Waldorf and Statlers Photo Of The Day!

[BATMAN]

Tom, there are a few more videos on You-Tube. Just search "steam elephant". A model of that would take an hour or two to get around the layout.

Here is another HD look.

["JaBear"]

BATMAN

60 MPH on the commute! I didn't waste time on my commute. Had this baby North of 260 KMH a few times.

If the constabulary were to catch someone doing that speed here, not only would it be automatic loss of licence but also a case of go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Looks like I have some interesting videos to catch up on.

Cheers, the Bear.

[BATMAN]

If the constabulary were to catch someone doing that speed here, not only would it be automatic loss of licence but also a case of go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.SadCrying

Same here Bear, although the laws were just toughened up in just the last few years. I wouldn't be doing that now. Plus I am just too old for that kind of thing.

You have to realize the country is large and the population is small it is easy to escape to a place where you can put your car through its paces. For several years I had a 50KM commute at 0500Hrs where I had a beautiful highway the whole way and often would never see another soul on the road. Hitting moose and bear ( of the 4 legged kind ) were more of a concern. I only saw a Mountie on a couple of occasions over the years and he didn't seem much interested.

I had a few family members in the RCMP and when I needed a break I would head up North and go on Patrol with my cousin. Six hours up the highway and six hours back for the once a day patrol. We would hardly see a another person the whole trip. I do have some stories that would have you rolling on the floor though.

I wish my modeling skills were such that I could build one of these early steamers in HO. You would need an awfully small motor  for it. How would I ever get that hand held Bugle/horn sound into the decoder.

The stephenson's Rocket is my favourite.

[BATMAN]

Now this is cool.

Lucky kid.

It's my birthday in two days. What are the chances?????? I'll E-Mail this to the wife.

[rrinker]

 I have the Hornby/Tri-Ang 00 Rocket set. Always loved that thing. The one I have was from the AT&T days - no, not the phone company.

 There was an interesting large scale live steam version in the late 70's/early 80's. MR reviewed it. And tested it. The Bull Session from that issue is one of the funniest ever - they took it to Andy Sperandeo's house and first tried it in his drivewya, but it wasn't completely level so they get the bright idea to try it on his pool deck. One submerged steam engine later....  The picture accompanying the story shows Andy after having dived in and retrieved the loco. Didn't seem to hurt the loco any.

            --Randy

["JaBear"]

BATMAN

You have to realize the country is large and the population is small it is easy to escape to a place...........

While on an intellectual level it’s easy to accept that Canada is a big place, the fact is when you come from a country where theoretically the furthest you can be from either coast is a 5 hour drive and, provided the ferry sailing is timed right, drive from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island in 30 hours,(at the speed limit), seeing is believing. I have travelled, for work, to Horn Island at the top of Australia’s Cape York Peninsular, the flight across the Tasman Sea  to Sydney took about 3 ¾ hours, then from Sydney to Cairns 3 hours and then another 2 hours to Horn Island, so I do have some idea of BIG, 

An avid Hornby collector at the local club brought down and, surprisingly, ran his prize Rocket, with the original box, on the club Hornby layout. You should have seen the look he gave me when I suggested that it would look a lot better if there were a couple of suitably attired gents on the foot plate. I’m no longer on his Christmas card list.

I found this video very interesting from the point of view that one of my favourite jobs was  part of a team who overhauled beat up ,scruffy , tired crop dusters and sent them back out for another eight years hard labour. I like observing professionals at work.  Also a prototype for a shelf switching layout for someone who has 100+ early Life Like, Bachman or busted locos.

 

Cheers, the Bear.

 

[rrinker]

 Funny you mention putting a crew on the footplate of the Rocket. The set I have - came with a pair of decorated figures to set there!

                       --Randy

["JaBear"]

You sure you haven’t got a ersatz Rocket, Randy? Though I do see that one of Brents links show the crew, looks a lot better in my opinion.

Cheers, the Bear.

[rrinker]

 Holy cow, someone managed to put DCC in one!

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/34949-trianghornby-rocket/

This is the set I have, but there's only 3 total cars, not 4.

http://www.vectis.co.uk/AuctionImages/371/563_l.jpg

In the box with the loco and one coach you can see the two figures.

Also see here, this is the ATT packaging for import: http://www.tri-ang.co.uk/oonew/attrocket.htm

                         --Randy

[steemtrayn]

["JaBear"]

Not sure where you're would put the motor, let alone the decoder!

Cheers, the Bear.

["JaBear"]

Finally had the time to watch this. Found it very interesting, not sure I would be quick enough to man the inspection post between the rails in the hump yard.

