Weekend Photo Fun 11-20-20-??

Engage!

Hopefully get some videos and a mini review up this weekend  

A Photo Album from Michigan - “Hanging Out with Grandpa”

Baby’s First Trolley Car - “Not a Lionel or MTH” • Abigail says; Hi from Detroit Michigan as she plays the roll or a trolley car conductor on The Woodward Avenue Line.

Now in Grandpa’s train room, Abigail is looking for her special trolley car. The rocking chair was Grandpa’s when he was Abigail’s age.

Adam is running a LC+ NYC on the main line.

Abigail and Grandpa have a chat about Lionel Trains.

After running trains the boys have put on their pajamas and came back to the train room to vacuum the floor.

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

Photos and videos show my K-Line die-cast model of Lackawanna Coal & Lumber Company #2 (K3438-0002CC), a Class B 60-ton two-truck Shay steam locomotive that appeared on the market around 2006. Shays were geared machines used mostly in low-speed logging operations where they had to negotiate uneven track and tight turns. They were propelled by three vertical steam cylinders whose connecting rods turned a crankshaft connected to the drive wheels by two external driveshafts, sliding joints, universal joints, and bevel gears. These components, on the engineer’s side of the engine, are seen in motion as the model runs. The fireman’s side has no external drive-train components.

I hadn’t run my Shay in almost fifteen years. At first it ran with hesitation with cruise control on, so I turned off the cruise and the engine ran perfectly after that. The sounds came on at about 10 volts and the locomotive was running at about 11 volts (23 miles-per-hour) in the videos. In my opinion, this is the most interesting locomotive that I own to watch in operation.

MELGAR

                        BM #1877...

                                            I like waffles in the morning!

A 2019 Christmas Layout memory

The smallish Christmas section of the 11'x14' layout. 

Overall view:

A couple of closeups

Great photos and videos everyone!!   My fun photos for this weekend focus on the venerable Pennsy MU cars.  This pair of cars is by K line and have been on my roster since the mid 2000s.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!   Be safe = Be well!

Departing the Patsburg Commuter Station.

Two modes of rail transportation receiving their power from overhead wire.  ( In this case the overhead wire is imaginary ;-) )

Fresh out of the paint shop, the owl eyes are somewhat haunting.

Circa 1950:  Military personnel were regulars at rail stations everywhere.  Looks like this car is almost full of commuters.  

Now arriving on track 2 train Commuter Train 116 westbound.  

Late afternoon.

During the early morning  commuter rush, train 221 east bound trundles through Butler  junction.

Now arriving on track two commuter train 221 eastbound!  Having begun it's eastward journey this morning at O dark 30, commuter train 221 arrives in Patsburg where the sun is now up and shining brightly.  This is the final run for Conductor Earl Scruggs who will retire today after working on the railroad for 47 years. Earl tells me that he plans to start building a large model train layout because he loves trains in all sizes .... of course "0" is now his gauge of choice.   Btw - Earl has always been a man of good choice.  

Pennzy Owl commuter train! Nice! I've not been on one of those since I rode the Paoli Local as a kid.  Brings back memories.

Thank you!

Chris

LVHR

Machine shop detailing progress for my new AMW car shop.

Great photos looking forward to others sharing as well. Always good to see what everyone is building and running.

I recently got some custom decals done in white and managed to finish my custom paint of an old logging engine. It was originally a US Army engine Baldwin VO-1000 purchased by Crown Zellerbach in 1960 and used for hauling logs in Vancouver Island for many years. I had recalled seeing this train many years ago in this nice bright paint scheme. It pulled a water tanker on many trips to put out any fires from the train in the summer. This is an old MTH model I picked up used that runs well and has some great engine sounds. I added the extra exhaust stacks as on the real engine at different heights. The tool work car was a custom built model from wood that I picked up from a train club sale. Enjoying pulling a train loads of logs.

New Reading T1 added to the fleet so I had to add another whisker track for the round house area!

Not all Daylight locomotives were big--an Atlantic pulled the Sacramento Daylight. Wonderful photos this week. Thanks for sharing.

This week my fiancée brought over her 4 year old nephew to see our trains again. It had been almost a year since he had last seen them and didn’t remember much about them.

I think it was his 1st Christmas when her and I bought him a little wooden train set and that was the start of something big. Since then he’s obsessed, always talking about trains, wanting to watch trains, play with them, the whole nine yards.

