Well I apologize again, but I knew it would happen. My time was spent getting New Hampshire plates for Jess and getting those ugly Illinois ones off her! All of the many things that must be done for moving had to be accomplished including a new home which took 90% of Angela and I's time. We left New Hampshire on Saturday at noon, leaving my Jeep, Jessica, behind with my parents. We made good time driving all day and into the night before finally arriving in Illinois at 5:30am Sunday. I'm afraid that age has gotten to me as this will be the last time I'll drive straight through. When we leave for good in July, it will be a two day drive, Now, what did you all get done? Let us know. We should be on track again for a while, which means we'll all get together on Friday the 9th to start off another weekend modeling plans. Until then, have a great week and as always... High Greens!
Enjoyed researching the Maine Central, and Lamoille Valley Railroads. I believe a field trip is in order!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I was able to install the yard office onto my layout: -- next some simple landscaping and vehicles. Received my American Model Builders oil derrick last week, last week. Assembled it and placed it on the layout. I still have to landscape around it. Put a road up to it and so on: Thanks, and - hope ya'll had a great weekend, Wolf
I managed a little train time this weekend. Managed to set up a brief ops session for myself and pushed a few cars around.
This weekend I spent both Saturday and Sunday on odds/ends in the train room. Put down homasote and track for another 16' of mainline. Tweaked the track approach entering the bridge I installed last weekend. Prepared another sample board of ballasted track. I have a dozen different ballast samples done and labeled. Trying to figure out what I want to do for the mainline. Went through and straightened out all the mess I have scattered on benchwork where there's no track yet. The room gets messy when I go through work stages. Vacuumed the whole floor. Ran a couple of trains out/back. I'll be glad when the loop gets done and i can continuously run
Now that I can breathe a bit (after my son's open house), here is a trip report on what I did that weekend. I drove all night long, after my son's official graduation ceremony, to arrive at the show in (Omaha) NE. What's the Genesis song say?, "Leaving my family behind me, not knowing what lay ahead". Its a railroad song, so why not. The show was quite good size with a surprising amount of N scale for sale. Some very good deals to be had indeed. One fellow was selling his entire N scale D&RGW collection. I took advantage of some $30 freight cars for $12. My setup site did not have ideal lighting, but I was happy to be there. It did give a unique perspective for observing the show. It was fun telling people I was from 600+ miles away. Setup was a bit hectic with only 1.5 hours to go before showtime, but it was all up and running a few minutes after show opening. While I was missing my layout partner quite a bit, I felt much better after some dinner and railfanning. I took a non - freeway route back to my hotel which brought me to an important railroad site of the past. This office building is a survivor of the famed Omaha stock yards. It was some fun for an "easterner" like me to see a KCS train. The daily IAIS train from Chicago had arrived and the 513 was on the point. Bummer that they had painted over the original NP boxcar, used as a shed, though. I had to venture downtown and see this Walthers "Union Station" kit. Well, this Q depot is what it is based on. Fun to see that channel 7 is doing such a nice job of restoring it!!!!!! One presumes this stack remains from the former Q powerhouse that stood nearby the depot. VIVA la Q!!!!! I saw it from the freeway while speeding to the show. So naturally I had to search it out: Kenefick Park. Now thats cool! Great view of the whole river valley too, if those darn trains get out of the way, that is. I wandered back to the depot grounds to railfan one more time before the sun set. It was fun to catch some "Burlington" power in front of the depot. Of course there is this Union Pacific depot there too. But to me, it was more meaningful to see the Q version across the tracks from it. You see, the former UP depot is a high quality museum. The Q depot had sat in very poor shape as recently as a couple years ago until channel 7 decided to make it their home. No disrespect to the UP fans. If I squinted my eyes, I could pretend that the Zephyr was calling here.
A couple more... It was kinda cool to see some brand spankin new UP hoppers that were nearly sequentially numbered, but not yet with logos applied. And lastly, I don't think I'm going to worry too much about differences in different model manufacturer's versions of UP yellow.... Thanks to the show staff for a great time and finding room for me at the show!
