Open House Results and Update!

I was certain that the news release to the media would generate some response but that photo in the newspaper really helped our attendance for our Christmas Open House! This is taken about 1 pm, the announced time the open house would start.

 

We had a good turnout of members to handle the crowd including Rick, Mike Baker, Jim, Spike, Keith, Don, Scotty, Skip and myself.

 

Jim Bowden laughs it up with a guest and the others seem to be enjoying it as well. We had a wide representation of people including a lot of kids!

 

The port district now has track laid out for member approval. The cardboard mockup is for a real fishing village bait shop along the water's edge!

 

Here's the first glimpse of the wharf that Burt built but some of us think that we need to double up on piers to handle the weight of the crane that will travel up and down the wharf. The water still needs to be colorized!

 

Jim's Santa fe 4-8-4 makes its way past the port tracks that feed into the barge area, the crane area and the other industries that occupy the district. That road crew is still not done with the road crossing!

 

Dec 28 Open House in the Newspaper!

When i send out PR articles on the train club to the media one never knows if they are going to run something or not. I would guess we will have quite a few visitors tomorrow to seewhat we have been up to.

 

We were #5 on the TO DO LIST but it was free publicity!

 

Here is a flyer I made up for the locals to see what we are doing. See you there?

Just in case you have nothing going on this Saturday.

Making things look real!

Steve Welton stopped by on Thursday to show me his latest project to make his rolling stock look more real. I think he has accomplished it with the application of using the powdered black stuff and wiping it almost clean. The tone is impressive. Maybe we can talk Steve into a clinic one of these nights?

 

Direct from the manufacturer are these 2 Milwaukee Road switch engines doing some local work to need two of them.  Why else would they be so clean, Don?

 

Tommy Frank ran his BNSF power after being absent for a few months from some surgery. Welcome back Tommy!

 

Chad Geissler showed up on crutches ( knee problem) Thursday night with this beautiful SP 4-8-4 making the rounds. It has a smoke feature that looked pretty good but i didn't catch it right to show in this photo. It had sound as well and was impressive.

 

I finished up detailing the 10 or so ore cars we acquired for the club. I added the red ore (taconite?) weathered them and added numbers since they stay on the company property I didn't see the need to indicate who owned them.

 

Scotty Smith put some hours in this week by installing a number a switches for the port district yard leads. Scotty also added extra wires to avoid any loss of power thru the frogs as some smaller engines may have a problem through them. Burt is building the piers so that may get installed next week as well.

Remember this model?

Remember this model? A guest several weeks ago brought in this model of a Burlington Route GP7 #261. What's the big deal about that particular engine I asked?

 

Here is the real CB&Q #261 in living color working on the Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad in Cheney, Washington, about 10 miles west of Spokane. My contact tells me that when is all said and done with its service life it might go back to the Illinois Railway Museum for a restoration to its original paint job! That would be nice as this one is awful!

 

Burt and I visited Bruce yesterday and toured the yard that had ex-Rio Grande, ex Union Pacific, tunnel motors as their mainstay power.

 

I don't think the EWG has a tunnel on the railroad but the advantage of that model is that it sucked in cool air from the bottom instead of the top of the locos where smoke and heat were more likely and would overheat the engines in long tunnels and snowsheds in the west. Say, there's no motor in this one? I'm so confused?

Saturday action

Burt and I decided to stop by the club on Saturday and Brock Nelson came in a little while later with his new toy. It is a beautiful Union Pacific 4-6-6-4 Challenger in passenger grey colors that they used in their operations to Portland, oregon.

It had DCC and sound installed and it was very impressive. It has a smoke unit but we could not figure out how to make it work.

 

The stuff they offer today is something to behold in detail and operations.  Those union painters are still not done with that paint project.

 

Bruce Butler showed up late Saturday and picked up this CB&Q that Jim Bowden installed sound and a DCC chip to make it perfect. Bruce has been allowed to run his NP Challenger on the layout last month and appreciated our friendship so he donated $50.00 to the club!

Strange events at Saturday's Open House. PART 2

What could be more strange than a 4 unit set of GP9s in Texas & Pacific colors on a mountain railroad? Other than the GM bus train? They may look out of place but they sure look good and Steve Welton surprised us with this collection.

 

We catch Steve's T&P train passing under the steam engines on the Green Branch bringing back logs from the wilds of Mt. Whitney

 

Milwaukee trains race each other south but my money is on the big engine getting to Avery, Idaho first. The mountain panels were painted by Ron Peterson, cut out and dropped behind the bridges. The easy way to do it as opposed to painting directly on the wall.

 

Our layout is doubletracked in the front of the layout to allow opposing trains to pass in the night. When they get to the tunnels then it goes to single track and it is protected with senors that do not allow 2 trains on that section of track.  No head ons to say the least.

 

It looks like I didn't get to level out the photo before I reduced it to this managable size. Is that a plastic bag in the shot? I didn't see it untill now! So much for believability!

