Before getting to modeling, here’s some railway preservation news from the Southwest Germany that you never knew you cared about. Back in August my wife noticed on the front page of our local newspaper, Die Wochenblatt, that a German steam … Continue reading No. 211: Structures for the Milwaukee Road H&D Line
At Chicagoland RPM in October, our friend Tony Koester revealed his latest project, an O scale Tribute Layout on the Wabash “High Line” branch from Bluffs, Illinois to Keokuk, Iowa, which he’s building in his four-season porch. The real railroad gained notoriety in the 1950s for its locomotives. Because of a spindly bridge across the Illinois River the ‘Bash used a small fleet of lightweight 2-6-0s exclusively on the line. The little engines got a lot of press as the steam era ended. The right-of-way was interesting too; it was a friendly little railroad, running through Illinois cornfield country on … Continue reading No. 203: Freight Cars for The High Line
I got sick of work last week so I took Friday off and went up to Litchfield, Illinois to visit my buddy Lonnie Bathurst. Lonnie has a large HO scale layout in the back half of his office building and we spent the whole afternoon cleaning track and upgrading scenery. Above. This is the Litchfield Train Group layout that was featured in RMC a few years ago. The layout needs some scenery work before their big annual open house during Christmas. Lonnie and I applied static grass and 40 to 50 feet of layout. We applied static grass to the … Continue reading No. 202: Scenery Work at the Litchfield Train Group…and Stalled Projects
I’ve had a busy few months of building. I’ve managed to finish building and painting five HO scale freight cars and completely finish three O scale cars, plus I got some good work done on a new building for the Hermitage Road layout. Here’s the long story of a new Sunshine Models kit that I built in the fall of 2022 and finally completed here in March 2024. This is a Sunshine Models Frisco Auto Car, Kit No. 40.6. I built this model a short while after moving back to the U.S. from Germany in the fall of 2022. The … Continue reading No. 194: Frisco Auto Car
Railroad Prototype Modeler 