Prototype Topics, Railfanning & MuseumsLeave a comment

No. 103: Illinois Central’s Belleville, Ill. Station Area

Golden1014

Thanks to work and family there hasn’t been much modeling happening lately–none, in fact.  To keep the discussion going here is a story on a nice modeling site near my adopted hometown of O’Fallon, Illinois. – Near my adopted hometown of O’Fallon, Illinois is the small city of Belleville, Illinois.  Illinois Central’s busy St. Louis main line ran through Belleville, and while I was visiting St. Louis this summer I spent a few hours railfanning around the old station area.  I’ve always thought IC line through Belleville would make an interesting one-town layout.  Belleville grew up as a small industrial … Continue reading No. 103: Illinois Central’s Belleville, Ill. Station Area

Ackley, Iowa Layouts5 Comments

No. 102: More Details for Ackley’s South Side

Golden1014

In my last post I mentioned that my friends Lonnie and Mary Bathurst were visiting Europe, and last week they came to visit us in Kaiserslautern.  My wife and I met them at the Hauptbahnhof and took them to our favorite German restaurant in Hohenecken for lunch, beer and conversation.     After a hearty German meal we went over to Ramstein Air Base for a pre-arranged C-130J tour.  There was no rain in sight until we made the long walk out to the ramp.  Despite the weather the boys from the 37th Airlift Squadron gave us a first-class tour.   They even wheeled … Continue reading No. 102: More Details for Ackley’s South Side

Ackley, Iowa Layouts4 Comments

No. 101: Building the Carver, Minnesota Grain Elevator

Golden1014

My friend and St. Louis RPM co-host Lonnie Bathurst is on a trip through Europe this week and I met up with him and his wife at Rudesheim, which us about an hour drive from my home.  That’s Lon on the left.  We had a nice dinner and caught up on things.  After dinner we went out to the main street–where our photo was taken–which faces the railroad and the Rhine River.  We set ourselves up at a nice German restaurant so we could have a couple more frosty brews and watch trains.  The weather was magnificent.  Deutsche Bahn did not … Continue reading No. 101: Building the Carver, Minnesota Grain Elevator

Ackley, Iowa Layouts8 Comments

No. 100: More Southside Scenery Work

Golden1014

I’m not a streetcar guy but I was in Milan, Italy on Monday and was surprised to see a whole bunch of old trolley cars running around downtown.  I managed to get one halfway-decent photo shown below.  I read online that these cars have been around since the 1920s and were built to an American design.  The most interesting thing about these cars, apart from their cool early 20th Century design, was that they are loud!  Modern trams running nearby are quiet and comfortable, but these cars clank along and with every turn of the wheel there is a creak … Continue reading No. 100: More Southside Scenery Work

Prototype Topics, Railfanning & Museums1 Comment

No. 99: The Swiss National Railway Musuem

Golden1014

On Friday I took my family on a long Labor Day weekend trip to the Ticino region of Switzerland, close to the Italian border, for a weekend of hiking and swimming.  On the way we stopped in Lucerne, which is about a 90-minute drive south of the Germany-Switzerland border at Berne, and visited the Switzerland Transportation Museum. The Swiss Transportation Museum is small but breathtaking.  As you can imagine it is clean and perfectly organized.  The museum devotes a separate building to automobiles, trains, airplanes and shipping, and has a lot more going on, like a planetarium and a chocolate museum, … Continue reading No. 99: The Swiss National Railway Musuem

Ackley, Iowa Layouts3 Comments

No. 98: New Scenery for Ackley’s South Side

Golden1014

I came home from St. Louis RPM full of motivation to finish up some important things on the layout. The primary area of concern was the south side of my 16 x 2-foot layout.  I was unhappy with the photo backdrops I was using so while I was in St. Louis I took a couple of hundred pictures out east of the city in the farm country around Litchfield, hoping that some of those photos would work for backdrops.  Below.  Here’s what I started with when I came back home.  I removed all the trees, buildings and detail parts from the layout and got to … Continue reading No. 98: New Scenery for Ackley’s South Side

RPM and Modeling Events2 Comments

No. 97: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 2

Golden1014

This post on the 2018 St. Louis RPM Meet focuses on some of the 3,700+ models brought by attendees for display. Here is a view of the 81 8×2-1/2-foot model tables on Saturday morning before the doors opened.  Most of the tables are filled although it looks like this one UP train took up three tables.  That’s okay though–that’s one reason why we get so many. This selection encompasses only photos I took.  Our photographer, Mark Lewis, took a lot more photos and I’ll post some of those soon. Above.  Dennis Eggert has always been a hero of mine with his … Continue reading No. 97: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 2

Prototype Topics, Railfanning & Museums1 Comment

No. 96: Deutsche Bahn Museum, Koblenz

Golden1014

I spent way too much time in June and July doing this… …and not enough time finishing up models for St. Louis RPM. However, summer is a great time to travel in Europe, and a couple of weeks before St. Louis RPM I visited the big Deutsche Bahn Museum in Koblenz, which is about an hour north of where I live.  Koblenz lies at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle Rivers and has always been a major transportation center.  The Deutsche Bahn, or “DB” for short, runs along both sides of the Rhine River here.  A large, retired shop complex … Continue reading No. 96: Deutsche Bahn Museum, Koblenz

RPM and Modeling Events3 Comments

No. 95: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 1

Golden1014

The 2018 St. Louis RPM Meet was held last weekend, 20-21 July 2018, at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois.  Once again it was a great time and this year’s event was another record-breaker, with 662 prototype modelers in attendance. Photos above and below by Norm Buckhart. This year’s event featured 23 clinics and hands-on presentations, 51 scale model vendors on 128 tables, 17 railroad historical societies on 30 tables, three modular layouts (HO, N and O/Proto-48), six hands-on learning stations and exhibitors, three home layout tours, three evening social events, and the largest attendee model display in the nation, … Continue reading No. 95: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 1

Freight and Passenger Car ModelingLeave a comment

No. 94: Modeling New York Central ARA Hoppers

Golden1014

I’ve been working on a couple of New York Central ARA hopper cars off-and-on for a couple of years and finally finished them prior to traveling to the U.S. for St. Louis RPM last weekend.  These two cars started as Kadee models and were finished with decals from Resin Car Works. Through the 1950s New York Central was the second largest operator of freight cars in the U.S.  In the 1950 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for example, Central reported 132,957 freight cars of all types, second only to the Pennsylvania Railroad which reported over 193,000 cars that same year. Compare … Continue reading No. 94: Modeling New York Central ARA Hoppers