If you have not seen this video it is a must see. Blair Kooistra presented it at Winterail last week and it was the final presentation at the end of the evening. I don't know that anyone would have been able to follow his presentation with their own as this video brought down the house and brought tears to many if not all of those that attended. I can think of no other RR video that has elected such strong emotions. This is what railroading was like in the PNW in the 70's and this is what draws me to model the region, especially the Milwaukee Road.
Milwaukee Road PNW Tribute
Blair Kooistra had an story in the June 1979 issue of Trains Magazine called, "Two More Mountains to Cross" which essentially introduced the Milwaukee Road to me although I had seen the railroad once or twice in 1973 on a family vacation out to Seattle. Short glimpses of an amazing railroad that made me wish I had been born 10 years earlier in order to experience it at an appreciative age. Not having a driver's license or car impeded my ability to rail fan around central Iowa and only after the Rock Island shut down and the Milwaukee Road cut it's system down did I have the opportunities to drive and look for trains, it was too late.
Blair had several stories in Trains but "Two More Mountains to Cross" was the genesis of my love for the Milwaukee Road. His stories are incredible and leave you with a lump in your throat. CTC Board magazine fueled my love as well as the masterful and breathtaking book, "The Milwaukee Road" by Fred Hyde. Fred was another person that influenced me in my early years as a rail fan and model railroader. The internet has given many of us the opportunities to meet and have discussions with our heroes, mentors, and make new friends. I have been able to have invaluable conversations with both Blair and Fred which have continued to fuel my desire to model the Milwaukee Road in some form or fashion....thus my choice of modeling Lynden, WA.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Well,
I am back from the Chicago area after attending the March Meet O Scale show. Tons of items for sale and a large crowd. There were a couple of people I wanted to meet but every time I stopped by their table they were well engaged in conversations with potential buyers and well time was limited. So I will be purchasing products from them online.
I did get to meet old friends and some new friends that I hope to see again next year. For the 2nd year in a row I was able to participate in an operating session at the Fox Valley O Scalers layout. Was able to operate the meat train from Calmar all the way to Dubuque so that was fun. If you are interested in learning more about the Fox Valley O Scalers check out their website. http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/FoxValley/index.html.
I attended two meeting on Friday night and the growth of the hobby was the primary discussion in one and was part of the 2nd meeting. The O Scale Kings meeting had the growth as the main point of discussion. People have been saying for 30-40 years that O Scale is dying and yet here we still are.. I will agree that the majority of the people attending the March Meet are in their 60's, 70's, and 80's. Some of the younger people in their 40's and 50's such as myself have moved into O Scale as our eyes are not as good as they were 20 years ago and we do not have the manual dexterity to put N scale and HO scale cars together. A big point that was brought up was that most of the product produced is for steam era and many of the younger people have no inkling of what the steam era was like. There are modern engines and cars being produced but that most of the manufacturers and parts suppliers focus on steam era.
We need more modern equipment but it also has to become more affordable... with that said there was a gentleman who is planning on producing resin kits of four different types of the FMC 50'6" boxcar. Thing is he needs to know that he can sell a specific number of cars before he can go through with production. If you are interested check out his website....still new...just a couple of weeks old so he has not finished updating it as he was trying to get his sample cars done for the show. go to ModernEraOScale.com. I put my name down for four so we will see what happens.
The other meeting was the Proto:48 meeting and it got a bit contentious. There is an attitude in the industry where people feel that someone should produce a certain model for example and get a bit bent out of shape when told no. Argument was that is fine if someone does not want to put the effort in to something that may not sell.....tell us that....don't say there is no market for said items....especially when you are sold out of modern era items... With that said, the growth of the P48 group is also dependent upon new people getting in to modeling or convincing those individuals that are detail oriented in HO to move up....
So, I only bought one item and it was an American Standard gondola kit for RailGon. Add that to my three American Standard air hopper kits I do have some modeling work to do. It really helps to finally nail down what I want to model so that I am much pickier on what I am buying at a show like the March Meet. There were quite a few things I saw that I thought, oh cool!, that would be fun to have but then it does not fit for what I am modeling. I really need to find a OTTX 60' flat car or something that is very close that can be made into an OTTX version. That and four bay cylindrical covered hoppers in the CP pacman scheme.