I was surprised to see the modified gondola for the cement containers, (one was my first kit bash), there must have been more of those cars than I had imagined.

 

 

Cheers, the Bear

["JaBear"]

Duplicate post!!

["JaBear"]

hon3critter Daves project and Grampys Train TOFC photo over in this WPF,

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/244937.aspx

rattled the memory banks and came up with this....

Cheers, the Bear.

["JaBear"]

In my quest for more information on Detroit River Car Ferries, I came across this.....

........which while not actually relevant, still helped by giving me some more food for thought.

Cheers, the Bear.

[steemtrayn]

"Photo of the week" would be a more accurate title.

["JaBear"]

 wp8thsubs link to the Utah Rail site, for the purposes of looking at coal carrying cars, also contained some on information on their McKeen Rail car.

http://donstrack.smugmug.com/UtahRails/UtahRailway/Utah-Railway-Miscellaneous/

I had seen the ads for the brass Mckeen railcars trawling through the old MRs, and they struck me, in design, as un-American, to me they look like something that the French would have come up with, with some prompting from Jules Verne.

So I was quite surprised to see that so many had been built, 152?, and that one has been restored.

 

Pretty 

Cheers, the Bear.

[BATMAN]

I loved the Indian on rails. I wonder what kind of speed that thing can do? It reminded me of the movie "The worlds fastest Indian" (edited to correct title) with Anthony Hopkins. I think the movie was based on a true story and it is well worth a watch.

Bear I enjoyed the great lakes rail ops video. We have a rail ferry similar that runs from Vancouver over to Vancouver Island. Google Image "Seaspan and/or CP rail ferries" and some should come up. I wonder if there is a video.

Im off to a train show (hopefully) this weekend and will be keeping an eye out for Stephensons Rocket or Bachmanns Planet and maybe even a Steam Elephant. There are usually a lot of european modelers at some of our shows up here, so I'll start asking around. I think a RR museum will be required on the layout to run these things. I don't think I am up to adding decoders to these at my current level of electronic experience so it will be a DC museum.

I've been meaning to post this little video or maybe I already have Let me know if we get into reruns, after all this is a low budget operation.

["JaBear"]

I loved the Indian on rails. I wonder what kind of speed that thing can do?

 

I’m not really up on vintage American motorcycles, so I won’t be too upset if my guess that the Indian is a 1915/16 model is wrong. I doubt that the rail contraption get anywhere near the bikes top speed of 55 mph, and looking at its brakes that would probably be a good thing. Still it would sure beat walking.

http://www.carpictures.com/vehicle/00C18432420289/Indian-Motorcycle-C-3-Big-Twin-red-1915

The World’s Fastest Indian is based on a true story though history was compressed, and altered for the film. My Dad had been to Burt Munros garage and said that the movie got it right as far as he remembered it, and as a teen interested in motorcycles and going to high school in Invercargill in the early to mid 70s I was well aware of his exploits but because of his eccentricities he was not as well regarded by the general public as the film makes out. I raced at a meeting on Oreti Beach at which Burt was pointed out to me, the year before he passed way, but with the ignorance/arrogance (?) of youth never actually took the chance to meet him.

There is now an annual Burt Munro Rally held in Southland each year.

Cheers, the Bear.  

[BATMAN]

Bear, thanks for correcting me on the title of the film. I think I'll give it another watch in the near future.

I had a Honda CB500 Four in the 1970s for several years, I got it just North of 100MPH on a few occasions. However my good friend who builds and Drag races old Chevy Vegas use to also have a garage full of enduro dirt bikes and a selection of Japenese crotch rockets. I won't tell you how fast we got going on those out in Moose and bear country.

That train in the video must have been going awfully slow if that was time lapse. The decoder programmer must be a genius.

Found this on the "old time trains" site. From Winnipeg, my home town and the place Winnie the Pooh was named after. Why people still live there is beyond me. JUST KIDDING! I can sense all my relatives picking up their phones now. Did I mention the Cherry Blossoms have been out for a month on the West coast.

My Grandfather use to be a roundhouse wrench turner for CN. I now know why he took a couple of promotions and got himself into a warm office. I don't think it was a good idea to actually run the steam engines in the roundhouse in winter.

 

 

[BATMAN]

Went to a train show and saw "The guitar case switching puzzle" in TT scale.

A couple of other TT scale layouts built on foam that could be taken apart very quickly. There seems to be a little more TT scale represented every time I go to a train show.

I got away with spending only $2.50 this trip.

