Model Train Journal

What's the old saying, "March winds bring April showers"...bring it, I'm sick of listening to the furnace running!

Up to Sarge's yesterday for a bit of frivolity and had a few minutes to look over his preps for an upcoming operating session. Here's an iPhone shot of Shawmut Terminal Alco S-2 #90 ready for work:



In the meantime, it's tax season...yea!

Marx tinplate:



I was looking through a bunch of pics of vintage Marx stuff and noticed this one. It looks like this is running on two-rail Marx tinplate track that has a "third-rail" added to it in the form of a wire. Kind of interesting.

Photo courtesy of Drew Black.

healey36 wrote:Here's an iPhone shot of Shawmut Terminal Alco S-2 #90 ready for work:

That is a sharp photo, Healy. They don't make cellphone cameras like they used to. The first commercially available phone with a camera, released in 2000, had a 0.11 megapixel camera. The normal camera in my Galaxy A11 is 13 MP, f/1.8, 28 mm.

Do you know whose layout the S-2 is on? I noticed the PECO track. The track reminded me of the time I ordered PECO's Railway Modeler magazine while on the internet. Two hours later, I was in Harbor Freight in Tucson, Arizona, and my credit card failed. When I got home, I called the bank and asked why my credit card was rejected. The answer was, "Because your card was used in Underleys, Beer, Seaton, Devon, England, and two hours later, someone tried to use it in Tucson, Arizona. I knew you could not get from England to Arizona two hours, so I cancelled your card!"

I responded, "I was in England and Arizona two hours apart. I purchased a magazine from England via the internet, and two hours later, a tool in Arizona, where I live. Uncancel my card."

The bank responded, "We can't do that!"

Anyway, why does the layout have Rails in Chairs track?

healey36 wrote:Marx tinplate:
It looks like this is running on two-rail Marx tinplate track that has a "third-rail" added to it in the form of a wire. Kind of interesting.

I have done the wire in the center of O two rail track for photographs of Lionel three rail engines or cars when I wanted the the look of two rail with the smoke units and lights on. The wire was short, so it was hidden under the car or engine.

I am considering a wire between the center and outside rail for running this German Electric locomotive on three rail track.


I am running it with overhead wire right now.

webenda wrote:Do you know whose layout the S-2 is on? I noticed the PECO track.

Anyway, why does the layout have Rails in Chairs track?

Yup, as I mentioned, the photo was shot on Sarge's layout a week or so ago. The S-2 figures into an operating session he's planning.

As to why Peco track, it's some of the nicest two-rail scale stuff I've seen and I imagine he has a good supply of it.

That's a terrific Marklin electric you've got there.

healey36 wrote:Yup, as I mentioned, the photo was shot on Sarge's layout a week or so ago. The S-2 figures into an operating session he's planning.

As to why Peco track, it's some of the nicest two-rail scale stuff I've seen and I imagine he has a good supply of it.

That's a terrific Marklin electric you've got there.

"Peco track is "...some of the nicest...""
I agree. I have a couple of sections of Gauge 0, Peco 2 rail.

That is Sarge's layout? Wow! The last time I saw a picture of his layout, I don't remember any scenery.
I hope you visit Sarge more often and take another photo of his layout.

The Marklin running qualities are like nothing else I have.

Yeah, he "scenic'd" it a few years ago and it looks terrific. Like everyone, I think it's fair to say he's still tweaking it for details, but that's a fun process.

Scenery, as I did it back when I was into N-gauge, was never done. Seemed I was always tearing sections out and rebuilding them, often having discovered a better technique for something I'd done years earlier. It's an evolution.

"The Marklin running qualities are like nothing else I have," meaning exceptionally good or bad? I have a small passenger set pulled by an 890 steam loco that's a very smooth runner, but it's power requirements are a bit higher then the American stuff.



I got this from Ray Ellen over at Vienna Station a few years back...it's a fun run.

healey36 wrote:"The Marklin running qualities are like nothing else I have," meaning exceptionally good or bad?

Good! Biggest thing I find pleasing is the smooth sound of 10 tiny spur gears meshing.

webenda wrote:I hope you visit Sarge more often and take another photo of his layout.