I am back from the Chicago area after attending the March Meet O Scale show. Tons of items for sale and a large crowd. There were a couple of people I wanted to meet but every time I stopped by their table they were well engaged in conversations with potential buyers and well time was limited. So I will be purchasing products from them online.
I did get to meet old friends and some new friends that I hope to see again next year. For the 2nd year in a row I was able to participate in an operating session at the Fox Valley O Scalers layout. Was able to operate the meat train from Calmar all the way to Dubuque so that was fun. If you are interested in learning more about the Fox Valley O Scalers check out their website. http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/FoxValley/index.html.
I attended two meeting on Friday night and the growth of the hobby was the primary discussion in one and was part of the 2nd meeting. The O Scale Kings meeting had the growth as the main point of discussion. People have been saying for 30-40 years that O Scale is dying and yet here we still are.. I will agree that the majority of the people attending the March Meet are in their 60's, 70's, and 80's. Some of the younger people in their 40's and 50's such as myself have moved into O Scale as our eyes are not as good as they were 20 years ago and we do not have the manual dexterity to put N scale and HO scale cars together. A big point that was brought up was that most of the product produced is for steam era and many of the younger people have no inkling of what the steam era was like. There are modern engines and cars being produced but that most of the manufacturers and parts suppliers focus on steam era.
We need more modern equipment but it also has to become more affordable... with that said there was a gentleman who is planning on producing resin kits of four different types of the FMC 50'6" boxcar. Thing is he needs to know that he can sell a specific number of cars before he can go through with production. If you are interested check out his website....still new...just a couple of weeks old so he has not finished updating it as he was trying to get his sample cars done for the show. go to ModernEraOScale.com. I put my name down for four so we will see what happens.
The other meeting was the Proto:48 meeting and it got a bit contentious. There is an attitude in the industry where people feel that someone should produce a certain model for example and get a bit bent out of shape when told no. Argument was that is fine if someone does not want to put the effort in to something that may not sell.....tell us that....don't say there is no market for said items....especially when you are sold out of modern era items... With that said, the growth of the P48 group is also dependent upon new people getting in to modeling or convincing those individuals that are detail oriented in HO to move up....
So, I only bought one item and it was an American Standard gondola kit for RailGon. Add that to my three American Standard air hopper kits I do have some modeling work to do. It really helps to finally nail down what I want to model so that I am much pickier on what I am buying at a show like the March Meet. There were quite a few things I saw that I thought, oh cool!, that would be fun to have but then it does not fit for what I am modeling. I really need to find a OTTX 60' flat car or something that is very close that can be made into an OTTX version. That and four bay cylindrical covered hoppers in the CP pacman scheme.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
This #$^# Just Got REAL!
Well, I took the first step to building the layout of Lynden, WA. I ordered 200 feet of Code 125 steel rail and 1500 sugar pine ties from Right-O'-Way and those showed up a couple of days ago. Really appreciate Jay Criswell's great customer service and looking forward to meeting him in person at the March Meet this upcoming weekend. Plan on picking up supplies while at the March Meet...such as spikes, tie plates, and other various items. I will also be looking for several cars but I have more research to do on them...flat cars that brought in IH, Case, and John Deere farm implements; tank cars going to several fuel depots; and three bay cylindrical covered hoppers.
I am debating on building my own turnouts but will talk to Jay and others at the meet as well as watch some of the youtube video links that Jay sent to me. Based on what I see I need three left and four right hand turnouts so a total of seven.....15 less than I would have needed for Kingsbury Avenue and well $1500 less if I purchased finished turnouts.....
The 2nd step I took was attempting to sell some of the equipment that I have....such as the Lionel 86 ft box cars and the Atlas 60' auto box cars. Reading through the inbound and outbound traffic reports I see no mention of any of these cars in 1978 and 1979 going to or from Lynden. Have not looked at the 1976 reports yet. If you are interested in the reports you can find them on Cascade Rail Foundations Milwaukee Road Archives......http://research.milwelectric.org/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Traffic.aspx. If you have personal knowledge of such cars showing up in Lynden let me know.
