Weekend Photo Fun 10-8-21-??

Thank you, Scott for starting this.......

It's been a busy week......last Sunday was my retirement party......

Here is the cake:

.....and, it tasted as GOOD as it looks!

Peter

@Putnam Division posted:

Thank you, Scott for starting this.......

It's been a busy week......last Sunday was my retirement party......

Here is the cake:

.....and, it tasted as GOOD as it looks!

Peter

Congratulations on your retirement Peter!!!   Great looking cake!  

@Putnam Division posted:

Thank you, Scott for starting this.......

It's been a busy week......last Sunday was my retirement party......

Here is the cake:

.....and, it tasted as GOOD as it looks!

Peter

Congrats Pete! Now you can relax, take a load off,  and join this guy on the deck , LOL! (P.S. Hope to join you in about 8 months!)-

Thanks Scott for getting us started today!   Here are my photos of the fun kind for this fine weekend!   I hope everyone has a delightful weekend!   Be safe = Be well!

The perishables track is hopping this morning!  Truck loads of vegetables, fruit, and dairy products have been leaving the produce terminal as if they were in a parade ... all full of products delivered via reffer cars.

Up on the Mountain Division a Pennsy A5 makes its' way through the fall foliage.

Washington Terminal RS 1 does it's daily switching duties.  

Lots of activity going on this Friday morning down near the team tracks.

Farmer Jeb Watson is up early this morning, as he is every morning.  He's on Farmall pulling a wagon load of hay.  

This past July on a hot day, a Ma & Pa SW1 makes its' way through the dense humidity and high heat pulling a short string of refrigerated milk cars.

Whew.  I thought you slept in.

Some from the old layout...

I miss the natural light that used to come in the glass block window at the old place.  Made for some nice shots.

This week, I have some views of Mifflin Tower and interlocking on the PRR Middle Division.

First, here's a photo I took of the prototype back in the early 1980's as I recall:

Now here's an image of the same scene as portrayed on my layout. Only main difference is that I had to curve the tracks to the right rather than the left in the distance:

And here are a few closeups of the tower. It's a classic Quality Craft kit I had laying around unassembled in a box for thirty years before I finally assembled it.

These two show the interior. You can see I added things such as a clock, bulletin board, and of course the bald headed tower operator. And there is more that you can't see. Just shoulda painted those darn window frames maroon, not brown. Oh well...

That's it for this week!

During the winter, I acquired some modules from a member who had decreased his participation. There has been  no time to think through what I wanted to do to them...... they needed sprucing up.......not a fun job to scrape up ground cover, especially when some was put on with Ca glue.....

One of my modular colleagues, PeterM, came to my rescue with his sander.....

....the finished product......much better than the way it looked........

.....looking off into the distance, this is the back view of my regular modules

Have a great and safe weekend, folks!

Peter

Many of you have seen my Manger Car.......which I built in 2014 (I teased Andy Edelman that they stole my design ).

When I packed up my trains for the move to the attic, I discovered the the ceramic manger set had more characters.....another car has been built......

Peter

Lionel’s Legacy 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler locomotive models fit well on my 10’-by-5’ New England branch line model railroad. Ten-wheelers were most numerous during the early 20th Century and are a good match for MTH wood-sided passenger cars. The three buildings in the first photo, the truss bridge and the trestle are scratch-built.

MELGAR

Starting in 1996 and continuing for the next 24 years I set up my Christmas Layout and hosted my ENTIRE family for what we dubbed "the Train Party".  Eventually that grew to be 28 people and more complex layouts each year.  it only took about 4 years until my ENTIRE living room was devoted to the layout eliminating it as space to be used for people which made making space extremely limited in my small 625 sq. ft. house.  I insisted that no one bring anything  - I provided everything and did all of the cooking.

Here's the more simpler layout from that 1996 start.

BTW: what the impetus was for starting "The Train Party" was bringing my parents' 1949 bought Santa Fe 2343 out of storage and repairing everything.

- walt

Jasper's Rock - trackside October 2021

Walt, great memories and a greater tradition.

An overview shot of the layout:

With my layout in the living space, it was a bit tricky to get a picture without including the kitchen sink, LOL!

@Putnam Division posted:

During the winter, I acquired some modules from a member who had decreased his participation. There has been  no time to think through what I wanted to do to them...... they needed sprucing up.......not a fun job to scrape up ground cover, especially when some was put on with Ca glue.....

Have a great and safe weekend, folks!

Peter

@Putnam Division, are these your personal modules as distinguished from the RC3R modular layouts?  If so, what do you do with them?  Where do you assemble them?

NOTE:  Edited this post by deleting photos.

