As of today, Hermitage Road is wired and mostly operational. The photo above shows the future SAL 1402, an engine leased–literally–from my friend John Moenius. John had two of the engines and wasn’t going to use them, so I offered … Continue reading No. 152: Hermitage Road Construction
My friend and fellow former-USAF C-130 navigator John Moenius is considering a layout on the Milwaukee Road terminal in Preston, Minnesota. John was kind enough to send some words on his layout plan. Here’s John: For the model railroader moving can be an emotional time. The old layout you have spent hours planning and building comes down. But at the same time new opportunities arise. That was the situation I found myself in January, 2020. At that time my wife and I decided to retire to a warmer climate and move from Kansas City to South Carolina. I had a … Continue reading No. 151: John Moenius’ Preston, Minnesota
In October, 2019 my family and I moved from my house in Albersbach, Germany to a much more modern and efficient house closer to work. Doing so meant I had to dismantle my point-to-point M&StL Ackley, Iowa layout and move it to the new place. That wasn’t a big deal as I built the layout to move. Above. The Ackley, Iowa layout nearly complete in 2017. As I related in an earlier post, moving the layout did go so well. Most importantly, Ackley did not quite fit in the new layout space so I carefully stored it in the garage. … Continue reading No. 150: Hermitage Road
Over the recent Labor Day weekend–when covid restrictions were relaxed and travel to France was still possible–I took a day of leave and went to Verdun, France, site of the tremendous, 11-month-long German army assault during World War I. I visited the excellent War Museum there, three vast graveyards, many of the battlefields, the Ossuary, and Ft. Douaumont. It was a beautiful day but a very sobering learning experience. It’s hard to believe it was real. Above. Some of the trench lines still exist. They can be found all over the place. This one, near Ft. Douaumont, has been preserved … Continue reading No. 149: Display Cabinets for the Train Room
Back in February 2020, just about the time people in the West started talking about something called COVID-19, I began an unusual box car rebuilding project that took eight months to complete. The project was the complete rebuilding of an old Model Die Casting shake-the-box MoPac auto car kit. The prototype photo above is from Joe Collias’ photo collection, courtesy Ed Hawkins. The photo has an interesting story which I relate a little bit later. These cars have always been among my favorites, and the introduction of a top-of-the-line decal set by Ted Culotta of Speedwitch Media, specifically made for … Continue reading No. 148: Modeling Missouri Pacific 50-foot Auto Cars
Back in March, 2020, when all the COVID lockdowns began and train shows and RPM meets were all cancelled for the year, my friend Ron Christiansen built a private e-mail list of about 50 guys to talk trains. He called it Ron’s Train Club. Ron usually picked a subject and we talked about it for a few days, and then moved on to whatever Ron wanted to talk about next. Ron also began hosting a weekly “Ron’s Train Club” Zoom call. Anyway the new list took off, and it is still very active with hundreds of e-mails exchanged weekly. One … Continue reading No. 147: Standard Oil of Galesburg, Illinois
Over the long Columbus Day weekend I took my wife and daughters to Mykonos, Greece for a long Columbus Day weekend. We went with another family–a friend of mine’s who’s an Army colonel and pathologist–and we had a wonderful weekend … Continue reading No. 146: Freight Car Builds, Oct 2020
In August 2019 I took my family away to the Solk Pass, Styria, Austria, for a quiet mountain getaway. We rented a little cabin literally in the middle of nowhere and hiked the weekend away. It was wonderfully relaxing. Right out of our cabin we hiked to several mountain lakes. This is the Kaltenbachsee, which my wife Kristina translated to “cold river”. The hiking was rugged, the lakes were beautiful, the water ice cold. The kids are taking it easy after a two-hour, uphill-all-the-way hike. On our last day we drove to the nearby village of St. Nikoli and hiked … Continue reading No. 145: Modeling Freight Houses
It’s been 75 days since my last post. That’s 2-1/2 months! In that time I got new job at the air base–and have been working well over 50 hours a week—and wrote two articles for another guy’s blog, and spent ten days away in Slovenia and another week hiking in Austria. And I have managed to dodge our friend COVID. It’s been a very busy 75 days. Back on Memorial Day, my wife led the family on an awesome hike along a cliff in the Moselle River Valley, about 30 miles south of Koblenz. It was the best hike I’ve … Continue reading No. 144: 75 Days
I hope you have all been able to keep safe through all the COVID mess. When it all kicked off, I said to my wife “There will be a lot of blessings in this.” For my family and I, the blessings have been 1) A LOT of close family time, and 2) Lots of work, and almost no opportunity to spend money–which has allowed us to pay off nearly our bills. I’ve also had an opportunity to get some modeling done. I set two priorities in March and April; first was finishing layout planning–which I’ll cover in another post–and second … Continue reading No. 143: Freight Car Modeling, May, 2020
Railroad Prototype Modeler 