Amazon

Hmm, I wonder what could have come in a box from Amazon? March 21st and we shall find out. The cute and wonderful woman I'm married to turns 29 this month and the shopping has begun. Happy early birthday Elly-J.

Changes...

Before...
After...

Cuddly...

Responsible...

Fun...
Boring...70's...
90's...

This guys getting ready to knock off a convenience store in your neighborhood.

Coal Cars

I purchased 10 coal cars and had a few so now I have a coal train to keep all of the coal going where it is going. And I also got a ten foot controller cord so I can access the switches on the turnouts a little easier, every little bit adds some new interest for me.


Some 'fish eye' fun effects.
Everyone needs a coal train, right?
Overhead of the busy, congested yard.

Snowy Afternoons

Before...

After.
(he's a dancing, Dancing, Dancing Machine)
Mollie's trying to make yet another escape.

Mollie has a hard time getting comfy.
Partners in Crime...'ya put your fences up to keep me out and to keep mother nature in'...signs, signs, everywhere's signs...

The Great Train Post

Here's the yard to -be. I am waiting for the element to sale, and then I am going to build in the extra garage space. Imagine that, an extra garage stall. Maybe not for you, but an extra stall is unheard of to me, I am a garage kinda guy. If there's a garage, the car is in it. I'll have to show you Emily's 'pull-thru' stall for her car, it has two doors, one in front and one behind. And of course each has an opener on it with a button in her car. Anyway, back to the important stuff, train yards. So my thought is to build in the garage with nice framing and keep it covered while not in use. And then maybe transfer upstairs to the storage area if we insulated it, right now it would be real cold, but the garage is insulated so it stays about 60 degrees with the doors closed. So to make this post the most enjoyable possible you should put on some Johnny Cash , maybe crack a beer, and let the trains roll on down the lines. The birds-eye view of the yard.
One of the new locomotives pulling some varied freight cars.
Two trains ready to leave the yard and all of the random left-over freight cars and engines.

Here's the two new beast. Two EMD GP-20's for the crazy price of $190 to my door. They are more than I could have ever imagined. Hard to believe I am saying this, but I would pay full retail now knowing what they encompass.

GP-20's in the background with the yard in the front.
I need video so I could show you all of the awesome sounds.

"Let a sleeping horse lay"

I have been trying for some time to get a picture of the horses laying down. They look so funny when they are laying down, they look all docile and timid, kinda like Mollie when she is exhausted. The pictures are cute but they don't really tell the story. And of course, the show never lasts very long, the horse is usually on their feet within minutes/ seconds of my discovery that they are laying down.Show's over, Sam's leg is coming up and so is he. This is probably the third or fourth attempt at catching one of the horses laying down, "third or fourth times a charm."

Car Wash

Last Tuesday we had a high of 48 degrees so I cranked up the power washer and washed three cars . I was all bundled up, as long as you stayed in the sun it wasn't too bad.In the front, the farm truck and the red GMC is their's and the Element in the back is SOLD, just waiting for the title to arrive from the loan being paid off. I washed it and put it back in storage, it should be gone in the next week.
Evening snuck up on me real quick. Insulated overalls, stocking hat, over boots and gloves whenever I wasn't working in direct contact with H2O, all in the name of a shiny car.
Chamois, the latest 'accessory' for the modern caretaker.

Train Update Teaser

Sorry for the repeats...I'm testing the 'new' blogger, I don't like when you click on a photo and have to scroll horizontal to see the photo.

Great Scale Train Show

Here we go, The Great Scale Train Show. What a perfect day! We arrived about noon so we only had 4 hrs but I was confident we could get through everything and get all of my shopping done as well. It became a little hurried at the end, but it worked out fine because lots of the vendors were closing early because of Superbowl party plans. Enjoy the photos, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to enjoy my trains soon.
In this shot you can see the two main lines and then 3 service lines on each side of the main lines.A classic "War Bonnet" paint scheme running down the line.
The train-man to be.
This was one of my favorite backgrounds, nothing like a deforested mtn. side to bring home a message. Erosion anyone? It was real cool how the clubs did their layouts...each person brings a 4 x 2 sheet with at least two main lines at a predescribed distance from the front edge of the display. Then they all just link up and presto, they have a huge train set with all kinds of different scenes and track layouts. Three pictures above this you can see the difference because of the different colors of track.(rail road ties, base material)
I count 11 separate tracks here, all those turnouts allows a train to be 'built' while your running another train. What fun!
This bridge was amazing, and look at the rock work on the mtn. behind. If you didn't know better it could look like a real photo from out west about 150 yrs ago.
A giant 20 alarm(or more) fire. Look at all of those boom trucks and the pumpers in the bay topped the picture.
I think they said there was 161 coal cars in this train, it was reeaally looong.
Cars sitting at the drive in theater.
Shanty-Ville! Look at all of the detail stuff/ junk/ trash. It's amazing what people come up with.
A city park with of course a retired caboose as the center attraction.
A locomotive turnaround, I really want to incorporate one of these on my layout.
This old guy was posing for Elly's photo, so cute, just like an 8 yr old little boy who's proud of their train set.
Another nice example of a rock outcroping to finish the show. Check out that foliage, must be out East somewhere.