Holidays are usually full of family traditions and our family when I was growing up was full of them. I got my first train set for Christmas in 1976 I believe. It was a Lionel 027 Train set with a Rock Island 0-4-0 Steam engine with a mechanical switch inside for foward-nuetral-reverse which was great for hands on fun. It also had a Rock Island bobber caboose, Penn Central Gondolla and Union Pacific flat bed car. I got one car or extra track every year depending on what I wanted for Christmas. My Dad & Mom also liked thier New Years Eve parties which they hosted in the basement. So a tradition was created so I could have my train set up while they also had room to hold parties. I was only allowed to have my train set up from the day after Thanksgiving til December 30. This meant I could never have a permanent layout. I remember looking forward to Thanksgiving every year only because of the getting to play with the train. We always spent the day after Thanksgiving decorating for Christmas, this would be the time I would wait by the attic doorway to get my train and set it up. Evevntually we all grew up, I lost interest in my Lionel train set 2 years after being on my own, I sold it to a collector and bought a 70 Challenger R/T to restore and started going to car shows. My sisters moved out and started thier own traditions. My parents stoped hosting parties after thier so called friends brought a package of Graffiti, not confetti. For those who don't know what the difference is, Confetti is small bits of paper, makes a mess but easy to clean. This stuff was called Grafffiti, we found the original bag. This aweful stuff is made of bits of metal like tinsil and highly attracted to static electricity. Like a magnet, it was on everones clothes, in the couches, in the carpets and any other fabric in the house. Whats worse is that is was not easily cleaned up, once in fabric you could not vacuum it up, you had to hand pick it and throw it away. It took my parents 2 years to clean the house of all of this crap because it traveled thu out the air due to static electricity. Evevntually Dad got sick and died of cancer, Mom could not stay in the house. I bought the house in 1997 and eventually started getting back into trains. I decided on G scale after being impressed by the LGB trains I saw in 1988 when I sold my Lionel trains to a collector who happened to own that train store. Today I own 6 sets of G scale trains of which I can only run 3 at one time. So I made up train schedules according to past family traditions. The Christmas schedule would have 3 sets of trains run from the day after Thanksgiving til the day before Easter. The next set of 3 trains would run from Easter (Easter Schedule) back to the day after Thanksgiving. Next was to decide what trains to run on what schedule. Train #1 which is headed by my F3 ABBA locomotive set was choosen for the Christmas schedule due to everyone likes to run older trains for Christmas, at least I do. Train #2 which is headed by my GP-9 units was also picked because I would tell the kids how the coal was being delivered to Santa for all of the bad kids. I have now permanently added train #6 to the Christmas schedule and was taken from track #3 and will permanently run on track #2. Train #6 is my new Aristocraft Mallet which now pulls 15 American series reefer and box cars. My new work schedule kept me from switching trains on Friday, so I had to wait a day later to switch out the trains. I decided not to involve the kids this time as they get bored half my thru the switching process and usually get themselves in trouble, I think they are still too young for the switching process. It only took me 1 hour to take 2 sets of trains off the tracks, put them away and put on 2 different other types of trains. My collection really grew this year, I was only able to fit 2 sets of trains on my train shelf on the wall. This was not good news, I used what sidings I could and was still 4 cars short of putting everything away. So I had some left over track and made up a temporary siding behind my sofa. I also had a 12 train car minimum as a standard to run for each set for quite some time and have now moved it up to a 15 car minimum which isn't a problem due to the way my collection grew. The only train that doesn't meet the new standard is train #2 my GP-9 which pulls hopper cars. This was due to eliminating most of my Aristocraft collection and primarily sticking to USA Trains. I will be I wanted to purchase 3 new 70 ton hopper cars which will bring the train from 12 rail cars to the 15 minimum rail cars. Now it was time to decide what raod name to get, I already have 6 Rio Grande hopper cars, 4 Southern Pacific Hopper Cars and 2 Union Pacific Hopper Cars. After carefully looking at many other road names to run, thanx to Hemi2adda for the fact of bring up how Rio Grande and Burlington Northern would sometimes run together and also finding pictures on the internet of a Rio Grande and a Burlington Northern locomotive lashed together, I decided to buy Burlington Northern 70 ton hopper cars, hopefully they will have 3 different numbers. Thanx to constant updates from DragonFyreGT, I have really enjoyed the Burlington Northern road name alot and is now my #3 choice in road names. Southern Pacific is still my #2 choice, sorry. I keep a back up choice of road names just in case there is no train I like available in my Rio Grande road name. On another subject, I will be going foward with yet another wall train shelf project, this will go into the yards room which should have more than enough space to make another system as big or bigger than what I already built, this will make switching out trains alot easier. I hope everyone had a good holiday and pictures will follow.