If you are interested in purchasing any of the four Lionel 86' box cars (3 MilwRd, 1 RI) or one of the EL or MilwRd 60' auto box cars let me know. Some modifications have been made such as the Lionel trucks having NWSL 33' /145 wheel sets installed and both being weathered. Kadee #805 couplers are included in several of the cars. I can provide more details if interested. The two 60' undecorated auto box cars are spoken for so it has begun.
Hopefully in the next month I can get all of the inbound and outbound traffic reports for Lynden into an excel spreadsheet and then run some pivot tables and such to get an idea of how many cars per week inbound with freight and outbound with freight as well as the time of the year. Most of the cars I have on hand fit Lynden and some others no so much but with a team track it is plausible for 2 bay covered hoppers as well as 40' and 50' airside hoppers to show up......any feedback on this type of freight showing up in Lynden would be appreciated.
Heading to Chicago early on Friday so I can get to Ted Schnepf place to take part in an operating session on Friday afternoon. I will be attending the P48 meeting Friday night so that should be fun. Saturday it is all about walking around March Meet and looking for stuff that I need....nailing down the prototype for modeling really cuts down on buying cars that would never show up even though I think the cars are neat to have.
I am debating on building my own turnouts but will talk to Jay and others at the meet as well as watch some of the youtube video links that Jay sent to me. Based on what I see I need three left and four right hand turnouts so a total of seven.....15 less than I would have needed for Kingsbury Avenue and well $1500 less if I purchased finished turnouts.....
The 2nd step I took was attempting to sell some of the equipment that I have....such as the Lionel 86 ft box cars and the Atlas 60' auto box cars. Reading through the inbound and outbound traffic reports I see no mention of any of these cars in 1978 and 1979 going to or from Lynden. Have not looked at the 1976 reports yet. If you are interested in the reports you can find them on Cascade Rail Foundations Milwaukee Road Archives......http://research.milwelectric.org/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Traffic.aspx. If you have personal knowledge of such cars showing up in Lynden let me know.
If you are interested in purchasing any of the four Lionel 86' box cars (3 MilwRd, 1 RI) or one of the EL or MilwRd 60' auto box cars let me know. Some modifications have been made such as the Lionel trucks having NWSL 33' /145 wheel sets installed and both being weathered. Kadee #805 couplers are included in several of the cars. I can provide more details if interested. The two 60' undecorated auto box cars are spoken for so it has begun.
Hopefully in the next month I can get all of the inbound and outbound traffic reports for Lynden into an excel spreadsheet and then run some pivot tables and such to get an idea of how many cars per week inbound with freight and outbound with freight as well as the time of the year. Most of the cars I have on hand fit Lynden and some others no so much but with a team track it is plausible for 2 bay covered hoppers as well as 40' and 50' airside hoppers to show up......any feedback on this type of freight showing up in Lynden would be appreciated.
Heading to Chicago early on Friday so I can get to Ted Schnepf place to take part in an operating session on Friday afternoon. I will be attending the P48 meeting Friday night so that should be fun. Saturday it is all about walking around March Meet and looking for stuff that I need....nailing down the prototype for modeling really cuts down on buying cars that would never show up even though I think the cars are neat to have.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Back in the saddle again
It has been a long time since I last posted.
Many things going on in my life with most of them attributed to my children. Since 2008 all of my boys have played summer club soccer so there was a lot of traveling around the state of MN. My youngest son started spending his winters wrestling so since 2009 we were going to at least 1 tournament every weekend and for most weekends it was 2 tournaments. As the boys got older they got involved in other things such as marching band and school soccer so it became pretty evident real quick that most of our free weekends were going to be in April after wrestling and before club soccer and then maybe two weeks in October after school soccer and marching band were done whereas wrestling started up in the first week of November.
Our travels for wrestling started going out of state to IA, SD, WI, MO, and OK for major tournaments. Marching band has also gone out of state to IA and SD. Now with two boys in college with a third starting next year we have only one at home but he is the most athletic and active one. He has been the only one to do summer soccer, school soccer, marching band, and wrestling in a single year so we still spend a lot of time traveling, especially since I also started coaching summer soccer. So the next three years we are looking at doing all of these every year until he graduates.
