LOL, good one George good one. That's me right about now. No missus to help pull me out. But that's me!! It's possible you found the video of the story I heard. I may have the wrong locomotive in mind. That is an awesome scene and would be easy to replicate on most anyone's layout or club layouts. How cool is that?! It's been getting progressively worse and worse. Going back a ways, by now. The story about the kids in the mobile home park, referred here as park. It was hard to tell and write. These were kids I had high hopes for but it was a bigger problem starting with the parents and there was no way in hell, I was going to influence them. They found a way to survive in America whether or not they are here legally. Whether or not there behavior is legal. The real issue here and/or irony here. The illegals were the best neighbors because they didn't want trouble. They didn't want to risk deportation. They made good neighbors. The green carded or legal's didn't care because that threat of being of being deported no longer hung over their heads. No longer a threat. Odd combination. I was constantly being asked for advice through an interpreter. Constantly filling out forms for them and in one case proved to the court that one of them did indeed have car insurance and got his pick-up back. The Americanized neighbors were and still are awesome. For example the neighbors I have this far north in Idaho Country. We run to the store, post office out to eat in a Mexican Restaurant and buy the best food at the Mexican stores up here. I couldn't do all that without them. I cared for my neighbors and hated to leave them. Shed a tear or two when saying good-bye. And I do miss them. Think about it, honest to god Mexican food. You can't beat it. I return you to our regularly scheduled program. I need my coffee this morning.
Since this segment of this thread touched on the Norfolk Western PV passenger train in my possession. Did you catch the Pennsylvania Observation car bringing up the rear? Here's a slide show/video of some of the Stoves on H&P's roster. I tried running the Life Like Y3 with the Bachmann J Series and they don't run well together. Harrumph!! So, I'm looking for a N&W E8 or Southern F types. Thought about putting an E unit inside the Baggage car. Figure the wheels will look weird and almost out of place. You may have to bump the pixels up to get a clear picture, 360 works for me. I even got some music implanted to listen to. How about that?
Sunday morning, 25F degrees here in Idaho Country. Cold when I got up this morning. Not as cold, as Big Bear Country but cold enough as far as I'm concerned. Reports from Big Bear Country in Ca., say they got 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground. That will bring the fire danger down. Since fire suppression isn't the right thing to do anymore, fires are more of a threat to private property, businesses and homes in the forests. Last years fires are proof of such. What are we thinking? How about some news on the layout? Wiring is a mundane, time consuming project. It's no wonder electricians get paid what they do. However, it's coming along fine. Here's our infamous 2-6-6-2 Norfolk & Western Y-3 heading up the grade. The engineer and crew must be busy and staying out of sight. Often referred to as the Mercedes of Steam Engines. Now that's Locomotion. This train was one of the first to visit the H&P. It rolled out shortly after the Santa Fe Business Train blazed the trail ahead of it as the first train to officially operate over the now completed main line. It was a High Day, indeed. I hope to replicate that here before to long. Above: If you missed it last time here's the Pennsylvania Observation car bringing up the rear of the Private Varnish, Museum Special N&W passenger train. You can't read the lettering because the previous owner tried to erase the "Bright" lettering as he described it. "Sorry about that," he said. It's visible enough to look like a tired, well loved and used observation car. Fits in with some of the others. What would you like to see next? I have Southern Pacific Railroad days , Union Pacific Railroad Days, not many but Western Pacific Railroad Days. This will help kill the time as the unwinding, self exploration (where it hurts) wiring electrical project continues. Enjoy, your Sunday. Stay Safe, Stay healthy and Have Fun!
Here's the Santa Fe Official Business train blazing the trail. First train over the H&P Main line. A better shot of the front end power. And the tail end of the train. You can see where the Y-3 must have had problems and Santa Fe donated two GP7's in Zebra Stripe livery to pull the N&W PV Special. You can also see where Rio Grande snuck a train into the celebration. Conductor of Santa Fe O train to DS 51, I thought the president-e ordered that all freight trains are to stay off the main. DS to Conductor, they are following you, if you think about it. Darn! DS is right again. Rerailers: Someone once commented about my use of Rerailers. "I don't use them but BartowRick sure does!" Yep, I do. I use them for two reasons. One and Two. There's your two reasons. I have older wheel-sets still operating underneath some of my older passenger cars and freight cars. They tend to wobble and come loose causing a derailment. These will put them back on track temporarily... until I can get the Hooker (Big Hook) out to remove the car and dead line it. The car will go through it's own restoration project and be returned to the property as a revenue car. Micro-Trains wheel-sets and couplers to the rescue. I like having them there as M.O.W. access and to resemble railroad crossings. Kind of corny looking but it works for now. A friend gave me a small box full of these so I figured, "Why Not?" There's your two reasons. I need my Coffee this morning.