Pictures after switching the trains Picture #1 shows how the Massive USA Ultimate series 55ft and 50ft freight cars filled up my train shelf. There is only 2 sets of trains on there now. Another wall shelf system is in the plans Picture #2 You might remember I got a dinner buffet for free and put it to good use, I was able to put my massive SD-70MAC locomotives on this, that gives you a idea how big the dinner buffet is. Picture #3 Out of room, I had to put trains on the laundry room siding Picture #4 train #1 up and running again and going into it's 10th year of running. I have owned this USA ABBA locomotive set since 2000. Picture #5 Is my temporary siding which has no switch going to it. Once I get my new wall train shelf in place, this temp siding will again disappear becuase only 5ft curves will fit where I need the track to go and tthe new rules I established is that all curves have to be at least 8ft curve diameter minimum
More Pictures Picture #1 shows the siding for the SD40-2 triple header, just like the F3 ABBA, I keep it on a siding which makes it easier than ahndling all of these locomotives. Picture #2 I have switch my new Aristocraft from track #3 to track #2. The Mallet will be permantly assigned to track #2 and the Christmas schedule. There is also now 15 USA American series box and reefer cars. Picture #3 The 2 USA GP-9 locomotives heads up the coal train as it has done since 2001. There is now only 12 rail cars since the sale of my small Aristocraft, the Aristocraft sale hit train #6 the hardest. I will be purchasing 3 more USA 70 ton hopper cars to bring up bacl to the new 15 rail car train minimum Picture #4 The siding in the yards room is also full with trains that did not fit on the wall train shelf
Blast from the past Here is a picture taken from my Gandmother of me when I was a kid. She wanted to come over and watch me put my train set together the day after Thanksgiving one year, I'm not sure what year this was. I'm guessing 1978 due to how many trains and track I had in the picture. This is the same house which I own now and the same basement, as you can see, much has changed. The coal fire stove wasn't even installed yet. Yep, Dad was the one who installed all of that paneling up against the block wall, he didn't know better then. The basement wall were already tore down when I bought the house. My Grandmother also passed away from cancer about 4 years ago. I miss the hand made afghans she used to make for me. Today, 3 main lines of G scale trains run thru where the Lionel train set was originally placed, I could never have imagined owning a train layout like this then. I love my G scale trains for sure. Picture #1 Yep thats me setting up my Lionel Train set. My Grandmother was getting impatient for me setting it up which is why I'm running my Dads old gang car. Picture #2 This is exactly the same corner of the basement today, you can see a big change from picture #1. Picture #3 Is the basement under construction and at the same time trying to buy and make a G scale layout. The original plans at this time was to finish the basement in 2 years and Another 2 years for building a G scale layout. The plan was suppose to onl include 2 G scale main lines and only 2 sets of trains, boy did I go over board. This is why the basement is still not complete to this day, but getting close.