What does that have to do with this blog? Everything....being with all of the boys during their summer and school activities was important. Our daughters have also kept us busy by giving us six grandchildren though we don't see them as much as we used to do. Both of us have been active in church leadership and helping out with the sports clubs running the wrestling program and soccer program. So, there have been bits and pieces of time when I have been able to partake in my hobby, mostly visiting hobby shops during our travels. I have been able to attend the March Meet in Chicago for several years so that has been about all I have done with model railroading.
I have created another blog where I plan on discussing macro economics and how our rail system could be completely different had smart people stepped in to help the railroads after 1971. What you say.....well come to https://milwaukeeroadblog.wordpress.com and find out.
So with all of that said where am I at with modeling Lynden, WA? Well, for the last few years I have strayed from Lynden and was looking at parts of the Beer Line in Milwaukee as well as the Kingsbury Ave area in Chicago. All three areas fascinate me and I collected as much information as I could via magazines, books, youtube videos, Facebook and yahoo groups, railroad forums, and emails with people in the know. I nearly jumped away from all three as I started looking at The White Pine Route in the Washington, Idaho, and Montana Railway as well as the Des Moines Union Railway.
What interested me in both of these was location and how the railroad operated. All have ties to the Milwaukee Road and that will never change. I do have other favorite railroads such as the Erie Lackawanna, Rock Island, and Ann Arbor for example but the Milwaukee Road will always be in my heart.
The WI&M was a really neat railroad in God's country that was scenic in a different way than the mainline from Avery, ID to Othello, WA. Picked up a book about the history of the railroad as well as having conversation with others who modeled it as well. It was somewhat limited in motive power and most of the towns were also limited in operations as it would take several towns to create enough industries to have enough work to do in an hour or two. Space is limited so off the board went WI&M.
The DMU was a hometown operation of which I missed most of it as parts and pieces were disappearing before I started rail fanning (able to drive). I had not realized how much switching was going on in the SW part of downtown Des Moines. Its crazy....I would drive by the DMU yard nearly on a daily basis starting in 1980 and never realized how that one track that diverged off the N&W line and crossing over the ex-Rock Island main line tracks led to Slimmy Yard where there was daily switching of various industries in the industrial area of SW downtown Des Moines. NEVER KNEW......until recently. Almost all of it is gone now though I have been able to talk to people who worked for the DMU or knew it very well. The issues I was having with Lynden, WA also applied to the DMU, very few photos or maps as well as very few photos....very few...I mean you can count on two hands if not one hand the number of pics showing railroad operations.
Well, that all changed recently. I have joined most of the Milwaukee Road FB groups as well as the Yahoo/Groups.io groups and one day a picture was uploaded with comments. One comment was by Blair Kooistra, whom I have always admired for his photos of the Milwaukee Road in the Northwest, and then I made a comment about my issues with Lynden and off to the races we went. Oh my God it was awesome. I fell in love with Lynden again and now I was finding more information that was not around 6-7 years ago....gosh it has been long. Now there was traffic reports for Lynden for both inbound and outbound freight..of which I have started to transfer to Excel. New pictures began to pop up and maps as well other documents which made things more clear about Lynden. Blair is modeling Lynden in HO scale and I will be modeling it in P48. I know he will be done much sooner than I will...
I need to draw out the basement, then draw up the track plan and see how it fits to see if I need to cut out a section of the center wall in the basement. Sorry Snake Track on the Beer Line...Sorry Kingsbury Ave on the C&E. You both had issues that was going to be tough to deal with......Snake Track...just trying to fit it in the basement room and keep open the weightlifting area was not going to work, especially in O scale. Kingsbury Ave...I was going to be able to fit you in from the Montgomery Ward buildings to the end of the line...though it would require 22 switches at $100 bucks a pop in O scale..I have not hand laid track and while I plan on doing it for this layout 22 switch was mind boggling for me to attempt with the free time that I have.
Now some of you may say to compress the area or say leave some track out to make it work. I am not that guy.....I want to be prototypical as possible in the track plan as I want to follow operations as prototypically as possible. Thank you for the suggestions though and I appreciate them. If you have information about Lynden that you would like to pass on let me know.