Saturday turns into a strange day for train running! PART 1

Is anyone out there old enough to remember GM's attempt to save the passenger train?  If you do you are no spring chicken. it was an attempt to use bus bodies for lightweight passenger cars with the streamlining of a 1954 Buick. Well, Mr, Phil Pesek has purchased a set to please the crowd at Evergreen RR Modelers!  You be the judge if it worked!

 

This is the tail car with fluted aluminum fins. What more could anyone want? I would have liked riding in it for the backwards view of the countryside! That's not considered trespassing is it?

 

Without getting any major media help we still got about 40 visitors during our Open House. Everyone seemed to have a good time including many children.

 

John Smith had his 2 steamers making their way across Heimerdinger bridge on Mt. Whitney. That headlight was bright!

 

Full sized passenger trains were running as well as Mike Baker had his long set of GN Enpire Builder cars making their way over Marias Pass in Montana.

 

The Milwaukee Road was well represented with a switcher doing delivery of cars on the Green Branch. His Milw. Bi-Centennial SD-40-2 #156 had a local freight on the main line.

Working on the port side

Scotty has been soldering the extra wires to the port switches and is now installing them along with Burt assisting.

 

The most important leg of the switch tree is the one that goes to the port's adjustable leveler for the tides and other factors that a level connection cannot be used. We can now figure out if we want to have a three track or a two track barge system depending on the need the have that end piece in use. I think a 2 track system is all we need. The track will be level with steel planking.

 

Big Mike Applegate promised to stop by during the holiday season with time off from the Kracking of North Dakota. Mike must be admiring our 3 tier system of having different railroad systems included in the scenery without anyone noticing what we acomplished.  Too much railroad.?...Nahhhhh!

 

I made today a pre-merger day with 2 of my three SP&S Alco Century C-424s making the rounds on the Blue Main.

 

It's good to hear Alcos growling again as they had an distintive sound that you knew what was coming bafore they got to the photo spot. Tom had his EMD switcher running the other way.

Open House Model train show

 

                     What a weekend!

TURKEY, FOOTBALL ...AND MODEL TRAINS!

   SAT. NOV 30th - 1 to 5 pm

The Queen has returned!

My traveling buddy for many years is Bruce Butler and he finally got his marvelous NP 4-6-6-4 Challenger back after I was able to change the number of the loco to one he remembers as a youth in Spokane's Parkwater yard and surrounding area. The 5139 was a Spokane engine and when you buy an engine of this caliber it should be what you remember it as.  Now we need to talk about a little weathering? 

 

Bruce is an engineer for the Eastern Washington Gateway out of Cheney, Washington but tonight he is just a kid taking photos of his new model locomotive. Bruce at one time owned an NP GP7 or was it the other way around that the loco owned him as every spare minute and dollar he had was dedicated to the rebuild of it!

 

It looks even better making its way around the layout with a string of my cars pulling the grades and crossing trestles.

 

Not exactly prototype but the caboose is a treasure at the Evergreen club as it is the only thing we have in rolling stock from our dear departed member Roy Wyatt. The Apache Pass Railroad was Roy's own creation.

 

We had a number of guests including kids and they all wanted to see steam engines run. So we run steam engines for them!  Where's the caboose on Burt's train? Did anybody notice the photographer shooting the photo of the train on the bridge? Where's a cop when you need one? At the donut shop?

 

 

 

Holiday Schedule

HOLIDAY SCHEDULES

Evergreen Railroad Modelers (Spokane Valley) will host two holiday open houses for visitors, families

and friends. The first is on Saturday, November 30th, and the second is on Saturday, December 28th. Both are

from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The layout is located at 18213 East Appleway, in the Greenacres Shopping Center,

Spokane Valley. Visit their webpage at http://evergreenrr.blogspot.com/ for more information about the club's

activities. There is lots of free parking available for visitors and the layout is easily accessible on street level.

Burning and Turning!

That caption generally refers to air combat but now it can also refer to this Northern Pacific 4-4-0 that burns wood and turns wheels with the heat from the wood turning water into steam and it makes the wheels go around. It sure was a lot better system than anything that came before it!

 

Back in the good old days of 1976 a lot of railroads came up with painting one or more locos in the Bi-Centennial colors of red, white and blue and the Milwaukee Road was no different. The 156 loco came through Spokane several times on detours on the BN as their line was tied up with a wreck or something. It's good to see it return to the rails!

 

Tom is now loading up his coal cars with coal and they look a lot better with loads in them. His Great Northern SD45 was the premier power on the railroad for a number a years before the BN merger.

 

The queen of the SP&S is the #750 E-7 that I saw the real thing many times in this color scheme in Hillyard and downtown GN station with the passenger set going to Portland, Oregon.

 

Passengers came in on the NP trains or the Great Northern trains to Spokane and transfered to the SP&S if they wanted to go to Portland, Oregon. This happened at night as my shots of it are all night shots at the station, a risky business shooting Kodachrome 25, a very slow film.

 

Spike Gorley ran the BNSF train first and then switched to the motherland loco in the form of Canadian Pacific. Someday she will have a soulmate to run with.