scott for getting us rolling!  You certainly have a great friend ... wow! nice score on trains!!  

Here are my photos of the fun kind for this fine weekend.  The company photographer has been out and about the property and has these photos to share.  Have a wonderful and safe weekend everyone!

The view from the " other side of the tracks".

Blazing BL2!!  We have a small fire in the engine compartment!rus

Meet Jake Scruggs, brakeman on a MOW work train.

Lower Patsburg on Friday morning.s

A Pennsy A5 makes its' way through the Fall foliage.  

Here’s mine for the week.

Some really neat smoke effect on this video...

Shots from last week's run session.....My You Tube channel is called Rutland Milk......a milk train that left Vermont every night, traveling down the Harlem Division and routed to the West Side of Manhattan.....this is how it might have looked......

Have a great and safe weekend, folks......

Peter

A few short videos from the run session:

Enjoy, Peter

@scott.smith posted:

It's time for WEEKEND PHOTO FUN!

Last week I had a friend contact me and ask if I was interested in taking his trains off his hands. He lives about three hours from me, so I went up to see. Yes that is my wife's van and it took two trips.

I wish I had some friends like that! Nice haul, but so sad to see someone part with such a collection.

Here is my contribution .  I call this one "a view from Jackson Heights, Queens"

From last night:

Scott Smith

It is sad indeed. His health is failing and he wanted to make sure it went to good use. I would have rather helped rebuilding the layout for him to enjoy.

Scott Smith

Lastly....BACKDROPS REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

I never knew how much until I started taking photos for the magazine.....

These are "unstaged" pictures from this last week's run session:

Compare these to staged photos.......I was dumbstruck at how much the scenes were enhanced.......it is amazing what you can do with foam core board, Quick Clamps and backdrops....

Maybe I'm just very concrete......but, I never realized how important backdrops could be until I was doing it myself.

Peter

Scott thanks for kicking off another Weekend Photo Fun for us.

Patrick great photos of your terrific layout.  Thanks for introducing us to some more of the citizens of Patsburg.

Peter nice looking milk run.  I didn't realize NYC ran long hood forward.  On the other hand that platform above those fuel tanks looks kinda sketchy.  I don't think it would pass OSHA inspection.

Boston & Maine EMD GP7 #1562 is a Sunset/3^rd Rail model of a locomotive that had 1500 horsepower and was delivered in 1950. ALCO S3 #1174 is an MTH Premier PS3 model of a locomotive that had 660 horsepower and was delivered in 1950 and, after a roundhouse fire in Springfield, Massachusetts, returned to the railroad as S4 #1274 with 1000 horsepower in 1957. Shown on my 12’-by-8’ model railroad. The building at the right in the first photo is scratch-built from styrene. The others are from laser-cut wood kits, which I prefer.

MELGAR

I'm fresh out of 2020 Christmas Layout memory pictures so something different this week.  This post won't mean anything to anyone other than me, but I want to do it anyways.  These span multiple Christmas layouts over a few years.  As I've mentioned before my sister gave to me a metal lighted train for a Christmas gift a mere 2 months before she very unexpectedly passed away, so yes, these pictures are for me and her.

- walt

2015: the first year to use it on my Christmas layout

2017 (I displayed the train in 2016 on a shelf in another room)

2018:

2019:

it's visible, barely, but I wanted to show it's location

2020: (I placed it behind the model of her house (the one on the right)

@Strap Hanger posted:

Here is my contribution .  I call this one "a view from Jackson Heights, Queens"

Strap Hanger,

I really like that one! It looks just like the curve on the elevated 7-Line where the train makes the turn from Queens Boulevard onto Roosevelt Avenue. Let's Go Mets... Wait 'till next year.

MELGAR

Mel, the sounds from the S2 are great, something different than the constant drone of EMD diesels.  I know you prefer wood for your scratch building so how did you like doing that bone building in styrene?

@coach joe posted:

Mel, the sounds from the S2 are great, something different than the constant drone of EMD diesels.  I know you prefer wood for your scratch building so how did you like doing that bone building in styrene?

