u/montystrains

While I don’t much care for “Covered Wagon” locomotives (such as E and F units) I DO have a thing for “Cowl” units. This is the first one on my roster, but certainly won’t be the last! Though this F45 wears Burlington Northern colors, I chose this particular road number because it was one of two sold to the New York, Susquehanna & Western. This allows me to plausibly operate it with my NYSW B40-8 (which will get its spotlight soon enough), as well as my Southern SD45. How does the Southern unit get in there? Well, for a short time, the NYSW was assigned to operate the ex-Delaware and Hudson service between Potomac yard and points north. This service often pulled Guilford power too, and Guilford owned several ex-Southern units. Throw in my Lego SF30C leaser, and you have a mighty four-engine lashup that I can conceivably throw ANY of my freight cars behind, and call it a plausibly realistic consist!

My L-Gauge model of BN F45 no. 6640 is equipped with two L motors connected to geared trucks, running off a Lipo battery powering a Blunami control system. Blunami makes it very easy to add sound and lights to my motive power, which means this engine gets a blinky roof light! I like the blinky roof light. Module in the photo was built by Kevin S.

Sometimes, all it takes is one picture to inspire a build… and sometimes that’s all you have to work with! I came across this interesting car in a book (X Car Color Guide). Shared the picture with some friends, who insisted that the load and car were 100% me and encouraged me to build one. So, I did! The Brighton corporation manufactured tank heads, and as far as I can work out, they owned exactly one gondola. It was modified with lower-hanging baskets in the floor and racks on the sides to accommodate very large tank heads. This is the only good picture I’ve found of it. I found a worse picture online, and a not-entirely-accurate limited-run model, so making the decals was an interesting challenge, but thankfully the photo in the book was enough to work with!

My L-gauge model is slightly longer than it should be, and yes one of the plates on the bottom right isn’t fully attached. I REALLY need to remember to check these things when I take roster shots of my equipment. I’m also not entirely happy with how I modeled the tank heads, they work out to 12x12 studs, but they don’t have like a rim around the bottom (couldn’t find any parts that would fit this role), and I had to include the dark tan plates to hold the dark bluish gray bits together. But it’s still a unique car, my friends were absolutely right that it’s something I would have on my roster, and now I do!

One of the highlights of the NMRA National Train Show in Chattanooga this past weekend was stopping by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum with a couple of my models to photograph them with their 1:1 scale counterparts. Unfortunately, Southern GP38-2 no. 5000 was unavailable for a photo op, but Central of Georgia 390 was in service on the Summerville Steam Special, and stopped in a perfect spot for photo purposes!

COG 390 was built as a coach-baggage combination car for use on the Nancy Hanks Special. When the COG was absorbed by the Southern railway, 390 was renumbered to 726 and after a time found itself in service on the steam excursions as a “Sound Recording Car.” One could purchase a ticket to ride in the open baggage doors and the car would be placed as close as possible to the front of the train so patrons could record the audio of working steam (video recording was not as prevalent at the time). The car survived into the Norfolk Southern era of the steam program until that ended in 1994. It was sold to the Western Maryland Scenic, eventually falling out of use and finding its way to TVRM, where it was restored to its original COG colors. Though it would be more appropriate for me to have built it in Pullman Green or Tuscan Red, I chose to build it in the original COG paint scheme for an extra splash of color in my L-gauge excursion consist. Note that the red banner on the big one is temporary for America’s 250^(th) and as such is not included on my model.

I didn’t notice until after I took the photos that a couple of pieces had fallen off the bottom of the car. I also had no plans to include MYSELF in the photographs, but my friends who were with me all insisted that I do so. So, imperfect photos, but a fun opportunity nonetheless. Thanks TVRM, hopefully one day I can return to get my Lego 5000 photographed with the big one!

As one of my past modeling mentors used to say: "A bad day playing with trains is better than a good day doing anything else!"

Tried to run my Southern Radio Train at the NMRA National Train Show in Chattanooga this past weekend, and right out of the storage box, my SD45 refused to move at all. I traded it out for my SF30C as a mid-train helper unit, and with the SD35 and SD24 up front, the train ran very smoothly for around 45 minutes... until this happened. The SD24 suffered enough that it didn't want to run anymore after this.

Video courtesy of a member of the public, who, like the rest of us, did not see this coming!

One of the high points of Brickworld Chicago for me was the return of my Ore Train, which has been out of service for a couple of years for multiple reasons. The train is seen here popping out of my tunnel and over Larry P's bridge on the LGMS layout. The locomotives received a complete rebuild, which included repairing the geared drivetrains. The 40 gondolas got new trucks (except for the ones that don't have new trucks yet, because I forgot that I ran out of truck parts back in January when I was working on it, and therefore did not order more) as well as decals. Apologies for the squeaky roller bearings, they don't sound terribly loud in person but the camera audio REALLY picks them up!

I haven't been posting much lately, kinda burned out on social media and took a break from Lego for a little while. However, with the summer show season fast approaching, it was high time to get to work on a variety of things! Not least of which, repairing my fleet. I've been trying to run my ore train at shows for over a year now, and every time the locomotives (first pic) crap out after a few minutes. Tore apart both 636's down to the frames (second pic), and rebuilt them entirely, including an overhaul of the gear drive systems. While I was at it, I also corrected their length and height (both were too short lengthwise and too tall heightwise) and made some minor adjustments to other details. There are some missing pieces here and there (third pic), replaced by odd colors until the Bricklink orders arrive. I'll be testing both locomotives this weekend at a WAMALTC show, and assuming all goes well, they'll be ready to run for Brickworld Chicago!