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.

Variety is the spice of life....ask Bill Clinton!

The same goes for model railroading! Marvin lived in Paradise, Montana growing up and when the MRL came into being it passed through Paradise making it the

hometown favorite. Until recently MRL had a fleet of hand me down locos that they rebuilt, repainted and ran as road power and yard service. Plus they saved

a lot of money by not paying a designer to come up with a paint scheme except this dip stick job with stick-on logos!

 

Now this a designer paint scheme but only wishful thinking as UP did a series of these to keep the

railroad logos in their ownership. Still, a pretty nice concept if the Rio Grande did survive the UP merger.

 

Another model owned by Jim Bowden is this Chicago & Northwestern heritage paint job done with the

same reasons as the Rio Grande unit.  There is a real engine with this design running on the rails!

 

Sixty years ago this would have been the typical paint scheme for a railroad using green and orange

as the corporate colors. The only way to make them look better is with a little weathering! Yiks!

 

The best train on the rails this week has got to be the Northern Pacific North Coast Limited that served

Spokane for decades and I was privileged to ride it several times in my younger days when I visited Spokane.

 

Keith and I were working on this Hobbytown metal monster Thursday night trying to get the 50 year old

model to work properly when leaving Keith thought it would look good next to the engine house with

the GN herald on it.  I think he was right!  Ring job please!

 

 

Odd things happening around the Northwest

Here's something I never saw before and that is ditch lights on the back of a locomotive! This one was working the Union Pacific rails on Mission Steet where the old Spokane

International had their roundhouse and yard back in the day. Say, the that Keith Wiles hanging on that last car?

 

Another oddity is this NIWX in the Cheney yard working for the Eastern Washington

Gateway Railroad. Photo taken by Bruce Butler or Ted Curphey.  Is it the 60's again?

 

Business must be good as the railroad is using this borrowed Montana Rail Link unit as well.

This one is not beat up as the others seem to be.

This one was sent to me by Mike Walcker, and ex-Evergreen member who was railfanning the

Columbia River and caught this terrific shot of an westbound coming out of one of the many tunnels on this

part of the Union Pacific route to Portland, Oregon.

 

This is the first time I ever saw this window arrangement on the passenger car. This car was seen

a week before by me at about the same spot east of Yardley. I am told it is some kind a geometry car

to make sure the trains don't fall off the tracks. The rivet counters will correct me on this.

 

Finally another weird car is this covered hopper and I took the photo because of the lettering on it.

When it was passing me I realized it was one of the heritage cars with an SP&S logo on it!

They have heritage logos for GN, NP, Burlington Route, BN and the mighty SP&S. Wall plaques anyone?

 

 

Modeling in the 1/87 scale on the Evergreen Railroad

Once in a while the Burlington Northern travels on the Evergreen and now after 20 years gone I am getting nostalgic about the railroad that wiped out my favorites in the Northwest.

Part of modeling is remembering the past and the BN was a big part of growing up around here with trains. If you don't like BN then enjoy my rockwork!

 

Mike Baker sets up some of his rolling stock in the port district.

 

This Citirail locomotive is a lease unit that the BNSF uses and now they have models of them as we

can see on the layout.

 

That very afternoon I caught #1204 in the Spokane Valley sandwiched between 2 BNSF brothers.

From the numbers I would guess they have  over 200 of these units on lease from Citi Bank.

 

Keith Wiles show off his hometown railroad, the SP&S, pulling #2 between Spokane and Portland, Oregon and passing through Wishram on each trip.

 

Strange power shows up just about every week to keep it interesting, Mike Baker had a brace of

3 Burlington Route diesels pulling a freight and was part of the BN merger back in 1970.

September 1st, 2008 the Evergreen Train Club was born!

 

 

That was 8 years ago that we paid the first day of rent on the joint. We celebrated with 5 pizzas from the famous Rocky Rococo pizza from downtown and you can see a little is still

left in one of the boxes on the table.  It was a terrific evening and one of accomplishment to survive 8 years of dues, estate sales and other venues to keep the doors open.

 

We also had a birthday to celebrate as well for September and Marvin had 2 cakes to honor Tom Kirk, one of

our members. Burt helps himself to a slice of heaven as Marvin looks on.

 

Marvin had 4 of these MRL units pulling his Boeing aircraft bodies past that brave fisherman who does

not seem to understand those engines are 3 scale feet from his body!

 

A large 4-6-6-4 articulated makes its way across a modern steel bridge as the older wood one is long gone

with the remnants of an earlier time at the bottom of the stream. That's what can happen to your Tyco

steam engines that got the blow torch treatment to indicate a bad fall.

 

Earlier in the week 3 SP&S Alcos move the freight just like they did some 45 years ago along the Columbia River.

 

Greg Mercier has 4 NP Geeps working up hill at Beaver Canyon. I remember the day that Ralph Thomas

came up with that name and it stuck. Rumor has it that he might be visiting us this month!