Joe,

For buildings that were actually made of wood, I much prefer to make the model from basswood. The model in the photo is the only one I've built from styrene.

MELGAR

@MELGAR posted:

Strap Hanger,

I really like that one! It looks just like the curve on the elevated 7-Line where the train makes the turn from Queens Boulevard onto Roosevelt Avenue. Let's Go Mets... Wait 'till next year.

MELGAR

Thanks Melgar! That's exactly the look I had in mind.

Picked up a MTH Morton salt switcher for the club.

Wow quite the pictures this week.  I like the Morton's Salt engine!

Keep 'em coming!

An oldie but one of my favorites from my old layout.

Here are a couple from the logging line...

JDFonz,

Can we see more photos of the layout?

Dave

Time to have some birthday fun today.

Happy Saturday! North Western’s trademark mixed MU with long loaded grain hopper cars running south from Oelwein to Kansas City through Marshalltown on former CGW track.

Patrick

                                                                NYDR

                            Fantastic NY area operations script by Zack & Brian!

Since my UP Genset arrived this week, it had to get into some new pictures:

I have been working on a few small areas of my layout. I have never done much scenery before so I am learning what works and what doesn’t  

And debating what to change for the Christmas display this year.

Enjoy your weekend! -Ryan

First outing with the modular layout today. The town of Truesdale Missouri has a Railroad Days and ask the club to set up a couple layouts. We also have an N Scale layout.

Blasts from the past.

@Ryan Mc posted:

I have been working on a few small areas of my layout. I have never done much scenery before so I am learning what works and what doesn’t  

And debating what to change for the Christmas display this year.

Enjoy your weekend! -Ryan

Ryan, seems like your a quick learner, your scenery looks great.  Is the camper in the second picture a Christmas ornament?  That's an impressive Christmas display, lots going on.  With so many levels if you make them smaller as you go up it could serve as your tree.

@coach joe posted:

Ryan, seems like your a quick learner, your scenery looks great.  Is the camper in the second picture a Christmas ornament?  That's an impressive Christmas display, lots going on.  With so many levels if you make them smaller as you go up it could serve as your tree.

Thanks Joe. I still have a lot to learn. My ballasting leaves a lot to be desired. 😂 The camper is from Michael’s for fairy gardens.

The Christmas display is busy but our daughter and her friends have fun running the different trains along with a scavenger hunt. The levels already reduce in diameter. Floor is O54, then O48, then O45, then O42, and the top is O36. I am thinking about adding an O27 or O31 loop to the top.

Well, yesterday my phone took 15 pictures, 5 videos, Canon took 199 photos, and 72 videos. I popped some stuff over in the railfan topic, see what I can post here. May take a few weekends to get most of these uploaded.

Great 50th birthday yesterday, had a complete blast at Strasburg. Spent my downtime sitting at the cafe' enjoying a cup of coffee at 11 since the place I popped by just after 6 was closed. That's okay, the cafe' coffee was pretty dang good. My aunt called to wish me a happy birthday while I stopped my coffee.

Believe it or not, that blue shirt was the only XL of that style. I was hoping to get one of the gray Powhatan Arrow ones, but they seemed to have only small. Also, the N&W hat I had thought after getting home that it was left behind at the table where I bought it, the book on 611 and the magazine. This was because after I bought them, I tucked them under a jacket in the car. When I got home I was tired and didn't see it when I pulled the other stuff out. Went back out later and moved the jacket and there it was.

The Marian parlor car of which I rode in yesterday.

611 a little bit after coupling up about 10 minutes before my cab tour.

Strasburg 89 sitting pretty before popping out before 611 came in.

I don't remember if I shot this one before leaving Strasburg of if this was just somewhere in between. Regardless, 89 was really shooting up some steam.

Managed to grab a Lionel Legacy E6 off a fellow forum member recently. I painted the pilot wheels and drive wheels rims flat/semi gloss black and I'm very happy with it. Just gotta fix that loud smoke unit!