WEEKEND PHOTO FUN 12-4-15-??

Great photos!  Here's an early delivery from the North Pole that arrived today. 

Running trains with the Grandson

Here is a picture of me and my Grandson Nolan running trains a couple of weeks ago.  As you can see I set Nolan down on a chair next to the switch  control panel. I  had a couple of derailments when I fired up the trains. Nolan had taken on the job of tower operator and lined a few switches. Nolan also managed to get his little hands on a TMCC Cab 1 while I was running trains with my Legacy Cab 2. It just so happened that the Cab 1 he picked up was set to the same engine ID as the Legacy Cab 2. The train I was running went nuts about the time I saws Nolan spinning the wheel on the Cab One.

I will make an engineer out of him yet! However, it was a lot easier to run trans with Nolan when he was this size:

Just like my kids Amy and Jason, Nolan is growing up way too fast. He turns 4 on Dec 23rd.

And now I have another Grandson to start Train training with:

Oliver Alan Cooper

Oliver was born on November 5th. My daughter Amy was able to make it a week later to my son Jason's wedding where I got to meet Oliver for the first time.

Have a good week,

Richard

Green and red! Fits the season to a "T" (or maybe a "P")

Rich Battista posted:

Working on a new video that is "All about the trains".    The video will talk about the models I buy and what I do to improve the realism and how they operate.  There will be lots of eye candy and operating train scenes.   I'm using several cameras including a 4K camera and ones equipped with the best motion stabilization to create sharp, well focused and stable video which helps it look as real as possible.   Its a lot of fun, I'm just having trouble finding enough time to work on it with three kids in high school.  I hoping to finish this winter.

Rich

www.toytrainsontracks.com

setting up the scene

A look at the upgraded mountain.

I'll talk about these MTH proto 3-2 scale wheel engines and how I make them look more realistic than they already are.

Show how I fix pilots

New 4K camera helps keeps the whole train in focus and allows for smooth motion cropping resulting in some of the best HD model trains scenes I've produced yet.  You'll need and HD TV and blu-ray player for best results.

I compare real engines to the models

YES!!!!!!! Warming up my Blu-Ray as we speak!!!!!!!!

walt rapp posted:

As I mentioned last weekend, I'm out of 'not yet used' pictures of 2014 Christmas layout so I think I'll highlight the main areas for now.

This is the right side: what I might call the 'town area'.

 - walt

Love the pics and layout, Walt.........and, you were missed at York!

Peter

Great stuff guys!! All this and Rich has a new video coming...awesome!

I had a business trip this week and stopped into Stockyard Express outside Cleveland. What a great shop with tons of stock and some of the nicest folks in the hobby. A real joy to talk to everyone there. Got a great demo from Brian on the MTH wifi feature. That is going to take the fun to a whole new level.

Today on my way home I spotted the beautiful Sante Fe #56 business observation car coupled to the back of an Amtrak train waiting to pull out of Chicago Union Station. The best part of my daily commute is always looking for the special treats that pop up in the yard or on the tracks in the station. Enjoy!

Christopher2035 posted:

After over 2 weeks on business travel I got home just before Thanksgiving last week, so I had a lot of stuff to catch up on.
Got a lot of ideas while I was gone & was also able to get in some railfanning.

The last few days I was finally having the new floor installed in the train room along w/ track lighting. Should be done by the weekend.

Lorenzo & Lucia were happy to run trains again after I got home -

New arrivals for the motive power fleet -
My stand in for NS 3170 -

3 new heritage units - PC, NYC & CNJ-

New SD70ACe & used SD70M-2 I picked up -

Friend of mine in PA was selling this SD40E, so I was happy to give it a new home

The big project I did over Thanksgiving weekend ( besides putting of the Christmas tree & lights on the house) was to move things around. I got rid of the old sofa that was in the train room. It was too low for the kids to see the trains from anyway. I Picked up a nice pair of used bar stools from a neighbor . Next was to add a new freight yard were the sofa was. It is slightly shorter than the old one, but I still think it's cool. Where the original freight yard was, I turned that into a 2 track intermodal yard along with a track to hold the power & a through track which now passes behind the fridge & goes to the new freight yard. This gives me a lot of operational flexibility - I can run main line trains, all while drilling the freight yard & intermodal yards. It also gives a variety of trains a place to terminate & originate - which adds to the operations. Since my friend (& fellow forum member) Mike helped push me to make the changes after a couple of beers & some train running the night before I left for PA, I thought I would name the new intermodal yard after him I also put a ceiling tile rock wall in place behind the yard.

