Friday June 23rd. Whew! As I write this I'm both physically and mentally tired! Tina and I left the room at a little bit before 9:00 and got to the college at 5 past. I set about setting up the area where I will have my seminars and helping Harry any way I could. At noon Tina and I found George (Wig-Wag) and helped him back in to the door of the college. With a little help from fellow N scalers Andy and Jason we unloaded the trailer and set up Wig-Wag's tables. When George says he is bringing the entire store, many people think he is joking, well trust me, he is not! I think I will be helping the economy on Saturday and Sunday! We started at 1:00 setting up and we finished at 9:00. So for those who can make it, please support George and our other vendors. Harry has topped off the table charts with 309 tables! Vendors are still trickling in. Sorry no pictures today as we were too busy setting up displays, Floquil seminar equipment and Wig-Wag. Rest assured however, I will try my hardest to get pictures of your fellow Trainboard members and of the event. Tina and I finished the evening by stopping by the local DQ for food and meet some of the Bloomington Normal N-Trak members and Mopac3092 at the railfan bridge over the BNSF yard. So now Tina and I are off to bed, see is busy embrodering new BNSF polo shirts for sale tomorow. I'm going to bed, see you tomorow. Jim
Jim, et al: The Rock Island Chillicothe Depot Museum Layout Rehabilitation crew was led by Cliff Lund, a Chillicothe cabinetmaker. He made those beautiful control panels, and Mike Stumbaugh (a local electrician), Brian Smith (Mike's son-in-law), and I helped him rewire the layout for operations rather than continuous looping (which was what it was originally set up for). Over the next year or so, Cliff hopes to add some staging tracks in a nearby closet/storage area and reconfigure the arrival/departure tracks to the 2 small yards on the layout. The RI Chillicothe Depot Museum is officially open on Wednesdays 1:00 to 4:00 and on the first Sunday of each month from 1:00 to 4:00. Railroad memorabilia includes both Rock Island and Santa Fe items/pictures and, of course, the SF caboose. Most of the docents are retired RR employees. Cost is "Free", but a donation is appreciated. Contact me by PM if you are interested in arranging a visit at a time the Museum is not usually open. Dave H.
It was a wonderful show and nice to put faces with many Tboard members. Thanks for the help from Tina, Jim, Andy, Jason and Kathy. We've made it back to Peoria and on home to Abq in the morning. The Sunday rain letup in time for us to load. What happened to all the BNSF activity in the yard Saturday night? Here we read all this chatter about "hot yard" and we get there to only find great conversation with wonderful folks but all the rail activity seemed to be on the "other" tracks through town. There are lots of other tracks through Galesburg. We did see a re-paint GP38M in BNSF "nike" logo 2035 IIRC. Now Atlas can do that one. Gotta get to bed... 16 hrs driving tomorrow.
Jim- Great meeting you and Tina. Thanks for the airbrushing seminar, I learned a lot. My frist project is going to be an Army Transportation Corps GP-40, then some WP stuff. I had a great time, after I left Sandburg College I headed back down town and saw the museum and was the last person on the BNSF ES44, but missed the yard trip. I headed off in my rental car and found the bridge that crosses over the yard, near the engine maintenance facility. Indeed there was a GP-38 or 40 in swoosh paint there. It was about 5:00 so I decided to see if I could make it to Rochelle, I did it in under 2hours. In the two hours or so of sunlight left I saw three UP and two BNSF trains. Both BNSFs were lead by red warbonnets! Yesterday I did some more exploiring around Chicago and found the UP/EJE crossing at West Chicago. Pretty neat. In about an hour I saw 5 UP trains but no EJE. the highlight though was a Westbound UP stack train led by two spanking new SD70ACEs. There was not a fleck of dirt or rust on either unit. Anyway it was great meeting you two, George from Wig-wag, and Dave (ppuinn). Thanks for all your help and advice. Brad
Been there, done that in Denver; no, Jim is not joking. W-W brings as much of their shop as possible. Lemmetellya, it''s a big effort. Looking forward to pics!!! :shade:
Hemi, it was a lot of work, but fun work. I just hope we got everything packed ok, so Georges help doesn't get too confused! Tina and I would do it again! Pics are comming soon, but to keep you preocupied, here is that GP38M George was taliking about.
Considering the new logo and scheme was approved on January 24'th 2005, I would say yes they are. The GP38M we all saw in Galesburg was the first Geep I had seen in person. All other H3 Bolds were on ES44's and freight equipment. To date I cannot find a rhyme or reason to repaints except when something gets shopped. Keep in mind too that BNSF is still going through the re-numbering process, most of the Santa Fe has been re-numbered but about 184 BN units still have their pre-merger number, mainly SD60M's and SD70MAC's. After talking with some BNSF people, their comment to me was they were so power hungery, they had little time for paint.
