I had an unusually tough summer, but despite all the challenges I managed to get some good modeling done. At the end of March I had some unexpected trouble with St. Louis RPM planning, and after a lot of praying I resigned from that whole thing.  That hurt, and I was bitter for a while, but it was the right thing to do for a lot of reasons. In April I broke my shoulder playing soccer, and that caused a whole basket-full of problems.  The worst problem was that I couldn’t sleep, so I walked around like a zombie for … Continue reading No. 129: Three New Engines for the Fleet

Hi Friends!  I hope you’re all doing well and are enjoying a nice back-to-school weekend. In April or May I ran an ops session on my Ackley, Iowa layout using New York Central equipment.  I joked to one of my friends online that I should run a Seaboard session, and then thought “Hey, that’d be a cool idea!”  So a few weeks ago I pulled out all the Seaboard equipment I had left, and all my southeastern freight cars, and ran a “Montgomery Line” ops session.  It was a lot of fun. The SAL Montgomery Line—sometimes called The SAM (the … Continue reading No. 127: Ackley Layout Ops Session (Seaboard Air Line)

Last week I got the layout plugged in and running again, and after cleaning track and polishing up a few wheelsets, and testing operation of all the switch machines and points, I ran a little ops session.   While I was at it I took a few photos with my son’s iPhone 10.   I ran this session with New York Central equipment.  Power was provided by a single Kato RS-2 with Loksound and DCC installed by my friend Mike Christianson in Albert Lea.  And old Alco Models NYC caboose was on the back end carrying the markers.  The engine … Continue reading No. 124: Ackley Layout Ops Session (New York Central)

Last week my friend John Barry was visiting Europe and he spent a couple of nights at nearby Ramstein Air Base.  John is a well-known Santa Fe modeler and historian, and he maintains an interesting blog.  We met a few years ago at the Virginia RPM meet and have kept in touch ever since. John and I had dinner last Friday evening at one of my favorite local restaurants, Berndt’s Blockhouse–up on the hill in Weilerbach–where we enjoyed a couple hours of dinner, beers and conversation.  John is a former C-130 pilot and instead of talking about trains we spent … Continue reading No. 121: John Barry Visit…and Rebuilding the Marshall Canning Co.

It’s been over a month since my last post.  I’ve been very, very busy with work and family stuff, and whatever time I had left went to planning St. Louis RPM.  We also, during that time, took an eight day trip to the Canary Islands.  We visited Lanzerote and Fuertaventura and we had a wonderful time.  We went for the sun, seafood and beaches and it didn’t disappoint. Below. Here’s a pano of the area around one of our favorite towns, El Golfo, in the Timanfayo National Park.  Spectacular black sand beaches are a favorite spot on this side of … Continue reading No. 120: The Ackley Layout – Coal Bins on Carstens Siding

Last time I explained that I took apart the layout and moved it to the other side of the room.  While the layout is still in pieces, I’m refreshing scenery and backdrops and fixing other problems so when the layout is reassembled it’ll be better than ever. Above.  I started with what I call the “north side” of the layout–which, when viewing the layout–is the right half of the 16-foot layout.  To begin the refresh I removed the backdrop and then removed all the buildings, trees and details, and then made a plan to remove scenery. Below, here’s the north side with everything … Continue reading No. 118: The Ackley Layout – North Side Scenery Refresh

We went to the Netherlands last weekend for our kids’ last swim meet of the year, and on the way we took a short side-trip through Belgium to make a beer run.  We stopped at a Delhaize grocery store in Houthalen on the way to Eindhoven and stocked up.  Here’s my son Jacob, below, with a cart-full of the good stuff plus a whole lot of stroop waffles.  If you’ve never had Belgian beer and stroop waffles, you need to come and visit.  They’re life-changers. Unbeknownst to me, Houthalen is in a mining area.  On the way to the grocery store we drove by this thing … Continue reading No. 117: Moving Ackley

This post will be more boring than usual.  It will serve as a record-keeping function for me. The last time the bump-out was seen, in Post 112, Rebuilding the Bump Out, Part 1, it looked like this.  The original bump-out was removed so the track could be re-aligned to accommodate two freight customers.  At this stage I had completed the new benchwork, laid roadbed and track, and completed landforms.  Ballasting was underway. Here’s another view with everything cleaned up. I wanted this track to be buried in mud and debris and grass.  I applied matte medium with an eyedropper between the … Continue reading No. 116: Rebuilding the Bump Out onthe Ackle Layout, Part 2