The Western Pacific lives!

 

And member John Schwarze intends to keep it that way with 4 silver and orange units making time and money for the man! It was consumed by the

Union Pacific in the early 1980s and the yellow peril took over the Feather River Canyon line into Sacramento.

 

The mighty SP&S was sucked into the BN merger back in 1970 and that spelt the end of Alco power on the Columbia River in yellow and black.

 

The Great Northern suffered the same fate as anything pre merger was to be erased as fast as possible. In better times this GN SD9 handles a local freight

That's a nice Chooch wall Mike O'Connell!

 

A long way from home are these 6 units for the Chicago Great Western. Looks like the CGW saved a lot of money by not hiring a artist to come up with

a paint scheme instead of buying a bunch of logos to slap on the car bodies.

 

Robert Case and his brother William stopped by the club on Thursday and they brought a Talgo train to run on the layout. The main feature is their

size and weight for ease of handling on commuter runs plus they tilt on curves for a nicer ride. Robert is rumored to move back to Spokane to attend Eastern

Washington University again. We hope so.

The Wednesday Wonder video by WESO

 

 

 

VIDEO DONE BY MEMBER STEVE WESO AT THE EVERGREEN CLUB LAST WEDNESDAY EVENING. JERRY

 

 

  Here's the next one!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzF4GLU0k4g

Wednesday Wonderment www.youtube.com Ever heard of the Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway? I hadn't until member Jim B. brought in a pair of Alco Century series locomotives all dressed ou...

The glorys of the Southern Pacific are revealed!

 

Here I thought the magic of SP was Cab Forwards and Daylight 4-8-4s, but I was wrong! It turns out its this little 44 ton switcher that Doug

brought in Tuesday! Sure its small and well.... small but its cute and easy to put on the track. Now I see why Chuck Heimerdinger is such a fan!

 

Welcome to New Josiey! Doug's other loco was a Central of New Jersey FM road switcher in original paint. I never ventured south 20 miles to

photograph these babies running when I lived back there. Let's see... I was young, did not have a car or a camera or film or even know they existed!

 

Must have been a windstorm that pushed over that rail cleaner box car? Or maybe it was my elbow trying to get this shot of 3 big BNSF units heading out.

 

Contrasting eras is shown here with F7 #725 represents the 1950s and 1991 Desert Storm represents 1990s era power.

 

Janus had her collection of red, white and blue locos together for a test run on Tuesday, The units represent BN honoring BN employees for serving

during Desert Storm, the middle two units are America's 200th birthday and the trailing unit is SP version of the Bi-Centennial effort.

Burlington Northern sometimes comes in red, white and blue

 

This model of an Burlington Northern SD60 painted in America's colors to honor the men who fought in

Desert Storm back in 1991 showed up at the club today with the return of 2 prior members who rejoined.

Janis Ledum and Rod Huffman are now back after out of area jobs and a fishing date with a salmon or two.

 

Here's the real one on an eastbound freight near Sprague, Washington leading a few other units

in the setting sunlight back in 1993.

 

There was a plaque on the nose of the engine with the names of dozens of employees of the BN

who served over there to get rid of Saddam and his henchmen.

 

This caboose got the same treatment with the colors and a few times run with the locomotive.

4 month absence comes to an end with Rod and Janus

 

Surprise! Surprise! Rod and Janus showed up tonight at the club and rejoined us since early summer

to go on a work and vacation travel adventure. That's Janus's BN loco on the earlier e-mail we talked about.

They are a great addition to our little group of modelers

 

Mike Baker added his GN locos to the action today as Greg Mercier's NP F units give them a run for their money.

 

Doug Nighswonger keeps adding to his surprise collection of various models from distant lands. The Wabash was named after a river back east near Chicago and was absorbed by some

mega railroad some years ago.

 

Steve Weso ( Weslowski ) dad worked for the SP&S and took Steve on many trips with him when he was a wee child so it was in his blood to be an SP&S fan. The trailing unit is in the

original paint while the leading two units are in the broad stripe scheme. The SP&S were big customers for the Alco products such as these FAs units.

 

Scotty installed these 2 shelves today for members to use to put their train boxes on after they set

their trains up on the layout. Special notices are put on the board for members to see.

THANKSGIVING IS ON THURSDAY OF NEXT WEEK SO WE WILL BE MEETING ON FRIDAY INSTEAD!

WE WILL MEET FROM 1 PM TO 6 PM. LUNCH IS AT DONNA'S AT NOON!

Two Idahoians bring back the 1960s.

Well not exactly native Idahoans, but close! One used to be a Montanan and the other was a Seattle area guy, now both moved to a better place. Marvin brought in 4 NP Geeps and so did

Greg but I don't know if they planned it?  It sure brought back memories for me when I arrived in Spokane to stay in the Northwest back in 1967. Now don't go looking for matching numbers?

 

Here they are again this time chasing each other on separate rail lines in the middle of the club layout. Regrettably the edge of the earth is visable.

Ah, the god old days but I don't think we knew it back then.