More to come.
Many things going on in my life with most of them attributed to my children. Since 2008 all of my boys have played summer club soccer so there was a lot of traveling around the state of MN. My youngest son started spending his winters wrestling so since 2009 we were going to at least 1 tournament every weekend and for most weekends it was 2 tournaments. As the boys got older they got involved in other things such as marching band and school soccer so it became pretty evident real quick that most of our free weekends were going to be in April after wrestling and before club soccer and then maybe two weeks in October after school soccer and marching band were done whereas wrestling started up in the first week of November.
Our travels for wrestling started going out of state to IA, SD, WI, MO, and OK for major tournaments. Marching band has also gone out of state to IA and SD. Now with two boys in college with a third starting next year we have only one at home but he is the most athletic and active one. He has been the only one to do summer soccer, school soccer, marching band, and wrestling in a single year so we still spend a lot of time traveling, especially since I also started coaching summer soccer. So the next three years we are looking at doing all of these every year until he graduates.
What does that have to do with this blog? Everything....being with all of the boys during their summer and school activities was important. Our daughters have also kept us busy by giving us six grandchildren though we don't see them as much as we used to do. Both of us have been active in church leadership and helping out with the sports clubs running the wrestling program and soccer program. So, there have been bits and pieces of time when I have been able to partake in my hobby, mostly visiting hobby shops during our travels. I have been able to attend the March Meet in Chicago for several years so that has been about all I have done with model railroading.
I have created another blog where I plan on discussing macro economics and how our rail system could be completely different had smart people stepped in to help the railroads after 1971. What you say.....well come to https://milwaukeeroadblog.wordpress.com and find out.
So with all of that said where am I at with modeling Lynden, WA? Well, for the last few years I have strayed from Lynden and was looking at parts of the Beer Line in Milwaukee as well as the Kingsbury Ave area in Chicago. All three areas fascinate me and I collected as much information as I could via magazines, books, youtube videos, Facebook and yahoo groups, railroad forums, and emails with people in the know. I nearly jumped away from all three as I started looking at The White Pine Route in the Washington, Idaho, and Montana Railway as well as the Des Moines Union Railway.
What interested me in both of these was location and how the railroad operated. All have ties to the Milwaukee Road and that will never change. I do have other favorite railroads such as the Erie Lackawanna, Rock Island, and Ann Arbor for example but the Milwaukee Road will always be in my heart.
The WI&M was a really neat railroad in God's country that was scenic in a different way than the mainline from Avery, ID to Othello, WA. Picked up a book about the history of the railroad as well as having conversation with others who modeled it as well. It was somewhat limited in motive power and most of the towns were also limited in operations as it would take several towns to create enough industries to have enough work to do in an hour or two. Space is limited so off the board went WI&M.
The DMU was a hometown operation of which I missed most of it as parts and pieces were disappearing before I started rail fanning (able to drive). I had not realized how much switching was going on in the SW part of downtown Des Moines. Its crazy....I would drive by the DMU yard nearly on a daily basis starting in 1980 and never realized how that one track that diverged off the N&W line and crossing over the ex-Rock Island main line tracks led to Slimmy Yard where there was daily switching of various industries in the industrial area of SW downtown Des Moines. NEVER KNEW......until recently. Almost all of it is gone now though I have been able to talk to people who worked for the DMU or knew it very well. The issues I was having with Lynden, WA also applied to the DMU, very few photos or maps as well as very few photos....very few...I mean you can count on two hands if not one hand the number of pics showing railroad operations.
Well, that all changed recently. I have joined most of the Milwaukee Road FB groups as well as the Yahoo/Groups.io groups and one day a picture was uploaded with comments. One comment was by Blair Kooistra, whom I have always admired for his photos of the Milwaukee Road in the Northwest, and then I made a comment about my issues with Lynden and off to the races we went. Oh my God it was awesome. I fell in love with Lynden again and now I was finding more information that was not around 6-7 years ago....gosh it has been long. Now there was traffic reports for Lynden for both inbound and outbound freight..of which I have started to transfer to Excel. New pictures began to pop up and maps as well other documents which made things more clear about Lynden. Blair is modeling Lynden in HO scale and I will be modeling it in P48. I know he will be done much sooner than I will...
