Howdy from eastern Manitoba

... just 4 miles south of the CN mainline.

My love of steam and railroads started before I started school growing up next to the Grand Trunk line that parallels the north shore of Lake Erie. CN had acquired the Grand Trunk by then (early 1950s) but still ran steam freight at that time and I was fascinated with these HUGE monsters and the people who ran them. When other little girls wanted to be teachers and nurses, I wanted to be a locomotive engineer! Such dreams were not to be encouraged in those days but in my teens I discovered steam engines that didn't need rails, steam traction engines, and I was hooked for a lifetime. I started hanging around steam shows, became a passenger, then a fireman, then ran engines myself for many years and earned my Steam Traction ticket many years later.

While living in an apartment in my 20s I started building, detailing, and airbrushing plastic models, something I could do in limited space I didn't own and very much enjoyed it. Career and family life soon left me with no time for modelling and it went by the wayside until after my retirement in June this year. When looking for something to do indoors during the heat wave (something OTHER than housework!) I ran across an old Master Creations Allegheny 2-6-6-6 kit that I had started 30 years ago, a present from my then husband), and set aside because nothing fit right, the castings were "rough approximations" at best, and the instructions were virtually nil. I am a lot older and more patient than I was 30 years ago so I started in on the kit again and have been making so frustrating progress. In the process I have been bitten by the modelling bug again. A Roundhouse Shay of similar vintage has been hauled out, had a once-over, and been equipped with a DCC decoder, a couple of building kits have been completed, and couplers and trucks are on order to build some skeleton logging cars and I have my eye on an unused bedroom as the site of a future logging and interchange layout.

I hope I am not making a mistake ...... LOL!

 

Hi Dianne, Welcome to the TrainBoard. It doesn't sound as if you are making a mistake, you merely are examining the condition of the water as you wade in firmly placing one step in front of the other. Looking forward to sharing your ideas, plans, progress, etc.

 

Welcome aboard the Trainboard

 

Thank you for the welcome!

You are always welcome to check out my home page - it's in my profile (somewhere!)

 

Hi DianneB and welcome to Trainboard. I for one would love to hear your account of how to drive a steam tractor. In Oregon we have a big celebration every year at Powerland in Brooks. A lady friend attended last weekend and was impressed with the steam tractors there.
:happy:

 

Dianne,

Welcome to TrainBoard. I am also an interdisciplinary steam fan. I am a member of Western Steam Fiends Association and just wrapped up a weekend helping out at the Great Oregon Steam-Up with the steam tractors and with the steam powered sawmill. I just have to remember that on a Case, forward is reverse and reverse is forward, but that on a Russell it's just the opposite. We also have an ex-SPMW crane down there, but they were busy with people this last time so I went more to where there was something I could do to help.

Of course, I also love steam trains.

Adam

 

You mean a Russell like the one below?

It is a 1:2 (6" to the foot) model of an 1887 Russell 10 HP that I built in 1995/96 to ASME boiler code. It has a belt rating of 2.2 HP and runs the half size 24-36 thresher just fine. It is about 9 feet in length and weighs 1675 pound dry.

 

That is a nice tractor you have there!

The oldest tractor down there is an 1880 Case. Most of the Russell tractors are from the teens. The biggest one is a Case 75. There are a few Aultman & Taylor tractors, and there is a vertical boiler Westinghouse.


The show that Fitz mentions above is the very same one I was helping to present.

 

hello fellow Canadian. I am wondering if you had any ideas for a 4x8 layout in ho scale.