Open house for visitors to the Evergreen train club

 

 

 

It's like the night before Christmas but instead it's the night before the Spokane Train Show at the Fairgrounds

and we'll open the club to folks from out of town who want to enjoy seeing trains run the evening before.

We are at Exit 293 on I-90, Barker Road go south 3 blocks to Appleway and turn right at the light.

Go 3 blocks west to the Greenacres Shopping Center strip mall.

 

Getting ready for our Saturday night open house on October 8th

First of all I want to welcome to our club the youngest member named Robert Case of Chehalis, Washington

( south of Tacoma ) who is going to Eastern Washington University for the next few years. Welcome Robert!

 

Wouldn't it be great to have a mainline with electric overhead wires to replicate the Milwaukee or other systems that were done back in the day? Don Carnegie had this

Bi-polar electric in the lead of one of his passenger train tonight. I added the wires! And the rock so you don't see the edge of earth.

 

The other passenger train had his Milwaukee 4-8-4 $267 that ran into Spokane up the Dishman/ Mica

Road in the Spokane Valley on the Union Pacific tracks until the late 1950s

 

Another passenger train that made its way on the Blue Main was Greg Mercier's Portland leg of the

Empire Builder where the SP&S would take a portion of GN and NP cars off at Spokane and add a few SP&S

cars and head west every evening. The reverse also occurred as well.

 

Frequently Canadian Pacific power comes down the old Spokane International route from Canada,

now Union Pacific tracks and move eastern and Canadian product to the seaboard cities for overseas

sales.

 

Speaking of the Spokane International new member Robert asked if he could run my RS-1 around and I

said if it is on the layout it is available for using! He did some switching and running and I was glad to see it run.

 

 

Hard to take a bad photo when it's the Northern Pacific!

Greg Mercier had his NP freight running the rails yesterday and gave me free run to shoot his train.

The first shot has a company truck waiting passage of this 4 F unit set looking like he owns he railroad.

 

This I took this nose shot as he crosses over one of some 18 bridges we have on the layout.  ( Someone

needs to fix that crack in the girder?)

 

It would not be complete without a photo of the front portion of the layout that has all the good spots for a photo runby.

 

The only thing missing is the smoke from a hard run up the grade.

 

Not to be outdone by Greg was Steve Weso's 50 car grain train that he calls the brown snake or something

like that. The point is that this is what 50 cars looks like in HO scale.

 

Did I mention that Steve has 3 big ones on the point with a DPU pusher doing the honors 50 cars behind?

Just like the real ones!

I walked this very beach at Normandy on my trip June of 2011.

 

Arromanches is a small French town that was liberated in the British landingzone on that

day long ago that set in motion the final effort to liberate Europe on June 6th, 1944.

Kent, Jerry Jr. Hudson, Mac and myself drove there from Paris and walked near those concrete

pontoons used to create the pier to move supplies into the heart of the country. Jerry Quinn

 

Some of the piers still remain in place but others were washed on the beach later. The American solders

are French and Belgian citizens reenacting the day of liberation 71 years later. Hundreds of vehicles

and thousands of citizens do this very year so we don't forget the sacrifices the lives of American,

Canadian and British men gave for stopping that terrible war. Imagine the world today if we didn't?

 

 

A large percentage of our country doesn't know of or care about  Normandy . My guess is it has been removed from the text in History Books.

 

A few weekends ago, British artist Jamie, accompanied by numerous volunteers, took to the beaches of  Normandy with rakes and stencils in hand to etch 9,000 silhouettes representing fallen people into the sand. Titled The Fallen 9000, the piece is meant as a stark visual reminder of those who died during the D-Day beach landings at Arromanches on June 6th, 1944 during WWII. The original team consisted of 60 volunteers, but as word spread nearly 500 additional local residents arrived to help with the temporary installation that lasted only a few hours before being washed away by the tide.

9,000 Fallen Soldiers Etched into the Sand on Normandy  Beach to Commemorate Peace Day.

 

What is surprising is that I saw nothing about this here in the  US .

An overseas friend sent it with a note of gratitude for what the  US started there.

 

 

 

 

 

Return of the MRL....as if it ever went away!

Tuesday night we had about 90 Great Northern visitors to the club but I was not there to photograph them. I was told many compliments were thrown about

by the visitors so they should have enjoyed what they saw!  Tonight, Thursday, Sept. 22nd was MRL night with Marvin running  two MRL trains. one freight and

one passenger which would be Dennis Washington's private train he used from time to time on his railroad and sometimes beyond. I got rid of the edge of the earth.

 

Marvin has 5 big units on his trains so keeping up with competitor trucks should not be a problem.

 

Speaking of the boss there he goes past the freight going the other way while he inspects recent

track work from his open observation car he keeps in tip top shape. It's good to be the king!

 

A few pieces of Great Northern power was still on display after the GN tour of the club so here is

a set of EMD FT power that knocked steam off the main line throughout the USA.

 

In keeping with the theme of the GN era club members kept the power in the same time line as this

1950s era NP steamer and Baldwin diesel helper was typical of the time in the Spokane area.

