What Are You Most Excited About?

I’m exited about my trip on Tuesday ,next, from Brattleboro, Vermont on the Vermonter, north to the end of the line at St Albans. Stay one night, hop a cab a few miles to south to Burlington. Stay one night. Then take the Ethan Allen Express south to NYC Moynihan Train Hall. Stay one night, then reboard The Vermonter north back to Brattleboro.

it’s been a bucket- list item for a long time. Wifey is a tag-a-long and considerably less excited. Can anyone relate?.

I'm excited about actually starting my layout.  I painted the room, replaced lighting, installed a ceiling fan, and put up the Mianne benchwork I had from my old standard gauge layout.  Now, I just need to find the time to proceed.

stockyard express repairing my trains.after 15yrs. I got back into the hobby.    All the batterys in my MTH engines where dead. took them to stockyard for repair. First time there,saw Clyde remember when he was selling Crown model box cars at train shows in the Cleveland area. Went there to get my trains repaired.Love that place! Ended up buying  1000 dollars plus of stuff ! Can,t wait till my trains are ready so I can go back and buy more stuff.

I am looking forward to the 3rd rail RDC lettered for the Susquehanna. IT was great of Scott to produce these for us Susie-Q fans..

@Frank Mulligan posted:

I'm excited about actually starting my layout.  I painted the room, replaced lighting, installed a ceiling fan, and put up the Mianne benchwork I had from my old standard gauge layout.  Now, I just need to find the time to proceed.

Frank, good move on taking the time to get the room prepared before starting the layout. That beautiful room will certainly enhance the beauty of the layout.

Looking forward to getting this fully up and running. It's just put together with plastic isolating pins to check everything fits and figure out the special cut sections. the Plastic pins don't expand the inside of the tubular track so when I do replace them with Metal Pins everything will still be tight.

Figuring the placement pins/rails for the Isolated Blocks and Activating Track segments.

It will be run as 50/50 TMCC/Conventional. I've got a lot of Non TMCC engines.

I still need to place a few more accessories - Crossing Gates Etc.

@nkptomo posted:

stockyard express repairing my trains.after 15yrs. I got back into the hobby.    All the batterys in my MTH engines where dead. took them to stockyard for repair. First time there,saw Clyde remember when he was selling Crown model box cars at train shows in the Cleveland area. Went there to get my trains repaired.Love that place! Ended up buying  1000 dollars plus of stuff ! Can,t wait till my trains are ready so I can go back and buy more stuff.

That's the problem with Stockyard Express.  Go in for one thing and leave with five.

Speaking of Stockyard, I have one of the MTH SD45s (the Conrail unit specifically) on order that should be coming in the near future that I'm excited for.

@endless tracks posted:

I’m exited about my trip on Tuesday ,next, from Brattleboro, Vermont on the Vermonter, north to the end of the line at St Albans.

The historical U.S. significance of the St Alban's train station as well as the Grand Truck and Vermont Central Railway lines that ran through the city cannot be overstated when discussing immigration. 

While we tend to think of Ellis island as the primary entry point for immigrants in the latter parts of the 1800's and early 1900's, a good number of immigrants also came into the United States via Canadian ports such as Montreal and Halifax. Many of these immigrants heading to the U.S. would take the Vermont Central (and later the Grand Truck) through St. Albans en route to points south. Meticulous records of these travelers were kept.  These records are known by genealogists as the "St Alban's List." The List also include many immigrants who entered at other U.S. locations, such as Detroit, but most passed through St. Albans, VT. Ancestry.com gives the breakdown of Top 10 home nationalities as follows:

English – 898,713
French – 417,160
Scotch – 385,206
Irish – 279,654
Hebrew – 169,484
German – 162,178
Italian – 92,468
Polish – 90,868
Russian – 82,494
Finnish – 67,540

Parts of the train office and some yard facilities have been preserved but the main station was demolished in 1963. There is a lot of historical information online googling for "St Albans Lists"

My father was one of those immigrants.

Bruce, That is amazing!! Thanks for sharing that important information!!

I, as most perhaps, never would have know. Genealogy is fun, and it's great for those of us who are able to learn about our heritage. I have "six-in-the-ground" in Stockbridge, VT. Seven is magic number to be a Vermonter by proxy!

My Vermont ancestors started out as Green Mountain Boys, bringing the canons down from Champlain. The didn't ride the CV but my dad did many times! My great-great-Aunt Lillian rode the White River Valley RR from Stockbridge to Bethel, where it connected to the CV.

I am going to search those lists for names of women known to have married into my family who perhaps came south via that route! Exciting stuff. Thanks again!

A customer of mine is in China and what it may mean for us in the hobby.

Scott Smith

The art of Griff Teller has been a part of my life since my birth.  You may recognize the name as being the artist who painted the wonderful calendar art for the Pennsylvania Railroad.  My Dad would get one of his calendars every year through his job as a supervisor in the Post Office in Chicago. As a teen I discovered a cache of the calendars (several of them in mint unused condition) in the attic of my parents home.  As an adult I had several framed to put in my train room.  I discovered that many of them had been reproduced by Frank Hare of the Iron Horse Hobby Shop.  I even contacted Mr. Teller to see if I could commission a painting.  Unfortunately at that time of my life I couldn't afford the price.  I did decide to put owning an original Teller on my bucket list

I have enjoyed the framed prints and the original framed calendars for many years.  I recently saw a Teller offered at auction.  It doesn't have a train in it however it is a beautiful example of his work.  I am very excited to now be the owner of an original Teller.

There are many other things that I am excited about in this hobby.  This takes one of the goals off my bucket list.

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

Brought me back to my childhood in Vermont when visiting my grandparents. Beautiful work, train or no train!!

The steady stream of former MTH tooled steam locomotives acquired by Lionel and come Legacy equipped IMO is more exciting than the subsequent releases of VL bigboys.

To the Legacy only operator these are just  as good as "all new tooling".

It's great that this tooling isn't just sitting in a warehouse.

Here's to hoping Lionel can deliver something comparable in quality on the L1 Mikado and I1 decapod I have on order.

Hey Rick - I have these two guys on pre-order also - really looking forward to them / I know Ryan recently said they were going to pay close attention to the proper colors details etc

I purchased the Lionel / MTH retooled Santa Fe 2-10-4 last year and it looks great to me - fingers crossed

I'm going to start my response about" What am I most excited about?" with a story about my start in RC Airplanes years ago.

At the flying field I would meet these awesome builders who would ask me to test fly their newly built planes.  They trusted my then, young eyes and hand/eye coordination over their own.  I would often hear, I like building more than flying.  At the time, I never understood that.

Years later, now I, am them... But from a model railroad perspective.

My desire to work on the layout has taken a back seat to working on train cars and engines.  What excites me is turning old stuff new again.  I love to convert old engines with new electronics and give them a new life and new purpose.  And I really like when I find what most would call "junk" and can give them a second life too.

And now... I understand what those old fellas at the flying field were talking about.

* By the way... this is an older pic.  The railing is straight now.

And this pair of old broken cars I purchased for $25 at my LHS has new life as our Christmas train.  Each car named after my son and daughter.

Very nice saving those cars..I guessing that is a Bachmann Big hauler engine.We have one here and it runs great.

I’m Excited about the latest Golden Gate Depot Offering !!!!!  😜

MKT and Frisco Texas Special AND Frisco Meteor !!!!!!! 🙂😉