Prototype Topics, Railfanning & Museums1 Comment

No. 136: More Modeling Considerations – The West Belt Line

Golden1014

Over Christmas 2019, I took my family skiing in the Tatras National Park in Slovakia.  We usually ski in Austria but this year we wanted to try something different.  We stopped halfway for a nice night in Prague, enjoying the Christmas markets there, and on the way back we spent two days in Poland.  It was a great trip—very different.  By the way, the skiing in Slovakia was good! Of course there were trains everywhere, and I was able to break away from the family one morning and spent an hour chasing trolleys in downtown Prague.  Driving east through the … Continue reading No. 136: More Modeling Considerations – The West Belt Line

Ackley, Iowa Layouts2 Comments

No. 135: Almost Perfect – Modeling the Milwaukee Road in Albert Lea

Golden1014

I was on the way back from a work trip to the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco a few weeks ago when I wrote this post. The travel day back home to Germany was an epic adventure and not in a good way. I expected a 10-hour travel day but got a 22-hour travel ordeal instead. Lufthansa gave me an extra present at the end of it all by losing my luggage. Anyway the extra nine hours I spent in the airport in Rabat, sitting and waiting for a flight, were used to write this post and a couple more. … Continue reading No. 135: Almost Perfect – Modeling the Milwaukee Road in Albert Lea

Hermitage Road Layouts1 Comment

No. 134: New Layout Considerations – The Milwaukee Road’s Mason City Freight House

Golden1014

In my quest to find a great place to model, I’m refining my focusing on an area I consider to be “home”.  Home is the area between the south end of Minneapolis and the north end of Mason City.  I never lived there but I spent a month up in Chanhassen, Minnesota visiting relatives each summer.  I learned very quickly to love life there. The Milwaukee Road terminal through Mason City was cool.  The Milwaukee had all the basics in Mason City, some of which can be seen in the map excerpt below.  In addition to the small yard and … Continue reading No. 134: New Layout Considerations – The Milwaukee Road’s Mason City Freight House

Prototype Topics, Railfanning & Museums2 Comments

No. 133: Brunswick, Maine Track Study

Golden1014

A few weeks ago I traveled to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to get my son to get his driver’s license.  Driving age here in Germany is 18, so we had it timed just right to arrive in Portsmouth and get his license on his 18th birthday. We stayed with our in-laws on the trip.  We spent some time with them, did a little shopping, and also went up to Brunswick, Maine for a few hours to visit Bowdoin College. The photo above is on the departure out of Frankfurt around 7:00 a.m. Frankfurt was levelled during the war by the British … Continue reading No. 133: Brunswick, Maine Track Study

Ackley, Iowa LayoutsLeave a comment

No. 132: Ackley Layout – Last M&StL Ops Session

Golden1014

In October I moved from our big, old house in Albersbach to a smaller, newer, more efficient house in Ramstein-Miesenbach. I took an entire week off from work, rented a large moving van and moved almost everything myself.  I hired a moving company to move the big stuff.  Then I had to completely clean the old house, to include patching holes, painting, and doing other routine maintenance I had put off over the years  The process took 12-14 hours a day for nine straight days, but I got it done.  Whew! Here’s the crew from the moving company, having a … Continue reading No. 132: Ackley Layout – Last M&StL Ops Session

Ackley, Iowa Layouts, Hermitage Road LayoutsLeave a comment

No. 130: Moving to Ramstein, and Maybe to a New Layout Too…

Golden1014

Labor Day In my last post I whined about how hard my summer has been.  It was, but today I’m happy to report I’ve still got all my fingers and toes, and the rebuilt shoulder is better than ever.  I played soccer the other day for the first time in 5-6 months and came away unscathed.  The family is doing great.  What is there to complain about! Trip to Dwingeloo To accelerate some relaxing, last month, over Labor Day weekend, I got away with my kids to the northwest corner of the Netherlands near a place called Dwingeloo National Park.  … Continue reading No. 130: Moving to Ramstein, and Maybe to a New Layout Too…

Ackley, Iowa Layouts3 Comments

No. 129: Three New Engines for the Fleet

Golden1014

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

Freight and Passenger Car Modeling, O Scale & Proto 48, People1 Comment

No. 128: Russell Tedder…and Progress on Proto48 Models

Golden1014

In 2008 I was bitten by the O scale bug. That summer I spent three weeks at Little Rock AFB with some Air Force ROTC cadets, and because they couldn’t drink, I didn’t either…so I spent a lot of evenings and weekends building models over in officer billeting.  It was on this trip that I met Russell Tedder, and my friendship with Russell and his crew made it a truly, truly memorable trip.  I’ll write a little more about Russell later. Anyway, one of Russell’s friends ran a great hobby shop just outside the air base, and in addition to … Continue reading No. 128: Russell Tedder…and Progress on Proto48 Models

Ackley, Iowa Layouts7 Comments

No. 127: Ackley Layout Ops Session (Seaboard Air Line)

Golden1014

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)