Weekend Photo Fun 8/19/16 HONGZ

Here's one for the Midwestern/Western fans. This is an Atlas N scale B30-7 representative of the units added to the BN roster upon the merging of the Frisco. 

Bob

Bob nice BN B30-7 engine.

One from the archives... My much modified AHM B&O "Big Six" on the old OPSME layout circa 1975-76:

Rusty

Got another sought after engine that I figured I'd never get.....

I still have to swap out the pilots for the included fixed ones. I gave her a quick brush down and she looks much better. I'll have her head up my NS coal drag.

Rusty and Joe beautiful engines.

Rack um up..............

Hi Crew!

It's HONGZ WPF!!

I'm still doin' the V scale "thang".  I've installed a bunch more scenery along select portions of my 1889 Frisco Line mini-mega route.  Here's various and sundry shots from hither n' yon...

First up, we head to Indian Territory (later to become Oklahoma). Below is the town of "Talihina" (pronounced "Towel uh HE nuh"). The name "Talihina" is a derivative of the Choctaw words "tulla", meaning "iron" and "hena", meaning "trail". Thus, Talihina, "Iron Trail", was truly a railroad town from its inception.  Talihina sits on the southern slope of "Winding Stair Mountain". There was a short helper section on both the southern and northern slope of Winding Stair Mountain, with the northern slope having the steepest, with a short portion of it reaching 2.62%. Here's my virtual version of Talihina...

On the northern side of Winding Stair Mountain, is the helper town of Bengal (BEN gall), Indian Territory. Often a helper would help from Talihina over the summit, then run light down to Bengal, and shove a helper up to the summit and return to Talihina. Here's my version of Bengal:

I've also done some work on other locations... but all in good time.

The biggest news for me is: The contractor has FINALLY started delivering the materials needed for them to finish the interior of my new 16' x 20' out building that will house my HO scale Colorado & Pacific layout! Yippee!

All fer now!

Andre

Hobbytrain makes some very detailed models in H0 of a European luxury train of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et Grands Express Européens, abbreviated to CIWL. The train is delivered in 2 sets; the set with sleeping cars and a baggage car is available and here are some pictures; the next set will come in the coming weeks (I hope).

If you are further interested in the CIWL you can take a look in a document I made with pictures of CIWL cars in all scales (HONGZ and more) attached here as a PDF with the name "CIWL carriages by Fred".

Regards

Fred

Nick:

Love your scenes of garden railroading...keep them coming!

Bob

Thanks Bob, Can do.................

Another model railroad weekend has started.  Last night, worked the operators job on the Great Northern, acting as station operator at locations such as Saunders WI, Gunn, MN, Cass Lake MN, Kelly Lake etc.  This railroad runs under Timetable and Train Order.  Wrote about 14 train orders, and clearances for about 17 trains.  On the fast clock, we ran 8 hours in about three hours.  The operator copies train orders from the dispatcher, prepares the clearances for the train, sets the train order signals at stations where required (or gets the orders and clearance to the crews leaving from the staging yard), and prepares the switch lists for the locals from the waybills.  I never thought that preparing paperwork for a model railroad could be this much fun, but I enjoy it immensely.  The operators station sits in the main layout area, so it is quite entertaining seeing movements around the railroad that would not happen unless they had their clearance (even for a scheduled train), and train orders for the extra trains (or for unscheduled meets etc.).   Looking forward to trying the dispatching job on this railroad. 

Last weekend, worked on my timetable, which is one thing that I need to complete ahead of my next (2nd) operating session with Rail Group Chicago.  I had a very rudimentary timetable completed for my first session, with the only scheduled train in the 1st session being the morning locals between Worley ID and Spokane WA.  The next session runs the name trains. 

One of the name trains will be the "North Coast Hiawatha".  Since the Milwaukee does not exist west of Terry MT on my railroad, this was a joint train operated over the Milwaukee Road between Minneapolis and Chicago.  For this train, I am using my Challenger Models 1948 North Coast Limited, pulled by two Intermountain Models F7s and an F3, in the pine tree passenger scheme.  Here is a poor photo showing the train east of Conrad, WA, in 1952.  My layout is a bear to photograph well, and will require special lighting for high quality photos.  I shot this with my i-Phone.  No time for fancy shots right now. 

I also worked out an asset transfer with the CEO of the Chicago and Western.  He modifies all of the underframes for his MDC ore cars for close coupling and with scale couplers.  So, he gave me 59 modified underframes, and I gave him back 59 of my unmodified underframes.  Here are some shots showing the differences, 

For every eight cars, there is about one less car length with prototypical close coupling.  MUCH better looking. 

Coutinuing the model railroad weekend with the addition of Intermountain metal wheels to 22 Kadee log cars that we secured from the Chicago and Western (surplus to their operation), and installing a step from my main basement to the sub basement.  The height difference is 10.5", which is more than a standard step.  I'll have that fixed before the weekend is over. 

Last week, wasted about 4 hours running trains on 3D TrainStuff Cajon pass route.  Thanks Andre.   

Your route is developing quite nicely.  

Regards,

Jerry

Nice.............

Life at the general store and behind it.

Jerry opined:

"Last week, wasted about 4 hours running trains on 3D TrainStuff Cajon pass route.  Thanks Andre." 

My pleasure! 

Seriously: Sometimes we need diversions in order to refresh our creativity and energy for the greater project.

If you'll email me at laming at cebridge dot net, I'll fix you up with another time waster. 

Andre

I found five more coal hoppers after I ran this train....

Last weekend I showed a sleeping car and baggage car from Hobbytrain; this week the next set was delivered, so here you see pictures of the postal/baggage car and restaurant car. These are H0 models by Hobbytrain of a CIWL express train from around 1910.

Regards

Fred