Scattered Thoughts . . .

In the past few days, I had some hands-on experience with a new Lionel train set.  When I was a child, I used Lionel trains exclusively in my model railroading hobby.  I actually had a large model railroad in our attic.  By high school, I had progressed into more realistic trains in N scale (realistic track, realistic slow speeds, realistic direction control, realistic and detailed trains, etc) but I continued using my large Lionel model railroad on the other side of the attic space.   Sometime in the 1970s, Lionel started producing more toy-like plastic trains including their locomotives.  I'm sure they still had some of their higher end, highly detailed metal trains but I only had access to my friends' lower end new Lionel trains.  Unfortunately, my experience just the other day was with very low end, almost what I would consider junk, toy-like plastic Lionel trains.  This train set is very toy-like and, worse yet, likely to prove to be easily ...

I'm still slowly recovering from last week's attempt at a 'routine' colonoscopy which was anything but routine and only resulted in anaphylaxis and more than a week (at this point) of recovery. Overall, I'm still sticking close to the bathroom and I'm still feeling rather lousy. Considering all of this, I'm really not getting much accomplished and what little I do attempt to accomplish is on a rather small scale. In this case, it is 1/4" scale! I suspected I would need a long recovery from this procedure even if all went well so I had already stocked up on some supplies to accomplish a small model railroading project, little by little, as I felt up to it. So, by doing a little bit each day, I've been making a bit of headway on a long overdue model railroading project.  What prompted this project is that I needed a few different test tracks. As I was coming up with ideas on the best way to do this while also trying to save space I decided to c...

Most people simply buy manufactured train tracks to run their model trains. Some people will painstakingly build their model track just like building the real thing... railroad ties, rail, tie plates and spikes... and drive every single spike themselves. This option looks the best but it is a lot of tedious work. Some of us find some middle ground for various reasons. I'd prefer to be getting some work accomplished on the house outdoors but it is damp, wet and waterlogged out there so nothing is getting accomplished outdoors. Besides, since we are at the hospital every afternoon for Sheila's radiation treatment, there really is little time for any home renovations. By the time I set up all the tools, saw horses and materials, I would need to start cleaning up so we could eat lunch and then head to the hospital. Needless to say, I've been indoors for the past few months. Every fourth tie removed using a Dremel tool. I am currently indoors working on building a 12 fo...

I am always on the lookout for specific model trains in online auctions. (I have a long list of trains on my wish list!) Every month or two I find a few model trains that are on my list of trains that will work for my little fictional model railroad world I have designed and plan to build.  About two weeks ago, I found an auction for a few O scale  diesel locomotives. For those whom are not familiar with model train scales, trains in O scale are  Lionel-sized trains but these particular locomotives run on 2 rails rather than 3 rails. I've been on the lookout for a couple more of these locomotives so I can have a few on hand to use for parts. These trains are no longer in production so parts either need to be custom-made or salvaged from other locomotives. Now, here were four more of these F9 diesel locomotives.  The auction was to end in a week. I saved these locomotives to my eBay Watch List but, at the time, my interest wasn't fully there. I figured I would fo...

As I get older and as my health demands more sedentary hobbies, I've been squeezing in more and more model railroading to fill in for some more physically demanding activities that I've needed to drop from my life.  I've written before about plans for converting a room in the house to a "train room". This room already houses all my trains on shelves but I intend to someday start building a good sized O scale model railroad layout. When I've written about this in the past, I shared some preliminary plans for this layout.  This layout runs around the walls and will be designed around some custom shelving units. I purposely designed this layout so that I'll still have access to a walk-in closet and a workbench/desk. The plan is coming together. Since the weather has not been allowing me to work on the house, I've been doing more and more sketching of ideas as rest on the couch. The plan really is coming along and it seems to be a very realistic plan...

For the past two or three weeks (it seems like two or three months, actually), Sheila and I have been completely immersed in cancer stuff with little time nor energy for much else.  We've definitely eaten out significantly more often because we simply have had no time to cook on far too many days. All of our attention and all of our energy has been actively and acutely focused on doing everything possible to get beyond Sheila's cancer.  Yesterday morning, Sheila was a bit too emotional for driving to work nevermind working through the day so, instead of driving to work while trying to see through a wall of tears, she called work and arranged to have the day off to regroup. The dreaded thought and knowledge of lymph involvement and metastatizing of her breast cancer was a bit too overwhelming so we called a timeout from everything and we spent the day together doing "normal" things for a change. I took Sheila out to lunch and, for the most part, we talked abou...