New freight yard where the sofa was -

New intermodal yard - 

 

Yard Sign - 

 

Here's some of the photos I've been able to edit so far ( still a TON more to go!) -

Amtrak 's westbound Pennsylvanian passes the well in Newport, PA as it heads towards Pittsburgh - 10/11/15 -

These are all from 10/16/15 -

former UP SD90MAC getting rebuilt into an SD70ACu at Altoona

 

Sign at Juniata Shops-

Rebuilt ex Highhood GP38-2 & the RPE4C slug which is converted into a CNG tender-

 

Westbound 21M ducks under the Pennsy signals at PITL MP 227 w/ Dash-9 9400 on the point-

NS C42 heads back to Altoona w/ RP-E4C slug 754 leading the way at Fostoria, PA-

 

A pair of ex Conrail motors lead eastbound W6A past HUNT tower on the Pittsburgh Line. NS SD60I 6729 is ex CR 5596-

NS GP40-2 3011 (ex CR 3294) & an RP-E4C slug lead C42 towards Lewistown as they pass HUNT tower at PITL MP 202-

Amtrak P42 leads the eastbound Pennsylvanian past HUNT tower at MP 202 on the NS PITL-

A matched pair of ex Conrail SD60Is lead westbound 27N through MP 225 of the Pittsburgh Line at Tipton, PA. NS 6729 (ex CR 5596) is on the point-

NS Dash-9 9229 leads westbound 21J past PITL MP 225 in Tipton, PA-

NS ES44DC 7530 leads 22W under the PRR signals in Tipton, PA-

NS SD70ACe 1082 leading 21M through Tipton, PA-

Great pics...........the kid pics remind me of when my kids were young....your pics re-kindle a lot of great memories for me. Thank you, Christopher!

Peter

 

At the Prague train station waiting for our train to Linz.

Not much Christmas but I've treated my self to a few die cast. Have been looking for ages for non convertible autos & finally found a few.

Here is what we did last weekend and this weekend, happy weekend!!! PS: Top is before and bottom is after.

MTH's custom painted Chicago Great Western NW2. Worked by CJB Custom Painting and Designs.

Crew change

Putnam Division posted:

 

Love the pics and layout, Walt.........and, you were missed at York!

Peter

Thanks Peter.  Yeah, I missed this last York.  In 2 ways!

Pics from "opening night":

It was great to see some of the same families/kids from past years within minutes of opening!

Peter

Some very nice photos, guys. I think I'll test the new forum software...

RM

DMASSO posted:

Added a white Clicquot to my Clicquot consist.

Very cool. My kids keep thier blocks in an old box that would have been one of the type that would have filled those cars.

Tinplate under the tree this year.

Got the Christmas tree up this week as well as the expanded layout I designed for this year.  Unfortunately, my PE GP7 is on the fritz, so the yard's just for show right now.  Gold Polar Express on it's run about to meet up with a Polar RR K-4 with an emergency hot chocolate shipment....

Oh, no! The elves are dangerously low on hot chocolate for their big after-party! Good thing they were able to get some to the Polar Express Gold on its trip up to the North Pole.

My learning curve for scenery and tunnels continues to climb upward. I purchased a commercial "Forest Canopy" kit, and while it was nice, the trees looked familiar. The contents did say: "natural plant materials." Yesterday my wife was cutting back plants in the garden, and it suddenly hit me: the natural plant materials may well have been sedum cuttings! So, I took a bunch from her, along with some astilbe, and used the same technique as the kit. Dip the "trees" in a dilute mix of white glue, then roll in coarse turf. I put them in a cardboard holder to dry, and also took it outside for a light spray with an adhesive. Here's the raw materials:

And, here's how they look on the tunnel.

