Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had a few relatively "good" days so I tackled a small art project over the past two days.  I decided to shoot some photos of my HO scale Dreyfuss Hudson steam locomotive which then, as usual, morphed into a larger project.   This distinctive steam locomotive was perhaps the most famous locomotive of the New York Central Railroad, specifically, of 20th Century Limited passenger service fame.  This was considered the fastest passenger train service between New York City and Chicago back in the 1940s.  The route ran up the Hudson River then traveled westward along the Great Lakes.  Today, this route is named the Lake Shore Limited, a route Sheila and I have traveled quite a few times.  Unfortunately, the Lake Shore Limited is not nearly as glamorous as the 20th Century Limited once was but it is nice to retrace this historic route nevertheless.  The Lake Shore Limited can be referred to as many things but glamorous is definitely not one of them. I...

A fter replacing the traction tires on my O scale MTH Hudson steam locomotive the other day, I put my O scale MTH RS-1 diesel locomotive on the test track for a test run too.  I figured it was a good time to maintain and test this diesel locomotive since I was on a roll with all these model railroading maintenance tasks.  Unfortunately, the moment this diesel engine started rolling, the traction tires broke off three of the four wheels with traction tires! I immediately ordered a new set of traction tires that should arrive in the next week.  Installing these four traction tires on this diesel engine should be even easier than replacing the traction tires on my Hudson steam locomotive.  My Hudson steam locomotive ended up being a much easier project that I thought it would be, which was great, but this diesel engine should be even easier.  In the meantime, I removed the RS-1 from the test track and removed the one traction tire that did not break apart.  Ev...

Back a couple of years ago, I happened to win an O scale (the old Lionel size) diesel locomotive on eBay for about $25. It runs on traditional 2 rails rather than 3 rails and can even run well on the tight curves necessary in a relatively small room (I have no room for large sweeping curves). I wanted to find a few more of these EMD F9 locomotives. About a week ago, someone advertised three of these locomotives up for auction on eBay. Finally! Long story short... I won the first one... was quickly outbidded for the second one... and then won the third one! The two diesels I won are still in the hands of the US Post Office but I'm already putting together a plan for this small fleet of locomotives. First, I needed to come up with a numbering scheme. There is a big "853" on the side of each of these diesels. Repainting is too much work so I decided to just add a suffix to each number...  853A, 853B, and 853C. This morning, I set out to create backlit numberboards for ...

My new O scale, 2 rail, F-unit diesel locomotive on a short test track...  (that yellow locomotive in the background is a Lionel GP unit on 3 rail track). My health has been quite lousy for the past week so I have not gotten much of anything accomplished in this new year. I don't want to write about my health right now so this blog post is about something less painful to read. The first good thing that happened this morning is that my health was in the "fair" range.  The next good thing that happened this morning is my car started! It is frigid here... well below zero with wind chills approaching -50 degrees. I know I need a new battery so it was a small miracle that my car actually started this morning.  I ran some errands and arrived home to find our postal carrier leaving a package at my door. Just yesterday, I had found a few trains online in eBay at great prices. These are all O scale, 2 rail (same size as the 3 rail Lionel trains everyone knows except u...