A picture says a thousand words

Scale Rails Railroad Club.

This is a club in Fort Myers called Scale Rails. They own their own Building that is larger than our space and have a separate room for a 4 ft. By 27 foot n scale railroad, a small work area and the main HO layout room.

The HO layout is lit by 90,000 plus leds, no shadows anywhere.  It is mainly a running layout with long trains, especially on show days. They do run on a schedule once a week. They were working on a large town to hide their helix and a multiple track staging area.

Large peninsula, just completed. A female member made hundreds of trees for this area.

HOn30 area.

Desert like area with a quarry in the middle.

Large turntable and roundhouse. 

Fort Myers train show.

Glen the train show was this weekend, lucky me. I would say it was 50 percent large scale and tin plate, 30% HO, 10% N, and 10% misc. I got a rock mold I haven't seen and a remote, code 83 turnout for 8 bucks.

Tequila Train

Apparently there is an all you can drink tequila train in Mexico, what could go wrong?

This Week on the Layout

This has been a roller coaster of a week weather wise. Tuesday night was mild and misty as opposed to polar vortex conditions last week. Being the first Tuesday of February, most members expected a meeting but the chief declared there was nothing that needed our attention so the usual running and socializing carried on. Seeing a new 4 axle Scheltema lowboy trailer out in front brought a feeling of security that Bill is still in business. I slipped home mid evening with a recent loco that Don from the east had acquired at the Paris show and checked it on my NCE system. Unfortunately it confirmed his Digitrax finding that the decoder is dead. But he knows the seller so negotiation can ensue. Wednesday, we got dumped on with all day freezing rain which, more or less, closed everything up. Thursday was ice chipping day @ 0C until the temperature rose during the evening to 6C by 1 am. You could hear ice popping off trees in the house. By 8 am yesterday, it was -6C and going lower with wind gusts up to 70 kph blowing snow and closing roads to the northwest. Yet we had 4 members running trains including Peter whose new GP7 is pictured to the left. He  

received word this week from Paris Junction Hobbies that his Alco RS decoder that died is being covered by Atlas's warranty. I have an earlier version of the GP7 without the dynamic brakes along with other Atlas locos which have always been good reliable runners. 

Our latest car added to the layout is pictured to the right assembled from a Stewart Hobbies kit that I think the chief acquired at the recent Paris train show. It has been added to the gravel hopper consist although I think the Western Maryland Railroad was a coal hauling line. 

PS 1 - I talked with Jim Long last night and yesterday's high in Myrtle Beach was 78F; tough to take, he sez. . . .

PS 2 - After spending over 2 hours replacing 3 coupler springs earlier today, you are reminded to couple up GENTLY to prevent the springs from flying out during the crash.

 

 

Rail fanning in the sunny south.

Watched a mostly wood chip train roll by. The 20 or so wood chip cars came in many types 1 type looked like a high sided gon. A lot of them were hoppers and some looked like hoppers with the sloped ends cut off which left a small deck at each end. The next day a Flordia East Coast freight rolled by. It had 2 diesels with a fuel tank car in between them (same orange paint scheme ). Glad to hear the weather has changed for the better.

The Polar Vortex Doesn't Stop This Railroad

Nosiree!  Despite temperatures hitting daily highs in the -10C and lows of -30C coupled with 5" of snow to shove around this past week, rail operations still continued. Last Tuesday night, 7 hardy souls braved the frigid wind to run trains. No rails needed to be set aflame like in Chicago. Pete showed up with a new CNR EMD-7 with decoder but no sound from Paris Junction Hobbies where his Great Northern Alco is having a new decoder installed hopefully under warranty. Yesterday afternoon with sun and somewhat milder temperatures, 5 members showed up to run trains with a 6th dropping in briefly. Now, as I write this, the temperature is climbing through the freezing mark with ice crystals morphing to rain forecast through the night and into tomorrow.
Having said the above, it should be noted that 2 members escaped before the vortex began and one is hiding away in the deep south at the luxurious resort pictured above. Note the white Equinox with Ontario plates parked in the lot. The second rode "the bus" to his usual winter home along the Atlantic where he joins his "other" model rail club for the next three months. You two sure missed the excitement of the True North Strong and Wintry!! 
By the way, Rob mentioned on Friday afternoon that he saw two intermodals pass through Woodstock on the CN main at high speed this week; one had an engine midway and the second an engine at the rear. He figures they were hooked up that way in the US and were just passing through.