Stay tuned!

 Happy holidays and wishing everyone a Happy New Year!  2023 is already looking up for the Spindletop!

Aaaaaand We're Back

Well it has certainly been an eventful several months since the last update!  After getting out to California back in early February, I spent six months living in a guest room at my friend's house who was kind enough to house us.  Especially since I had my wife and dogs with me.  During that time I bought a few new trains, but suffice to say there was no room for modeling or building.  Everything sat in a storage center the whole darn time...  Now though we are officially in our own home and I have started my new job!  I have also joined up with the local train club, the Eastern Sierra Railroad Society.  They are really great guys with a wide skill set who make me feel welcome, much like the club back in College Station.  On the negative side, our new house does not have a readily available train room.  There is a nice shed in the back yard though that could serve as a layout space once it is upgraded.  Maybe something like the HOG layout or Shaun Toman's layout will work.  For now, I am restricted to only working on locos and cars as I am sharing space in my wife's home office.

With that, here is a quick summary of the train stuff I have been working on since the last post.

New tank cars!  I grabbed a three pack on eBay for under a $100 including one with an EOT by Ring Engineering.  I haven't had one of these before and they are really nice!  I have also picked up a few others so I have pretty decent length chemical train.

I have fully weathered my Chessie train.  For those of you who have not seen my old blog from college, this train is the first I had after getting back into HO.  It is a mix of old and new stock, including some of the first cars I ever owned.  I modeled the Chessie because I love the engines and the scenery the railroad went through.  But then I switched to my own freelance line so this train fell by the wayside.  However it is now complete!  I ran it as my debut train at the club and received a lot of positive feedback.  I'll cover this one next time.

Next I upgraded my SD45T-2 to a dual speaker setup.  There is a big Railmaster high base speaker above the air intakes and now a smaller, regular Railmaster speaker in the cab.  This gives it a wider and louder sound range which is great in a crowded club.

Lastly I have finally upgraded my primary SRR locomotive, 1989.  She now has ditch lights!  These are some rather large SMDs that have been glued to the original ditch light details and installed in the cab headlight.  I am probably going to have to tone them down at some point as they are so bright.  However I am very pleased with them as I now have a ditch light equipped SRR locomotive in the modern scheme.

As for real trains, I have had a chance to get several awesome shots around these parts.  I have even been to Tehachapi Loop finally!  Lemme tell you, that is an awesome experience.  Even the wife had fun!

I'm hoping to not be too lazy as to not start posting pictures with these posts, but only time will tell!

2017!

Man, what a year 2016 turned out to be huh?  So many things happened nationally, internationally, and personally.  There was a lot of great stuff, good stuff, bad stuff, and pass-the-bourbon stuff.  So much came, and so much went.  But that this is the essence of time; it is always moving.  And so must we!  Literally.

First, here is to 2017 being a better year than those before it!

Second, this is going to be an information update only post.  No pictures this time, but prepare for an onslaught in the coming posts!

The reasons for my lack of updates have been plentiful.  July was spent getting the bikes worked on and rode.  At the end of July, the wife and I went on vacation to beautiful Denmark for two weeks.  That was a great trip that even included train rides and model train visits.  Anyways.  After the vacation there was a ton of random stuff going on including insane work loads and family activities.

Then around the end of September my wife got the call.  She was offered the job she had applied for in California!  That has caused a huge flurry of activity that has kept me away from model trains almost entirely until recently.  We spent the time between September and mid-November getting our house ready to sell.

This did unfortunately include the removal of my layout...  I saved what I could and got it safely boxed away in storage.  The rest, aside from the yard module, has been scrapped.  Thankfully, my realtor agreed one module makes the room look better than removing it entirely.

Modeling will be picking up though now!  In addition to having the house officially listed and being viewed, my wife has already ventured to Cali.  She starts work on Monday but I can't move out there with here until the house is sold.  Her new job pays well but not two mortgages well.  So until the house sells, I am making the best of it by getting back into the modelling habit.  Now if only my job would give me more time off...

I cannot do much for running trains, but I have been getting things done.