Wayne, here's a few pics of Sarge's empire...I had to group them as I'm getting short on space in my hosting service:



Even with its complexities, it operates flawlessly (likely due to the great care he took in building it and the ongoing task of maintaining/improving it). It's terrific fun to have the opportunity to participate in one of his operating sessions.

healey36 wrote:Wayne, here's a few pics of Sarge's empire...

Even with its complexities, it operates flawlessly (likely due to the great care he took in building it and the ongoing task of maintaining/improving it). It's terrific fun to have the opportunity to participate in one of his operating sessions.

Thank you, Healey. That method of senicking is so clever. None of the scenery interferes with the operation, it is almost all in the background.
And it is so well done. It is a delight to look at those photos.

Healey, you posted the images on Thursday. I saw them but could not reply because I was in Vanderbilt Cardiology waiting for the doctors to decide what to do about the angina that I was experiencing. On Saturday, they finally decided to put a stent in one of the vein sections that had been used for my quadruple bypass surgery 20 years ago. The surgeon fed the stent in through an artery in my wrist to my heart. I was fully awake for this one; no local anesthesia was required.

It did hurt when the surgeon sliced my wrist open to locate the deep Radial Artery. I heard him say, "It's not there, on to plan B."
He made another slice and said, "There it is."
It hurt again as he jammed the catheter into the vein. From then on... no more pain.
I watched the monitor as they injected dye and located the blockage.
Then I watched as a balloon was inflated to open the artery.
And then... the stent was installed by blowing it up into the artery wall.
The catheter was removed and a bracelet was put over the incisions and inflated.
Overnight the bracelet was deflated a little at a time. My hand changed from blue, to red, to flesh color and the bracelet was removed.

I love it when I get to watch things like this.

The body is built wonderfully, allowing such medical procedures to be performed. For example, while my Radial Artery was blocked by having a big ol catheter rammed into it, the ulnar artery supplied blood to my hand.



I praise you because in an awe-inspiring way I am wonderfully made.
--Psalm 193:14

You're a better man than me, Wayne; I'd have passed out when he unsheathed the scalpel.

Hopefully a quick recovery from this procedure. I'm hopeful that I'll not have this issue to deal with, at least not soon. Twenty months ago I had a CT scan of the heart to look to see if there might be any blockages...it came back 0%, which I find hard to believe given all of the mayonnaise sandwiches I've eaten over the years. My family history is a bit inconsistent, but given the recent Type II DB diagnosis, I presume I need to be mindful.

Anyway, glad you sailed through and had "fun" doing it.

For your amusement, my wife's been wanting a second dog for about a year, and we've been debating what to look for. She's a great lover of retrievers, but I've been thinking a dog that size might be too much for us in just a few years. It came to a head on last Friday evening when a call came in from my daughter about an available pup at the friend of a friend, the last in an eleven pup litter. We had a house full of people at the time, so there wasn't much opportunity to rationally discuss. Knowing how much she wanted another, though, I told her to go ahead and grab her and we went and picked her up on Saturday morning. She's a heartbreaker:



That's 10 year-old Kenzie on the left, 10 week-old Piper on the right. They seem to get along fine, Kenzie mostly finding the whole situation amusing. The parents were relatively small as far as retrievers go, so there's hope this one might not grow into a 80-pound monster.

For now it's primarily a mop and bucket exercise. It's only been six days and honestly, she's wearing me out

I missed the operating session at Sarge's this past weekend due to the last-minute dog situation, and that was unfortunate as he had an interesting scenario scripted and some interesting equipment on the layout.

I do agree with you, his scenery is terrific, a combination of industrial-type flats against a backdrop of progressive Appalachian-type ridges. It all looks great and works well with what he's trying to replicate in his sessions.

Beautiful Golden Retrievers, Healey.

My wife has Type II Diabetes. Keeping blood sugar down is a curse. Even looking at a chocolate cake seems to send her sugar level climbing.

healey36 wrote:Hopefully a quick recovery from this procedure.

24 Hours of not using the hand. (I drove home.)
Two weeks of not straining the heart (like lifting no more than 10 lbs.)

Our dog is a Yellow Labrador Retriever mix. He is white with freckles.

A lab is a terrific dog, and he looks like a fine example.

Glad to hear you followed instructions, lol. I presume you drove one-handed.