AAAR

That means Alexandria After Action Report. My earlier post from the site was only part of the story. There's more-more people, more product, more excitement. Here goes.

Shortly after hitting "Publish" for the first post, we were joined at the Great ATS (Alexandria Train Show) by Bryant and Mike. They had the chance to admire Ian's work and  some of Jer's locomotive modeling. While this was going on, the 8106 was in the loco hospital intensive care ward.

After extensive work by specialists, the 60M was determined eligible for release and the proud owner soon found a DCC layout for a test run. When locomotives run they should move. The fact that this one wouldn't alerted Jer to a problem. He immediately started taking things apart, assisted by the expert guidance of a number of noted HO Scale mechanics. This photo shows the intensity he devoted to the repair of a detached driveshaft.

In the meantime, Mike was less concerned about the fate of the 8106 than with an approaching Soo Line F unit. I was almost certain I heard him call out "It's the red one!" but he claims that never happened. 

Mike and Bryant wandered the hall in search of N scale treasures. I don't think they found too many, in contrast to the HO crowd (me) who went home feeling like I had hit the jackpot.

In fact, my first-ever case lot purchase of freight cars had me feeling a bit like Christopher Muller as multiple trips were needed to carry all the loot to the car. In addition to these reefers I was able to procure a bundle of 10 sticks of Atlas Code 83 flextrack for only $20, along with three #6 turnouts to match for $4 each. 

I parted with one of the reefers, as Ian needed it to provide traffic for a planned layout expansion. That doesn't mean I'm worried about the beer getting warm, there should still be plenty of space. Here are today's additions to the freight car fleet, including a lonely Atlas Kaolin tanker. 

 Once again, this was a fun show. Got to spend time with good friends, chat with others who enjoy the hobby, and spend more than I should have. A great day of railroading.

LIVE from Alexandria!

Greetings from the Alex train show! Ian is showing his small layout, featuring the Hamon Deltak plant where massive industrial things are manufactured. In order to obtain the raw material and ship the finished products, rail service is a necessity. And with rails running by the plant, you might catch other trains once in a while as well. Hey-here's a DMVW SD45 running light engine by the plant, far from home rails.

And then a rock train cruised by in the other direction. This one had the famous pair of 8106 and 8142 on the point. Triclops rule, they say. 

Those units are some fantastic modeling by Jer.

In the mean time, Ian operates the layout during the show, giving attendees including kids a thrill. Everyone likes the layout, but when a train rolls in from off-scene, the youngsters eyes just light up.

A finished product comes out of the plant. This is a HUGE heat exchanger destined for points west.

Finally, a shot of the bandit that has been handling the work at the plant.

Congrats to both you modelers. I'm having a great time.  Lots of good deals on HO scale equipment as well.

Granite City in the Rain

Saturday was the annual great train event known as the Granite City Train Show. While it's always fun to go and browse around for bargains, the last few times I have gone it seems that seeing what Ian has cooked up has been the highlight of the day. Yesterday was no different.

Before we get to that, though, a few very poorly lit train photos. These are all of the same train, and none would have been shot but for a few oddities that jumped out at me. Mrs. L4T and I passed this train just after it met a westbound at Darling. It was moving slow and something about the lone auto rack caught my eye, so I pulled off at Little Falls. The first oddity I shot was the head end power, complete with an illuminated headlight on the second unit, facing backwards. That seemed strange.

And then a couple of "loaded" centerbeams. Oddly enough Chris had just pointed out a super sale at MB Klein on these cars, and now I have a different load. Might have to pick a couple up.



And then, the sight that first interested me. Another busted up auto rack. I shot one near Staples last fall and just like I described it that time, looks like a car that fell off the layout.

And then the final oddity of this train. It was rainy and cloudy, but the power was wild for a short manifest. Nice pair of ACe's. Finally got them south of Rice, where the track curves away from the highway.

The train show was packed. Parking was the worst it's been since I started attending. But it was worth it, as Ian and Lorrie were working the layout. He always has some neat idea for a small layout. And the thing is, he builds them. I think he gets more done than most people with a basement full of trains.

Here are a couple of poor shots of the front of the display. I think it's two feet wide, and Ian has figured out a way to actually have operational potential. It's wild. Locomotives are shuffling cars back and forth, and best of all he even figured out a scenario where he needs to use a Railbox car as an idler.

The show was the biggest I have ever seen. If the GCTS is any indication, model railroading is not dying-far from it, it's growing. And why not, it's fun.

I picked up a couple of things, including some 28' UPS trailers, and came home excited about modeling again. Back to the basement!

London Staples Fog

Over the past couple of years, I've had the opportunity to get together with Ian Holmes for Staples-based railfan outings. Ian already mentioned on the OMR mailing list that the morning dawned a bit foggy. I'll second that.

But I've encountered the fog a number of times while chasing trains in the area, and I was quite confident that the skies would be clearing shortly, with the chance that we might get some great shots of a BNSF eastbound breaking out of a fog bank into sparkling sun. I told Ian as much, predicting that we would see blue skies "any time now". All morning long I predicted that, and guess what? All morning long I was shooting photos like this one.


That train was galloping through the gloom between New York Mills and Bluffton sometime around mid-morning. Even if the skies weren't cooperating, the railroad was, as we encountered a number of eastbound trains that would have been nicely lit had the skies only cleared.

Here's another example of what we were dealing with. This time, we see a coal train approaching the Bluffton curve behind mixed power. I lik the way the tree shows up in this shot.


Actually, we did manage to break out of the fog for a while. With a plan of heading west until we found a train worth chasing, clearer skies finally revealed themselves just west of Perham, where we caught this manifest train behind a motley group of power.


Ian and I agreed that the train above wasn't really worth a chase, and the dispatcher had issued a couple of more warrants, so we knew there were more eastbounds about. Next up was a coal train, this one behind an ACe. We met him at Frazee, and I was mere seconds too late to get to the sunny side of the train.

Anyway, the power on this train led us to conclude that this, indeed, was the eastbound we would chase. The sky was doing funny things as we paced the train toward Wadena. Cloud and fog banks were coming and going, one minute it was in sun, the next you could hardly see it. Strange. We rolled the dice and set up on the Highway 10 overpass, crossing our fingers for some light, and I managed to get this as the train approached. It seemed like the train passed in and out of the sun at least three times as it approached us.


Of course, the trusty Escape was making much better time than the loaded coal train, which happened to be bound for the Columbia station on the Mississippi and so was staying on the Staples Sub. With most of the fog burned off, it seemed like a good time to shoot the power on a number of trains in the Staples yard as we passed through town. Here's the result of that effort.


Lots of coal power in the yard on this Saturday morning.

A fabulous plan of shooting a fleet of eastbounds in the Philbrook and Quicken Road area promptly fell apart as the dispatcher decided to turn Main 2 into a parking lot and run some westbounds. The good part of this was that it gave me a chance to drop Ian in Staples and allow him to get back out there for the delayed trains, while I needed to head for home due to prior family commitments. Ian got the shot I've been anticipating for quite a while. Looks like just as good a spot as I had been hoping for.

It was a great railfanning outing. It's always fun to spend time with Ian. He knows his fog, what with being from Great Britian and all. His comparison of what we saw Saturday with what they see on the island nation drove home what "London Fog" must actually be like. Thanks for the company, Ian. It was great fun as usual and I'm looking forward to doing it again.