June 24th and 25th Well the train show at the college was well attended, acording to Harry the crowd on Saturday was up 16% from 2005. That is good, however the high gas prices and cooler weather may have contributed to Sunday's low turn out. I talked to some of the larger vendors and they said sales were ok but not barn stormers. THe seminars were well attended and a few lucky people won some airbrushes. The seminar room was nice and we had a transparency that followed the same style I did here on Trainboard. Saturday I did my best to make a dent into Wig-Wag's and Correyville Station's N scale. Kind of hard to do but I got a lot of neat stuff including the new Kato SD40-2 in undec. I also loaded up on decals. After my seminar on Saturday, Tina and I headed down town via the free bus ride. The bus driver was kind enough to wait for Tina and I, Thanks! We stopped at the Packing House resturant for their Burger bar. Mmmm, burger! It was as good as always. After our lunch we took the bus tour of the BNSF Classification yard. Here is what we saw, This Rail America TP&W SD45 was waiting in the yard probably just coming in off the Peoria Main.
A little further down and we saw this neat line up. That yellow and black engine is an ex Santa Fe GP20 and is painted and lettered for the TPW. Look what is right behind it! Could that be a tunnel? Sure looks like it. In the forground a H2 BNSF Dash 9 idles away. Here is the massive GE Maintenance building, Harry tells me that two stalls will be added shortly.
By the way, Tina (BNSF7371) took all this pictures from the bus. She is fast becoming a great railfan. Tina spoted these fuel tenders along side the GE shop. Down the line more past Thirwell Bridge we saw more CAT loads, cool!
Tina found this SD40-2B and of yes she says I have to do one up in N for her. Funny how one trip to the yard leaves me with a laundry list of BNSF N scale paint projects. We went back downtown by the depot and walked aboard the GE C-44-9CW they had on display. There was a GE employee in the cab to answer questions about the locomotive. Thank you GE for bringing back the displays!
Saturday night a few Trainboard members, George and Deb from Wig-Wag Trains, Jack Doran, joined the crew from Milwaukee N-Trak, Jerome, Vicky, Pam, the Bloomington N-Trak club, Omar, Thom and Rich and Harry Grosman joined us for dinner in Galesburg. We were honored to have Dick Meager a retired BNSF engineer join us as well. Dick entertained us with answers to our questions on working for the "Q", BN and finally the BNSF. He started working for the "Q" when he was 16 as a call boy. Sunday I had my last seminar at 11:00. Tina was happy to get two BN cabooses out of the seminars! After a quick bite to eat, Tina went to Wig-Wag to buy birthday presents for me, and I did the same latter. Tina and I have our birthdays close to each other in July. Deb had a hard time keeping us away from peeking into what the other had bought. I hope Tina got me those Athern Beth Gons:shade: I had little time to see the the show as I was busy with seminars and talking with dealers, but I saw a lot of nice stuff. I found Robert C. Del Grosso's BNSF 2006 Locomotive review book and the CB&Q book I wanted so badly and a few bargans. Before we knew it it was time to shut down and pack up. Tina and I took down my display in the library and returned to help George and Deb pack up. Packing up went fast. Just as Deb had predicted, we were about done at 9:00PM So it is with this shot I leave you. George is in back of the truck loading up the last few items. Andy is help pack the trailer and Tina and Deb are loading the last few items into Jessica our Jeep. Those three G scale SD45's I need to paint for a dealer sure take up a lot of room! We said our good byes and wished each a safe trip back. George and Deb are still on the road as I type this. I'm home in the JTW workshop putting away my items from the weekend. Galesburg RR Days 2006 went well, each year it lets Tina and I make new friends and see old ones we don't see much through out the year. By tomorow's second marketing meeting at Testor, Galesburg will be just a sweet memory, but I will rest in the fact that I will be back, Lord willing, in 2007. Thank you Harry Grossman for putting on a great show! Thank you CB&Q Historical Society for your help in the Show! Thank you GE for the great display this year! Thank you BNSF for putting up with foamers like myself all weekend! Thank you Galesburg RR Days planners for all you did! And Thank you City of Galesburg for allowing all of us Train people invade your great little city! See you next year!
Galesburg RR days I was there I have proof see a little boy enjoying his new toy. Mom can I take it home? Please.........:angel:
Great posts Jim!! Made me feel like I was there. The next JTW stockholders meeting I'm putting your raise in the budget!! Tim
We made it home @ 0330 Tuesday morning. Back in the shop @ 0815. We have the truck and trailer unloaded except for the spinners. Still lots to put away. Paul built the new display while we were gone so more buildings can be seen better. We got the new hanging display up before unloading and the rain just started. Abq had a typical late summer "Monsoon" rain last night and there was much evidence of flooding in the streets.
Glad to hear you guys got back ok. It was great meeting you and Deb. Next time I'm in the area when you guys have a show I'll help again. Jim