 

What's wrong with this photo?  It's too clean! Not only is the steamer clean but so is the turntable

that in the day would have been filled with debris and oily things that would never have been a concern

to management. It's like Mr. Clean owns the railroad! Maybe I need to issue an executive order to get it right?

Big man on campus!

I'm always looking for a unique angle for photography and this one seems to fit the bill.  This low angle is what we would see if we were standing on the

ground. Hopefully when you are taking the photo some high speed passenger train is not coming up behind you!

 

Boy, wouldn't this scene tick off those GN modelers to see their NP competitor running the main line instead

of their Empire Builder? The GN Historical members are visiting us Tuesday evening from 7 to 10 pm.

 

Who's railroad is it anyway? Mergers, lease, borrowed? I got nothing?

 

The eras are conflicting as the SP&S train is in the 1960s and the BN train must go back to the 1980s.

They still good good together.

 

This is Eliam and he will be a model railroader in the future with his interest in the hobby. Heck he could

be the next Steve Weso for that matter!

 

Mr Western Pacific, John Schwarze had this single unit doing the hard work on the Green Branch pulling

a load of log cars for the mill.

What would you do to see MIlwaukee Raod Little Joes running again?

The Evergreen train club is planning a trip to see the Milwaukee Road in miniature again this weekend and I am extending the invite to a few non-members if you can make it over

to Hamilton, Montana at 1 pm start time this Saturday, September 17th. Call me if you are interested at 509-939-5845. We will leave Spokane early on Sat morning as we lose an hour

going east into another time zone. The layout represents the Milwaukee in the 1960's from Avery, Idaho to Deer Lodge, Montana and it is fabulous. Missoula train show is Sunday!

Aussies visit the Evergreen State!

We had a real treat today at the Evergreen train club with Australian modelers stopping by to see

what we've been up to. They were as friendly a group of guys you could meet and they seemed to enjoy

themselves by staying about 1 1/2 hours before moving on to beautiful Essex, Montana. I got their

e-mails so they will see this message when they get home. God bless the Aussies!

 

 

The Aussies were treated with Don's Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 and Jim Bowden's Santa Fe 2-8-2 pulling passenger and freight.

 

Another passenger train later was Jim's Santa Fe with unique yellow warbonnet instead of the more

popular red warbonnet.

 

They had some yellow and some blue warbonnets but the red ones were the most remembered F units

that ran on the U.S. rail system.

 

Marvelous Marvin ran his LMX lease unit as the lead of his BN train today. These were very popular

during the 1980s and were seen running through Spokane very often back then.

 

When a loco builder wants to introduce a new model they paint a few of them in corporate colors and

send them out to potential customers to try them out. This one is an Electromotive (EMD) General

Motors model about ready to split the semaphores on the Red Main.

Making the Evergreen layout seem even bigger!

Most of you know Steve Wesolowski from his terrific videos he does with his camera but Thursday night

he showed me some photos of his collection of BNSF equipment that I thought looked real nice and asked

him to send them to me to show you guys.  This shot is of Bakersville and I took another similar shot and changed it.

 

Now I added foreground material with Photoshop clone device copying the hillside and rock to wipe out the edge of the earth. Now the eye seems to go to the locos

without distraction.

 

The best shot of Steve's shots was this wide view of the scene with all the locos gathered. A sharp eye will see the same buildings now in the valley.  Fun with Photoshop

and Steve "Weso's" creative talents.

A Typical Ride on a New York Subway oldie but goodie

 

 

I wonder if Ralph knows any of these people!  Jerry

 

This one is called "Panhandler Party".  It's hysterical!  Takes 3 minutes and 33 seconds.    ****************************** ****************************** ***********************       A Typical Ride on a New York Subway… CLICK HERE

 

Click Here!

 

--

Bryan Bucher

Inland Fire Pump

509-995-3785

A funny thing happened on our way to our train club BBQ

Two of our members live in Davenport, Washington which is 53 miles from the club and Rod and Janis wanted us to visit their home for an

afternoon delight! There's Rod doing the cooking with John Schwarze doing the supervising. We got a tour of the home with artifacts to admire

as well as an N scale layout upstairs! Rod now models in 2 scales as well as feeds his fellow modelers. It proves that we are more than

foamers but good friends to enjoy each others company.

 

On the way west to Davenport on Saturday we caught a 2 unit set on Latah Bridge going somewhere

to pick up cars.

 

Maybe they were going to pick up a forgotten piece of history at Reardan but they forgot the track

connection as well. This is the display piece for the Inland Empire Historical Society's rail museum.

 

My favorite engine is now on display there as 3206 was the engine I helped move to the S.C. Fairgrounds

back in 1978, raised the money to move it and did the lettering on it.

 

They invested about 1 million dollars into this structure out there from a private source and I wish them

well in their efforts as it's a long way from everything, including visitors to help pay for it.

 

There's plenty of projects to keep them busy if they have the funds to pull it off. The last thing I  want

to see if the site go to seed.