My health is still consistently 'poor'...  since January, for the most part. I really haven't gotten much of anything done around the house as a result. Unfortunately, my 'to-do' list continues to grow. I'm really itching to feel well enough to do something significantly productive!   W hile my health tries to recover, I've been occupying my waking hours on the couch with creating sketches of plans for the train room. There are a LOT of things on my 'to-do' list before I can even begin to try to tackle this project but it is always nice to have a plan! It is also nice to exercise my brain while my body recovers.  The room is 12' x 8'... so, it is a decently sized room.  I've already done some work in this room including installing new flooring, a new walk-in closet and new heating. I still need to build the little workbench alcove on the lower right side of the image, finish the ceiling, and build high-end bookcases.   Underneath...

Although I am not ready to start building my little railroad in our newly designated "train room", I am working on a plan whenever I feel up to it and I am envisioning it in my imagination. I also buy products as I find them on sale or, if previously used, at a great price. At this point, I have quite a collection of trains so much of my focus has turned to designing a layout plan for this small room. There are a few issues to overcome because the room is so small and, subsequently, some track would need to be lift out or portable but last night I found an unexpected problem with some of the track I plan to use for this model railroad layout. Some of the track will be handlaid simply because no commercial manufacturer makes what I need for my dual-gauge mainline track. So, I'll be gluing down wood ties... then actually spiking rail to the ties just like in the real world. For the remainder of the track which will run through villages and down by the docks, I will use ...

Here is a quick video from this past weekend of Lukey running my New York Central passenger train... well, really, only half of the train.  He seems to be liking this newly upgraded locomotive as much as I do! I have other video clips of Lukey running that Alaska GP-38 diesel locomotive that is sitting alongside the tracks in this video above. It is funny... while he was running the big Hudson steam locomotive, he ran it at realistic speeds... while he was running the Alaska GP-38 diesel, he ran it at a lightning speed like it was a bullet train!   Shortly afterward, he turned the diesel over to Kenzie's control...  I'm not sure I have any video of that though...

It is always fun playing with trains with Lukey and, as much as I enjoy playing with trains myself, it is perhaps even more fun watching Lukey play with trains! On this particular day this past weekend, I was able to shoot some photos as well as some video of Lukey as he played. The grandkids were at our house through the weekend again so that allowed me to get some nice photos of them in action (some photos of Kenzie will be added in another blog entry). Lukey will be back this weekend to run some trains again. This weekend, however, we'll be running Lukey's HO scale trains and giving some of my narrow gauge trains a run (these narrow gauge trains can run on Lukey's HO scale layout).   This past weekend, Lukey and I played with my newly upgraded O scale Hudson steam locomotive. The track was sprawled out across the living room, around the coffee table and then under the coffee table.  He seemed impressed with all the upgrades which made playing a lot more interesting...

From this angle, you can see the tender marker lights and the firebox glowing in the cab. As I wrote in a previous blog entry a couple of days ago, my O scale MTH Hudson steam locomotive arrived back from the shop. I had sent it in about a month ago to have some major upgrades installed so I was pretty excited to get it back... especially to have received it in the days right after our annual train show excursion! I had the ProtoSound electronics upgraded from version 1.0 to version 3.0. This upgrade is a significant sound upgrade as well as a very significant control upgrade. Slow speed control is outstanding now... slow and steady... chuffing smoke... the sound is great and it runs silky smooth.  This upgrade also included the ability to control the rear coupler with my controller. And, naturally, this useful feature includes an uncoupling sound as it uncouples.   While it was in the shop, I had marker lights added on the front of the locomotive and the rear of th...

I took a much needed break from our plumbing project today for two reasons... actually, we defaulted to a short break involuntarily... 1. I needed some additional parts so the project was on hold until I could get out to pick up what is needed (which we did tonight)... and...  2. My spinal injuries needed a much needed break. My spinal pain from the little bit of work I've already done has made sleeping and getting around difficult and painful to say the least.  As you can probably imagine, it was a good time for a short break from these frustrating (and stinky) plumbing issues so, as our train show extended weekend fast approaches, I turned my attention to a set of passenger cars I found under our Christmas tree last month. This classic passenger set is a set of four New York Central 20th Century Limited passenger cars... a baggage car, a coach car, a vista dome car, and an observation car.  These are all in O scale (Lionel size) and I have to say I am q...