Just bumped into this. Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-2 live. I love a find like this. Betting you enjoyed it as well.
Heck, I have all kinds of rerailers on my layouts for the same reason. At least a derailed car has a chance to be rerailed before getting worse and dragging more cars off. Doug
Rick, Just wonderful to see this steamer back in operation after six years of effort! There are prodigious amounts of steam, is some of this leakage that will reduced in the final tune-ups? - Tonkphilip
I have no problem using rerailers and encourage others to do so. Unless you have diesels or locomotives where the drive gears drop down contacting the rerailer. In tunnels or hidden track areas are perfect places for them. You mentioned the GP30 in the live Steam video. The GP30 adding back-up power is a welcome sight as well. I'm sure the boys rebuilding this gorgeous locomotive will indeed trouble shoot the steam leaks. My guess is it's just cold and since this is the first time moving it they have some valves open to clear the condensation in the lines. Once the lines are clear they will close them and the appearance of all that steam will cease. Here's a second video and this might answer your question. Neat to watch. Awesome comes to mind. Glad you liked it.
Thankfully the local stations carried the NFC and NFL playoff's. How about those Kansas City Chiefs? Kind of got intense toward the end of the game. The penalties off set themselves and it was as though it never happened. The Super Bowl is set. And then, and then, football will be over for another year. I'm going to suffer football withdrawal. Oh no!!! Now back to the train layout. Obviously nothing much got done today. I hope you enjoyed the posts here. Let me know what you'd like to see next. More tomorrow. After my in the morning. Later.
Yes. Some tightening, some wearing to seat in, open cylinder cocks.... Some is simply normal, considering the damp, cool weather.
Did anyone notice the announcement by Atlas, to produce a N scale, GP20 ? Here is my Life Like GP 20's. Yep, you can still see Rapido Coupler between the two of them. Harrumph! At the time we couldn't convince the model manufacturers to produce them with working knuckle couplers. You can also see I've already started the conversion to MTL's. See the front unit. Atlas and I don't have a link, announced in an E-mail I received that they will be putting out some GP 20's. Good news for those of us who love those little itty bitty motors.
There should be no problem as long as the rerailing section between the rails is no higher than the tops of the rails. If loco gears still contact it, then they will also contact the rails when traversing turnouts.
I'm going to have to brief myself on what's acceptable or not here on TB. Just looking at captured photos. I know mine are just fine here but I've had my hand slapped in the past for posting pictures that didn't belong to me, despite having permission to use them. The infamous GP20. In the meantime, here is a link to Atlas's Announcement regarding their GP 20. https://shop.atlasrr.com/c-1508-n214.aspx Unless, I missed something here this is Life Like's tooling now being reproduced. Anyone with any-other thoughts? There was a time Life Like produced a bunch of interesting motors/diesel engines. I managed to grab a few and they still run fairly well to this day. Would like to see Life Like reproduce them and do a come back.
Going back a bit where I showed off the stoves that frequent my train layout. Here is the 1:1 foot scale, N&W, J Series pulling a PV passenger train. Then they were gone.
I have three LL GP20's. They are excellent pullers, especially for their size and 4 axles. Are the LL shells compatible with the new Atlas frames? The new frames have room for a speaker, so they may not be as heavy as the LL's, and may not pull as well.
Point well made. The minute you lighten the frame you take away it's traction. Not a good thing in my book. I don't know at this point if the Life Like shell is the same as the Atlas Shell. BUT, it sure looks like it. I was hoping someone else might have that answer, as well. A bit pricey, if you know what I mean.
I liked my GP20. It was the first locomotive I owned... It was my yard switched for a lot of years.... Lost handrails and being DC it now it sits on the 'deadlne' with my FVM ES44AC....