I need to draw out the basement, then draw up the track plan and see how it fits to see if I need to cut out a section of the center wall in the basement. Sorry Snake Track on the Beer Line...Sorry Kingsbury Ave on the C&E. You both had issues that was going to be tough to deal with......Snake Track...just trying to fit it in the basement room and keep open the weightlifting area was not going to work, especially in O scale. Kingsbury Ave...I was going to be able to fit you in from the Montgomery Ward buildings to the end of the line...though it would require 22 switches at $100 bucks a pop in O scale..I have not hand laid track and while I plan on doing it for this layout 22 switch was mind boggling for me to attempt with the free time that I have.
Now some of you may say to compress the area or say leave some track out to make it work. I am not that guy.....I want to be prototypical as possible in the track plan as I want to follow operations as prototypically as possible. Thank you for the suggestions though and I appreciate them. If you have information about Lynden that you would like to pass on let me know.
More to come.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Well, it as been a while since I have posted.......a long while.....wow....
Much has happened over the last few years. I went from HO scale to O scale 2-rail and was jumping into G Scale and now I am back to HO.... Most of it has to do with availability of certain models while expense and room has some to do with it as well. Love the G scale but a limited selection of equipment and availability of what is produced forced me to make changes. O scale 2-rail--love it even more but with the amount of room available in the basement it was not feasible to run anything greater than 4 axle engines or longer than 40' box cars. So, back to HO which has the greatest amount of product available and at decent prices.
So I have been selling off the G scale and O scale equipment. If interested let me know and I can get you a list.
Meanwhile I am building up my collection of equipment a few cars at a time and it helps that a few manufacturers have jumped into the hobby since I was last in HO scale.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Changes in the making
It has been a while since I last posted and things have changed. For various reasons I have decided to exit 2-rail O scale and move up to G scale. One factor was that I felt I was not going to have enough room in the basement and the layout of the basement was such that I do not believe I could model Lynden correctly. That and the main room in the basement is not going to be free for full utilization for another 10 years or so. I certainly could have gone backward into HO scale which would have given me the ability to model as I wanted but as I have noted the eyes and fingers are not so great. I do like to put models together along with painting them, applying decals, and weathering so HO was out of the question. So I am in the process of weathering and such on my current equipment to sell over the next 3-6 months.
Why G scale or 1/29th scale? I have an entire yard that can be used for a layout as the boys are not using the yard so much now as they are getting older. I can now create the Lynden track plan as it should be with no compression or things left out. The equipment options may not be as great as in HO or O scale but I can certainly scratch build the equipment I need. I already have a NW-2 on hand ready for paint stripping, then new paint, lighting effects added, motor and sound decoders installed along with on-board battery power. No track power and no cleaning track to maintain electrical conductivity.
I figure for the amount of dollars I would have to put into the O Scale equipment (accurate trucks and wheelsets) that I could attain G scale equipment at a lower price. One USA Trains 60 ft boxcar at $100 with accurate details essentially taking up the same amount of space as two Atlas O 60 ft boxcars at $70-$80 each that require new trucks/wheelsets that cost from $35 to $60 a pair, you do the math.
I will post more as I move along, especially of the work I will be doing on the NW-2.
Why G scale or 1/29th scale? I have an entire yard that can be used for a layout as the boys are not using the yard so much now as they are getting older. I can now create the Lynden track plan as it should be with no compression or things left out. The equipment options may not be as great as in HO or O scale but I can certainly scratch build the equipment I need. I already have a NW-2 on hand ready for paint stripping, then new paint, lighting effects added, motor and sound decoders installed along with on-board battery power. No track power and no cleaning track to maintain electrical conductivity.
I figure for the amount of dollars I would have to put into the O Scale equipment (accurate trucks and wheelsets) that I could attain G scale equipment at a lower price. One USA Trains 60 ft boxcar at $100 with accurate details essentially taking up the same amount of space as two Atlas O 60 ft boxcars at $70-$80 each that require new trucks/wheelsets that cost from $35 to $60 a pair, you do the math.
I will post more as I move along, especially of the work I will be doing on the NW-2.
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