Now to work on the underbrush. Bet I should have done that first.

The City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department had their Winter Festival today. Since our club layout is housed in a City park, we've set up a temporary layout (basically four loops) in a booth at the festival for the past five years. I snapped this photo while taking a break. And, yes, to drive a couple of people nuts, I did run some scale-wheeled equipment.

Happy Hanukkah everyone.  Below are pictures of my Hanukkah Trains and Hanukkah greetings from my recent trip to Disney Springs, formerly known as Downtown Disney.

Traintrack posted:

Happy Hanukkah everyone.  Below are pictures of my Hanukkah Trains and Hanukkah greetings from my recent trip to Disney Springs, formerly known as Downtown Disney.

Delightful  ! Good to have a chance to see every bit of that, thanks to you. I appreciate and applaud your posting this. Nice to know.

FrankM.

Traintrack posted:

Happy Hanukkah everyone.  Below are pictures of my Hanukkah Trains and Hanukkah greetings from my recent trip to Disney Springs, formerly known as Downtown Disney.

Very nice!!!!  Thanks for posting!!

Found this California Northern Genset diesel locomotive (#502) sitting on some tracks next to the old main line in Willows, CA yesterday on my way home from watching the 2015 NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill race. If I am correct, these tracks used to be used by the Southern Pacific prior to the Union Pacific purchasing them and "abandoning the line" before the California Northern took over the tracks (correct me if I am wrong). The old main line/tracks run along a large stretch of Interstate 5 and the track this locomotive was sitting on branched off towards a Johns Manville plant several miles away.

Finally did some work on the "sea serpent and partially sunken box car" scene.  I chopped-down a Palymobil sea serpent, then chopped down a boxcar.   I'd like to find some tourists taking pictures to add back along the dock.  Haven't decided on the best placement on the layout itself, but here's my progress so far.

-Dustin

I finished building my flat car with operating billboard sign. I had to put a a power pickup on once truck and then use a postwar replacement on the other when I messed up the knuckle repair. All is well now. I hope everyone likes it!

A combined El Capitan / Super Chief running through your typical route 66 town on the Paradise and Pacific Railroad in Scottsdale yesterday.

frizzinbee posted:

Finally did some work on the "sea serpent and partially sunken box car" scene.  I chopped-down a Palymobil sea serpent, then chopped down a boxcar.   I'd like to find some tourists taking pictures to add back along the dock.  Haven't decided on the best placement on the layout itself, but here's my progress so far.

-Dustin

Now that's just wrong, Dustin. I love it! By the way, if you have the other half of that box car we can use it in the harbor for an "oops" car spot.

I walked into the layout space,  saw the lighting through the window and couldn't resist sharing the last few minutes of fishing.

This past weekend was "Christmas On The Prado" in San Diego's Balboa Park , December Nights for the PC crowd. All the museums were open quite late with free admission from 5 pm til 9 pm. The SD Model RR Museum had 4800+ visitors during that 4 hr period. It was quite crowded most of the time but it was still a very enjoyable evening talking with the munchkins and their families.

Christmas in Bearville. With the Bearville & Polar Railroad

AGHRMatt posted:

frizzinbee posted:

Finally did some work on the "sea serpent and partially sunken box car" scene.  I chopped-down a Palymobil sea serpent, then chopped down a boxcar.   I'd like to find some tourists taking pictures to add back along the dock.  Haven't decided on the best placement on the layout itself, but here's my progress so far.

-Dustin

Now that' just wrong, Dustin. I love it! By the way, if you have the other half of that box car we can use it in the harbor for an "oops" car spot.

Matt - Actually, this is for the club.  I figured we can try it out in the harbor, and if folks don't like the serpent we can at least have a partially sunk boxcar by the loading dock or the barge

Great pictures everyone. Thank you for sharing.