Playing with lights! And dirty steam engines!

Our normal get togethers for the Evergreen club is on Tuesday and Thursday but this week was a bit different. I stopped by the club on Friday and Mike Baker was there running trains with the wife and her son. Helen and I started talking about cameras and we got into shooting a lot of night shots with the club lights off except the layout.

The glow from the existing buildings was very impressive and it gave us a different look at our layout.

I showed up on Saturday and Tommy Frank was running his passenger train and Allan had a new set of 2-8-2 Mikados pulling his 20 plus car set of coal hoppers. They ran well but something was amiss. Could it be those shiny "Lionel like" driving rods? Perhaps?

Allan twisted my arm to make them look better ( read dirtier ) and this is what we came up with. How do you like me now?

Allan is a CP man and the proof is in the equipment he runs. Whatever he is running it is first class! Maybe he will bring this train to the open house next week on Saturday from 1 pm to 5 pm?

Thursday night ramblings

New member Frank Spuler had his Union Pacific SD45s working a freight train eastbound over Beaver Canyon this afternoon.

Later in the day 3 different passenger trains clog up Bakersville. There must be a convention going on to have this much traffic.

The power to these passenger trains were varied heritage as steam and diesel units from different railroads are apparent.

The unique power is a dinner train doing a tour of the Green branch and the headlight is not Photoshopped but as the camera caught it!

Tommy Frank's BNSF freight passes the excursion dinner train owned by Don Brereton in the front of the layout. The Green Branch is not for long cars such as these passenger cars but who would know that?  See that photographer at the end of the bridge?

To prove we are dealing in models and not real trains I took this photo of Don setting up the shot. You would thing Don would be smiling when I shoot a candid shot of him moving his models into position! Somebody say something to him!

Coal trains? We got no stinkin' coal trains!

Oh yes we do! Steve Welton and Jim Bowden has long sets running tonight as well as an operating trolley line.

Now that the passenger trains are gone from Bakersville we can get back to running freight and making a few bucks for the stockholders.

Woops, there's that dinner train again! I just love that head light glow!

We renamed a building on the layout thanks to my good buddy Jim Bowden who said how come we have Mt. Whitney, Bakersville, Thomas Industrial Tools, Heppler Hardware but nothing for Jerry?  That gave me the chance to make my own signs through my sign business. Thanks Jim!

Here is how I make them out of aluminum license plate blanks. If there is a need for signs on your layout I can do these for $15.00 each and you supply the Jpeg art to me in the size and colors you require. Note the plate is 6 inches high and 12 inches wide but we need to watch out for the bolt cut outs so all the material is not useable. I can help you with the art if necessary and have them cut out and edged for finished signs as well. We can converse on this as well. 509-939-5845.

Open House Saturday Dec 29th

A working man's trolley system !

Almost 2 years of effort went into creating a trolley line with 2 towns associated with it....we now have operations! The brass trolleys will sit in the shop area as retired equipment. The new Bowser PCC cars ran flawlessly!

The guys came up with a new name for the new trolley system called CART for Cobbleton Area Regional Transit. The theme will be...

. GOING SOMEWHERE? TAKE THE CART 

They were San Francisco trolleys but now we own them and took the SF logo off the sides and added our own name. How many trolley lines have tunnels?

When you have an unlimited expense account anything is possible.

Burt and Allan worked on this project and now we have 2 operating trolleys. Burt donated $50.00 towards the cost and Allan will install station stops for the trolleys to start and stop on their own! Here we have the brain trust working out where the switches will fit for the soon to be port track plan. I added the lettering to the cars.  Next time take the trolley!

Morning at the Mill

I got to the club early Saturday morning and noticed the sun glinting on the water at the mill so here is what it looked like.

Stranger in the engine facilities! The Santa Fe Alco somehow gets into the GN engine facilities. Maybe it is on its way to be scraped?

More improvements were done by Jim at the port district with the Blue Main double track and the "purple" connection between Blue and red Main lines.  The only piece left to do is the side track up to the industries on the ridge.The work is top notch.

Memories of Avery, Idaho

My buddy from California came up north to visit me and we went to Avery, Idaho on May 15th to see the last of electric operations.  We climbed the hill to the north of the engine facilities to shoot from a high hill position.

On Bill Barker's layout he modeled the Avery facilities  to near perfection!

Looking east from the road overpass is the station, town and sub station. All electrics cut off at the train station and went to the engine house for service. The 2 Little Joes are moving into position near the station to take over an eastbound that  will have diesels on the point and will cut off and get out of the way.

Compare the photos and you can figure out where you are if you were looking at the Milwaukee  Road layout near Hamilton, Montana. Nice job Bill !