A friend on a Facebook buy/sell group for model trains put me in touch with a modeler here in Houston who was getting out of the hobby.  He wanted to sell his entire collection which was truly vast.  I would estimate well over a thousand cars.  He also had several structures, locomotives, details, and other items he was off loading.  And it is all modern!  So now I have my rolling stock collection has more than doubled.  I also picked up a complete Sunset Limited consist of coaches in the new Walthers Plated Phase IVb scheme, several structures, a lot of details, and made a new friend.

Hopefully I can go get more stuff soon.  In addition, I picked up a Kato Amtrak Phase IV heritage P42 with Loksound!  Talk about a beast!

I also got out and took a ton of pictures of stuff.  I have a list of things to see and do train-wise in the great state of Texas before I leave her so I hope to be posting that stuff soon too.  My next post will have pictures from my trip to a long abandoned bridge that is actually going to be a major focal point of the SRR and my next layout.

So much more has been going on and I hope to get to all of it while I get ready to transition to California.  In the mean time, here is to hoping 2017 is a great year full of good things and good times.

Until next time!

Update on July 4th

Happy Independence Day to y'all in the USA!  

Life has been good lately, just not for trains!  I have picked up two new hobbies that have been consuming most of my time.  I expect them to continue to do so also…  

First is welding.  I grabbed a cheap little 70amp setup and have been abusing it.  Even made a frame for my dad for one of his projects!  My next goal is to make a pull up bar.  All I need is some metal pipe.

Second is my wife and I got motorcycles.  I don’t know how many of y’all have one or have driven one, but there are no words.  The best I can say is it is glorious.  I never cared to get or ride one, but my wife was interested so we took the class.  I sat on that little practice bike and suddenly I was hooked.  Now we spend most nights getting some wind therapy.  Below is a picture of Peggy, my Suzuki VL1500.  She weighs in at about 900 lbs with a 1500CC motor.  She has some awesome custom pipes that make her loud enough to be heard on the highway and she handles like a dream.  On a related note I have a new belief: you never see a motorcycle outside a therapist’s office for a reason.

 As far as trains and model railroading goes, there have been some good developments over the past several months.  

First is a Digitrax Zephyr Extra system.  It replaced my old MRC Prodigy express which quit programming locomotives randomly.  It is simple and direct and a great starter system that I will be expanding soon.  I am looking at JMRI with a phone app to control the trains through wifi.

Next, is the layout has buildings!  Unfortunately, the train club down in Galveston has been forced to close.  If you have never had the chance to see it in person (I have not seen it operating, only being disassembled) then I will only say it is incredible what was done. I saw bridges that were over 15 feet in length and 6 feet tall. It was well built and a beautiful example of a club layout. However, they are giving other modelers a chance to enhance their layout or find a memento. For around $250 I picked up all of these buildings and trees.  I will post on these in detail later.  If they have another sale, I will be getting more trees and maybe some of the train stuff.   I would love to pick up the 15 named passenger trains they had but let’s be honest: I ain’t got that kind of money.

Two new engines and the excursion train are on the layout and almost complete!

Anyways, I am going to get back to work on life!

For the random picture of the day:

This is an interesting generator load on a super flat car.  It was at the front end of a autorack train that the BNSF genset is setting out.  I was able to grab a quick shot of it while waiting at a red light.  I would love to build one of these one day.  It is a great subject since it would not require a special move but would add a twist to operations.

Going Full Circle

Alright so for this post I would like to give a quick overview of how I have gotten the layout to go full circle again.

 

After all of the uncertainty that has arisen over the past couple of months with moving, I decided to bring the rest of the layout back to life.  In my previous setup, the connectors that ran from one end of the modeled layout around the room to the other were supported by angled shelf brackets that were secured to the wall studs.  This time around, I cannot do this as we may or may not be moving.  So now I had to come up with new methods.

 

I had some constraints.  First, I hate floor supports.  They and my toes do not get along.  Plus, the connectors will not see much weight.  So I wanted to avoid those as much as possible.  Second, I wanted to follow the rules of simplicity.  As few curved sections as possible, easy alignments, simple entrance/exits, that sort of thing.  Third, I had budget constraints.  Consume as little funds as possible.

This greatly limited my options but part of the fun I have with this hobby is learning new things.  So I turned to my trusty friend the internet and set out to find new possibilities and solutions.  After a few days of searching, several options presented themselves and I worked with them as best as possible.