We had a young visitor to the club with his Dad.  That’s Murph providing him with instruction on the LionChief 2.0 handheld controller for the Virginian rectifier.  And off he went circling the club’s 20’ X 47’ layout following his train.

Murph also had his NYC 20^th Century Limited train running, and brought along the StationSounds diner.

Chief Drew ran his C&NW and Wisconsin Central locos pulling a long freight with double-stacks.

Dave ran his Chessie Steam Special, and Les ran his NYC switcher.

Photos tomorrow, but “ATTABOYS” to Lenny, Sal, and Drew for installing the solar panel charging system on the club’s travel trailer to keep its batteries charged.

I kept myself busy rewiring my boyhood 3472 milk car and learning how to repair the slide shoes.

Be safe.

NOTE:  As a relatively new member, I have much to learn, including how to set-up the traveling layout--no action since Covid.  Tomorrow I'll get familiar with the roundhouse/turntable operation on the permanent layout with pics and info to follow.

A nice look back, Walt. Thanks for that.

PD

My big Covid project from 2020:

Pondering construction of a second one, this with a village.

PD

Local thru freight.

@Pingman posted:

@Putnam Division, are these your personal modules as distinguished from the RC3R modular layouts?  If so, what do you do with them?  Where do you assemble them?

Carl.......these modules are part of the current 21x42 layout and were set up when you visited with some Plasticville thrown on.........all the modules are personally owned.....any member can build one but there are two caveats:

1. The construction committee "builds" it with you to the club standards.

2. Someone else must build a complementary module to even the numbers out.

In addition, the cost is not cheap.....likely about $250-300 given the cost of wood, wire, ballast, basic ground cover and Altas track. Then, you have to decorate it. It can run into big bucks and time........so, you need to be all in. When you look at how our club has developed, we note that we all love to run train among ourselves and for the public.......but, we also have evolved a significant focus on scenery, which is different than many other modular groups who just focus on train running.

The extra modules I purchased are part of a station complex owned by a few other fellows in the club. As current club president, I did not want to see a 36 square foot section of real estate lie fallow. Nor was I comfortable with the unpredictability of the situation.......So I purchased them. We have a lot of new members and I may eventually look for buyers. However, at this time, I felt they needed to be under control of an active member.

Carl, I'm sorry for the long-winded answer........but it seemed hard to explain in a few words.....

Peter

@Putnam Division, thanks for the explanation.  I hadn't thought about who owns the modules in clubs with traveling layouts, or how modules get built, and to what standards. 

Peter, having seen your layout up close, you guys have definitely hit upon a great formula.

Not all passenger trains are long (part 2).  In late 1949 a photographer caught a PRR OEG415 coming into the station with a PB54 in tow.  This Brill was initially powered by a 415hp gasoline engine when built in 1930, but these were unsafe, so it was upgraded to a 425hp diesel in 1942.

The Brill 660 and PB54 are Sunset/3rd Rail brass products.

                                                   ERIE #2041 for Mark S.

Wow! That Erie flat looks great. Superb weathering, of course.

Well, this is from last weekend on my Birthday out at Strasburg. I will try not to pop too many photos in one grouping to make it crazy for everyone. I have 199 photos, but I will probably post part of them as I don't think people want to see cows or fields.

And here is some videos too boot.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4, a suggestion:

Instead of posting so many photos in the text, do that for a couple of photos and leave the rest as thumbnails which readers can view full size if they choose to.  Works for videos also.

@SIRT posted:

                                                   ERIE #2041 for Mark S.

Steve, did you gouge out the planks, or use wood already distressed for the rotted planks. They look very good. When I make used ties, I get old split skid rails and pick out all the splintered and weathered pieces.

A bit of rail fanning down at the Black River & Western Railroad this morning on my way back from shopping. A little too early for whistle blowing(before 8), as they usually blow the whistle around 8:30-8:45 depending on how well stoked #60 is.

Also shot a time lapse video as well. Didn't know I could do that until this morning.

This is one I had the have !

Fun fact: the Lionel submarine on flat car may have been inspired by the Navy’s experimental “X-1”, which was launched in the early ‘50’s. I photographed it at the Submarine Museum in Groton, Connecticut a few years ago.

@Alex M posted:

This is one I had the have !

Alex,

I've seen some of these floating around on other folks' layouts. It's wearing on me. I might have to give in. Can we see more of the layout?

Dave

I just bought this Lionel Legacy Chessie System EMD GP30 Engine from Mariotrains!!!

I definitely needed an "ozone fix" after a brutal week at work, so I fired up my beloved Santa Fe 2343 F3's for a prolonged operating session pulling a long cut of freight cars. Life doesn't get better!

A month ago at Kensington with the TRACKERS…