Another find from my hit list I finally found another train on my wanted list. I found USA Trains part #R1624 Rio Grande #50 woodside reefer, this only leaves 4 rail cars left to complete my Rio Grande collection. Ebay has been full of rare finds, many from estates. There is a vendor on Ebay that has many rare and out of production USA Trains up for auction. Right now I have a bid on another Rio Grande woodside reefer on ebay, wish me luck. This leaves with just one more Rio Grande woodside reefer to find. I also need to find 2 of the Rio Grande auto flat cars, one with 55 chevies and the other with 57 chevies By the way I had open house to my family and the Aristocraft Mallet was a big hit, especially since it's pulling 15 rail cars. Guess what was everyones favorite rail car on that train? The USA Trains New Jersey Cranberry reefer. Picture #1 Another find off of my most wanted list Picture #2 The rail car that was a favorite for everyone, New Jersey Cranberries Picture #3 My last wanted reefer train I need to find. USA Trains part #R16253 Rio Grande, any leads appreciated
New additions & Found trains I recently found one of 3 USA American series woodside reefers on my wanted list 1 week ago, I finally got delivery of that and am very happy with it. I also found the other 2 on my wanted list. Now I have all of the USA woodside reefer cars that I have been looking for. I even found 4 others which are Pacific Fruit Express that I liked. I like the Pacific Fruit Express scheme with the PFE in white lettering. What I have purchase so far will go on train #6. I took delivery of 2 already, now just waiting for the rest to ship. It seems there has been alot of rare and discontinued USA Trains going thru ebay in the last 3 weeks. I also have ordered 3 USA 70 ton hopper cars in the Burlington Northen road name, so this has been a big year for train purchasing for me. Here is pictures of whatt I got so far Picture #1 is USA Trains R16202c PFE reefer Picture #2 is USA Trains R16202d PFE reefer Picture #3 is USA Trains R1624 DRGW #50 reefer Picture #4 It was decided to retire my Rare Charles Ro Box Car from train #6, it will now reside with my retired MOW train on the MOW siding, at least for now.
SB Rail Lines next 2 most wanted Here is the next 2 trains left on my most wated list that I'm looking for. It's USA part #R1724a & #R1724b. R1724a is a auto flat car loaded with 55 chevies and R1724b is a auto flat car loaded with 57 Chevies. Here seems to be a big problem, there seems to be alot of people taking either a regular Rio Grande flat car or a Piggy Back flat and loading them up with thier own cars claiming them to be auto flat cars. Although they may be those sellers own version of Auto Flat cars, they are not USA Trains factory flat cars. Luckily for me I know the Rio Grande flat car road number that was originally used for these 2 auto flat cars. Both versions used the same Rio Grande road number which is #20065, USA Trains just loaded them up with either 55 chevies or 57 chevies to make either a or b. Here are 2 pictures, any leads appreciated, thanx. Picture #1 R1724a Rio Grande with 55 chevies Picture #2 R1724b Rio Grande with 57 chevies
I'll keep an eye open this weekend at the train show. Sorry for my absence, been training an adult Husky who wants to just flop around in snow xD She's also the next big problem my layout has faced. She keeps yipping at the trains rofl.
2 more arrivals today Another package showed up today and there was two more reefer cars that arrived. Stock #R1603 Rio Grande #78 woodside reefer and R16202b Pacific Fruit Express Reefer #457442. Hopefully I will win the bid on the last 2 remaining cars on my woodside reefer list. Picture #1 is R1603 Rio Grande #78 Picture #2 is actually R16202b not a Pacific Fruit Expres #457442
USA 70 ton BN coal hoppers arrive I recieved my 3 Burlington Northern 70 ton coal hoppers and I really like them. This brings my coal train up to 15 70 ton coal hoppers. These Burlington Northern units look right at home on my layout. Here is a couple of pictures to enjoy
2 more arrivals, intro the "Brown Box" fleet USA Trains advertised around 8 reefers in 2003 as the "Yellow Fleet". I figured I would run with the idea of special names like that even though USA Trains discontinued pursing special nick names. I own 3 USA Trains American series Rio Grande woodside box cars and all 3 are brown with different road numbers, so I decided to call them my "Brown Box" fleet and they are all lashed together. On another note 2 more arrivals came, another different style of the Pacific Fruit Express USA Trains woodside reefer and a Land O Lakes Cheese woodside reefer I only picked up for $35, I love this cheese and butter so I couldn't pass it up. Picture #1 My "Brown Box fleet" all lashed up Picture #2 my new different version of Pacific Fruit Express Picture #3 The new Land O Lakes reefer I couldn't pass up.
BIG Snow storm hits EMD Trainman in NJ We just got buried in 28 inches of snow, I haven't seen a storm like this since 1977. Huge snow drifts are everywhere, my house and my 4 x 4 SUV got buried litterally. What a awesome snow storm, here are a few pictures for you to see. Good thing I don't have a outside train display, I wouldn't see it for the next week.