 

[BATMAN]

 

[BATMAN]

Many's the time I have been out on the chuck with a beer in one hand and fishing rod in the other with not a chance of catching a Salmon. The Orca that often surround our boat stick their heads out of the water smiling at us going NA NA NA NA NA. However many's the time I have seen this rail barge and other similar ones, plying the waters up the inside passage from way down South in Seattle up to Alaska. A bad day fishing beats hanging around the house and at least we have lots to look at as the day(s) go by.

The cargo being loaded is becoming more commonplace these days, I did think the cradles (as well as the cargo itself) used to hold the blades on the cars would make for an interesting scratchbuilding project, for the more talented and creative members among us. The cradles were not all the same colour which makes me wonder if they just use leftover paint on them.

The video shows the barge being move back and forth as it is loaded. I'll have to see if there is a video of them being unloaded up in Alaska.

[BATMAN]

There is some mighty fine larger scale modeling towards the end of this film, by kids no less! Watch out at the 9:12 mark, I think that's Frank driving the truck.

[crhostler61]

I was thinking about this photo today. I shot it on Sept 21,1980. It was either the second or third run of C&O 614 on Sand Patch. 

http://mark2102.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3840943

And what a challenge it was to get to this very rural spot in SW Pennsylvania. 220 miles of fog, drizzle, more fog, then rain...not to mention having a navigator who had a difficult time reading topo maps. The shot worked...against all odds.

Just a fond memory I thought I'd toss in here.

Mark H

["JaBear"]

crhostler61

Just a fond memory I thought I'd toss in here.

A fond memory and a great photo to go with it, thanks for sharing, Mark.

 

I’m enjoying the variety, Batman though loading that barge was particularly interesting as water/rail operations are my focus at this time.

This first one of the SS Badger may not contain any trains but the actual docking to the apron was interesting from the point of view that cables were attached to the dock then the slack taken up. I was also thinking that there would be no sleeping-in, in those houses alongside the inner harbour channel when the Badgers horn sounded off.

I got really excited with both Wabash films as they both contained, though unfortunately only very short snippets of Detroit River car ferry “Windsor” and while I think the 1950s film may be a little hokey it contained a lot of good stuff.

 

 

 

Cheers, the Bear.

 

[BATMAN]

Mark, that is a great shot. I felt cold and damp just looking at it. Hope to see more!

As Bears Detroit barge traffic has dwindled over the years and I have tunnels on my mind today, for some reason, here is a little ditty on the Windsor Detroit tunnel. Talk about tight fits! I wouldn't want to be a mouse in there when a train came through.

Does anyone model this? Lots of other famous tunnels get space on layouts, I wonder if this one has shown up on a layout somewhere?

[BATMAN]

Back in the mid nineties I had a few day stop over in England on my way to somewhere. I stayed with my cousin down near Portsmouth. He commanded one of the newer frigates in the Royal Navy. He took me for a tour of the Navy yard, his ship and a submarine no less. Afterwards we went and had a few pints at a pub that had been frequented by the likes of Captain(s) Cook, Vancouver and other navy legends such as Lord Nelson. I remember the timber floor dipped about six inches as it was the original timber, and had just worn down over the centuries.

On the way back to his house we saw a steam train out on a tourist excursion.  These babies move. All of the steam jaunts I have gone on in North America have just cruised along at a slow, but quite enjoyable pace. They don't seem to waist time in the "old country". I guess those of us that model european steam excursions must really have good trackwork.

Next time you think packing up and getting to a train show is a lot of work........

Wiki stories here, if interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4489_Dominion_of_Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4496_Dwight_D_Eisenhower

 

And a little something representing "Bears" neck of the woods.

["JaBear"]

BATMAN

And a little something representing "Bears" neck of the woods.

Thanks Batman, Just a piece of trivia but the original “Dominion of New Zealand” was fitted with a New Zealand Railways  5 chime whistle, which from several accounts I’ve read caused nostalgia and even a touch of homesickness from expatriate New Zealanders who heard it. An NZR 5 chime was loaned for the period that the “Bittern” was shopped out as the “Dominion of New Zealand”.

An NZR 5 chime in home territory, (and on a Ja!)

Found that Detroit Windsor Tunnel video very interesting.

Cheers, the Bear. 

[crhostler61]

Since joining the MR forums, nearing 2 years ago, I recall a number of threads discussing and showing favorite 'critters', often very humorously. I didn't have any of my photos ready at those times...but I do now. So here is my favorite 'critter'.

http://mark2102.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3842121

This critter was operated by Conrail at the Enola shop, and as far as I know NS still uses it. It's sole purpose in life is to move locomotives in and out of the wheel true building. It's a Blomberg B truck with one traction motor. It's powered by a set of locomotive starting batteries and operated by radio control by the wheel true operator. The cable plugged into it's side in the photo is the battery charger plugin.

This is one cool little critter.

Mark H