 

Never seen before is the Altoona & Ft Mudge because Doug Nighswonger was not a member until 3 months ago. He told me that it has to do with a cartoon strip in the newspaper when

one of the characters would refer to this mithical railroad. Do you know which one?

 

November had a number of birthday boys honored at the club last week including Mike Baker,

Mike Olin and Jerry Quinn plus Keith Wiles for October and 2 other not attending the meeting.

Marvin makes the best desserts for the events and we are treated each month with goodies.

 

Doug also had this tiny steam doing work with a mixed freight but no identifying lettering on it.

It must be a poor railroad as they may not be able to pay for it. Maybe we need to pass the hat?

A brief history on ice reefers asked for from a prior e-mail comment.

 

Moving fruits, vegetables or meats across the country raised a problem for the railroads. If the product was not kept at a proper temperature

the product would deteriorate and not accepted by the buyer when it arrived at his door. The answer was to have ice blocks dropped in

hatches on the corners of the roof to keep things cool. Maybe several times they would need re-icing along the way from the west coast to back east. 

 

They made a move to make ice reefers out of steel instead of wood which was smart but they still needed icing after several hundred miles.

The small doors kept cold loss to a minimum.

 

Next came the mechanical reefer as you can see the attachment on the end of the car that kept things cold.

This relied on the motor and fuel for the long journey, if not, the product spoiled and became railroad property.

 

They finally went to Cryo gas that was a lot more reliable as it only lost a few degrees temperature

for the long distance it traveled. I'm no expert on this stuff so I may have quoted something wrong.

I'm sure someone will be writing back on this.

 

 

Jerry Quinn has a bout with Reefer Madness!

I have some 2 dozen cheap reefer car bodies that are close to toy quality but the shells has some decent detail so I decided to put my efforts in creating 7 more NP models

for my F units to pull. I also added metal stirrups, paint, decals and yet to be installed wheel brakes, weights, wheels, couplers and a little weathering.

 

Doug was made a full member Thursday night and I though I would show his Pennsy K4 passenger

loco he ran last week. It was their premier passenger loco for years.

 

Merger time has come and gone in 1970 when all the merger locos were mixed into one giant grab bag

of power when you would not know what is coming down the tracks be it green, black, red, yellow, grey,

and whatever they could find in the yard to send your way. It was exciting for a few years then it was all green.

 

The same train owned by Mike Baker makes its way across one of 18 bridges on the layout.

 

The Mighty Weso was sick last week but has made a full recovery and this week offered up this

single RS-1 in SP&S colors. Good to have you back, Steve.

 

Greg Mercier had his brand new SP&S models ( well maybe not new, but not weathered?) showing his

Northwest heritage is still important to him.

 

Southern Pacific power showed up but I don't remember who brought them in. The closest SP comes to Spokane is 350 away in Portland,Oregon.

Steady cam visits the Evergreen club!

Did you ever sit through a video or film show taken by an amateur photographer and

fell seasick after you watched it? I know I have (Art Jacobson) as there was more

movement in the camera than there was what is being photographed!  That's all solved

with his steady cam handle that allows the hand to move but the camera stays with the

subject. It was amazing to see it work. Works with a Go-Pro or an iphone.

 

All aboard for Lewiston,Idaho! In the 1950s you could take the NP train to Lewiston from Spokane just about any day of the week. In the 50s they switched from steam engines to

Baldwin diesels such as #501 and 3 passenger cars.  They later switched to Rail Diesel cars that needed smaller crew and more economy.

 

The Milwaukee Road must have rail service to our local lumber mill located in the front of the layout

 

Big time railroading is Don Carnegie's goal with 4 modern diesels pulling a mainline freight thru the Post District.

 

No trains now run pass the Court District but I did last week to pay my real estate taxes to the government.

The massive tress surrounding the courthouse were in full autumn mode and worth a photo.

This building as well as the GN and Union stations were in serious trouble in 1972 but the courthouse was

saved then the officials found out the land would revert back to the original owners if it were torn down.

Accident at the Evergreen Railroad!

Member Ver Walker got his Amtrak train rear ended and he still had a smile on his face. But it shouldn't be

a surprise to any of us as Ver is one of the friendlest guys you will ever meet. Apologies were made.

 

Today we had NP trains all over the place with Marvin and his 5 unit freight train and Greg with his NP North Coast Limited making the rounds.

 

I liked this shot so much I put some Photoshop time into it. The road had a few pebble debris on the road that I didn't notice when I took the photo. Strange.

 

Ver Walker had this BNSF train pulling some very large 86 foot boxcars around. Jack Pappas was doing a little switching when they passed each other.

 

In the three years since Marvin joined the club he has increased his train inventory to include 5 NP F units with sound as well. They look good even without weathering.

Newcomer Doug Nighswonger not only has lots of midwest stuff, now he is showing up with back east stuff where I grew up in New Josiey. He had 2 Pennsylvania passenger

trains but he took the second one off before I could photograph it for evidence.

 

Last but not least is new member Larry Sorenson, an experienced modeler who I knew back in the

good old days when we were both members of another train club together. This guy has lots of stories!