Here he is running trains on my layout. Including his favorite train, the Polar Express.  

(Below) Here he is watching my dad throw switches and operate accessories for him.

Opening night for River City 3 Railers at the Great Big Greenhouse. We are practicing social distancing by nesting our 12x15 and 6x11 layouts to ensure 6' separation from the public.

In honor of New Jersey High Railers, we ran an all NJHR club car consist tonight.

Plans for the 2020 Christmas layout.

I have a week's worth of work done.  The part I hate the most - wiring (well, that part isn't done yet sadly).  It didn't take long to make an observation.

WHAT A DUMMY!!!  One would think that after 60 years of designing the Christmas layout at my parents' and then for myself that I could come up with fool-proof plans in my sleep!  How I screwed up so badly this year has me scratching my brain

Since I will not be hosting a single person this year I just wanted something simple just to have a layout up and running for Christmas - lift the spirits, you know.

This is, no, was, the plan.  Do you see the fatal mistake?  This is the lower level:

12

This is the upper level - just a 4'x12' loop around some nice scenery that I have plannedL

:

While I could have come up with better solutions for the fatal flaw section, I lacked motivation to running more wires and took the lazy person's way out.  No guests, no problems.  I don't actually run the trains by myself hardly at all so just having a simple loop back there is fine.  I eliminateds the crossover and fit some curves in to m ake the loop

Engineers are in town!

@walt rapp posted:

Plans for the 2020 Christmas layout.

I have a week's worth of work done.  The part I hate the most - wiring (well, that part isn't done yet sadly).  It didn't take long to make an observation.

WHAT A DUMMY!!!  One would think that after 60 years of designing the Christmas layout at my parents' and then for myself that I could come up with fool-proof plans in my sleep!  How I screwed up so badly this year has me scratching my brain

Since I will not be hosting a single person this year I just wanted something simple just to have a layout up and running for Christmas - lift the spirits, you know.

This is, no, was, the plan.  Do you see the fatal mistake?  This is the lower level:

12

This is the upper level - just a 4'x12' loop around some nice scenery that I have plannedL

:

While I could have come up with better solutions for the fatal flaw section, I lacked motivation to running more wires and took the lazy person's way out.  No guests, no problems.  I don't actually run the trains by myself hardly at all so just having a simple loop back there is fine.  I eliminateds the crossover and fit some curves in to m ake the loop

I am not sure about being a "fatal mistake" but after a train enters the figure eight at the back from either of the connecting tracks, it cannot leave except by backing up.

On the outer loops, it looks like one of the crossovers should be in the other direction.

thanks for the input "P".  yes, that's the fatal mistake on the back area.  If there was going to be guests coming this year I would have thrown in some switches back there to allow for options.  No guests, no interest in making it more flexible.

When I realized that not guests would be coming, I didn't even install the outer loop switches.  Thanks for noticing!!!

When I run the trains just by myself usually, not always, I set things up and just sit back and enjoy watchin the 5 trains run around.  I might blow a whistle or horn or use station stop sounds on the PS3 tin plate trains and use the connecting tracks to switch loops but not a lot of the times.

- walt

Gilly, too bad you didn't have a CNJ engine to pull the NJHR train.  An Erie Lackawanna would have worked for Ben too.

As Gilly said, last night was "Opening Night" for the River City 3 Railer' holiday display. We are using our small layouts this year to make more room for social distancing......

We are very proud of the new scenery that features "Menardsville".

Have a great and safe weekend, folks!

Peter

A few short videos.......

Enjoy...we are surely are!

Peter

Great stuff as usual guys.

Just for kicks I set up a trolley on my desk.  Now I can play while I work

Don

Here's our latest layout video we shot today.

@dmestan posted:

Great stuff as usual guys.

Just for kicks I set up a trolley on my desk.  Now I can play while I work

Don

Love it!

Peter

A few from tonight...

Marty is the addition the location for the future layout?

Here are a few:

Fort Worth & Denver Rwy had two baggage cars converted from troop cars, numbers 109 and 110.  The conversion was done by CB&Q in 1947. FW&D purchased the cars in 1953 for use on #1 and #2, The Texas Zephyr, and unnamed #’s 7 and 8.
This was an undecorated 2R Atlas model that I re-trucked, painted with an ultra-flat camo green, and lettered with MicroScale decals. Not my best work, so don’t zoom in the photos too close.

My MTH NYC Mohawk L-3c coming off the turntable.