 

To keep curved sections to a minimum, I built extensions to the exiting layout.  They are the standard 1x4 with ½” plywood fare I have been using.  I have removed the floor supports and added bracing to keep them level with the rest of the layout.  Track on top, and boom, done.

Next I took care of the long straight runs.  This got me a lot done without much invested.  The book shelf is a simple big box store setup.  It is a bit tall but it was all that was available.  I built some adjustable landing brackets and screwed them into the sides.  The boards are ½” plywood strips I had left over from the previous setup.  This whole thing took a night, including cutting work.  Very simple, even if it isn’t subtle.

 

 

After that I came to a challenge: a lightweight corner section that doesn’t require a whole lot of support.  Enter these neat modules I read about here.  They cover how to build them so I will not elaborate much.  I only have two thoughts.  1) the hot glue does a great job of holding and 2) do not use the 1/8” MDF board that I did.  Find some thin, cheap plywood and it will have a lot less saw dust and weight (I also used some Liquid Nail).  All things aside they are really a clever solution that does work.

 

 

Lastly, there is the biggest obstacle.  The lift bridge.  I really wanted to have a simpler way to get into and out of the room.  Before, I had a whole section of wood to manually lift out of the way after disconnecting and removing track.  Now I have this beauty.  More on it and its construction at a later time.

 

And there you have it.  How I built the layout back up to running capacity.  The past several weeks have seen many a train go over it after a little tweaking but it will do the job well.  Which of course means I am far too busy to blog because I am playing with my trains!

 

Random pic of the day!

 

This was actually taken today, 5/7 at Englewood Yard.  I have seen the Penn Central engine before. but this is the best perspective I have been able to get.  Very fortunate to have caught it.

Back up and running!

Man life is crazy.  So much has been going on, but fortunately some of it has been the trains.  Most importantly, the trains are back up and running again!

1989 pulls the official first train around the layout.  It is all tank cars, the most common car hauled on the SRR, part of how we got our name!

I will have more posts coming soon.  Lots to talk about!

Random picture of the day:

This the Southern Railway heritage engine by Norfolk Southern.  I caught this one outside of the Port of Houston grain terminal.  It was hidden behind an arriving grain train that sat for about ten minutes and then finally moved to reveal the prize! 

Greater Houston Area Train Show: Loot!

I was fortunate to make it out to the local train show this year.  However, it was only for about an hour.  I had my parents in town and I needed to help them with some random business but I am very happy to have had that hour.

This year the show was so much better than in the past!  There were more tables, more stuff, many more model contest entries, and some outstanding layout setups.  Last year I had just been laid off, so most of what I did involved dreaming, but this year for one brief hour I scurried all over drooling and conniving for what to do, see, purchase, etc!

I ran into several old friends from Bryan/College Station as well.  It was fun to hang out and see everything.  If you are ever near Houston, go to this show!  Even at its worst, it has always been at least entertaining.

Anyways, I picked up some neat items.  First, is this steam engine!

 

She is a Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2 Mountain lettered for the SP.  The best part is I got her for about $90.  She has some very nice detail and can probably pull teeth she is so heavy.  I broke her down, cleaned and lubed her, and put in a spare DCC chip and boom!  Now I have an excursion/special locomotive for the SRR.  However, the DCC install requires you snip some capacitors to make it run smoothly.  See this link to the TCS DCC Install page for instructions.  Soon, I will add their WOWSound decoder to finish it off with some replacement details!

 

Also, I found this DVD.  It is Part One of the Valley Eagle trip taken by UP 844 back in 2010.  This video is really cool because it covers the first time I ever really chased a train.  In fact, I show up in it a few times (actually my old Chevy Blazer shows up more than I do...).  I had a simple point and shoot camera, some storage boxes as a tripod, and little experience.  It turned into a 6 hour affair spanning nearly 100 miles.  The results?  Some really nice pictures, new friends, and tons of fun that I look forward to doing over and over.  Especially now that I have a better vehicle, camera, camera equipment, etc...

 

And now the random picture of the day!

 

That's a lotta hot sauce!



 I caught several tankers of Louisiana brand hot sauce in Englewood yard waiting to be humped.  From what I understand, they no longer carry the good stuff but it is fun to dream.  It would be awesome if one spilled near a crawfish farm!

Anyways, until next time!