California Zephyr Liveblogging

Trainblogger "Midnight Railroader" will liveblog his trip on Amtrak's California Zephyr from Denver to Emeryville, CA, starting on July 1st.

BTS rolls out new boxcars.

Like the second punch arriving with surprising closeness on the heels of the first, BTS has announced the imminent release of two more pre-turn of the century wooden car kits - yet another wooden boxcar inspired by the B&O M-2 class car, introduced around 1870. They took some liberties; one model measures 33' 9", while the other measures 31' 9". Neither incorporates the distinctive herringbone-patterened ends that date the prototypes so effectively, but both are gems - and if they're as easy to assemble as BTS' Civil War-era 25' boxcars, they'll build up into very nice models. And they're coming faster than anyone accustomed to waiting on the cottage-industry speed of innovation and product introduction that's common in the hobby would expect. This strikes me as a realization of the possibilities of modern laser-enabled and CAD-driven manufacturing processes, coupled with the intelligent use of the internet to keep contact with the customer base. Bill is a frequent contributor to the Yahoo EarlyRail group, and it must have been about a year ago that I responded to one of his emailed inquiries about desired prototypes with a request for a B&O M-2 with herringbone ends - and his website promises those in the near future.

Train Wreck Video

This is interesting - although it looks almost as if it was a sideswipe, rather than a head-on collision, since the loco pretty clearly moved onto the diverging line just before impact. The signals displayed a "stop" indication, but it could well be that the train that occupied the main (which looked as if it was stopped) was too long for the passing track, which the moving train meant to occupy - and got a little too close to the switch.

(h/t, Drudge).

Land of Hope and Glory - please phone, no cheques

So, anyway, as you may have noticed, British sites are proliferating on my blogrolls. I've been developing an interest in British Protofour modeling, and doing some fascinating research and reading on the topic.

The Brits have definitely caught on to the merits of Web advertising - but there's just one drawback: the practice of online ordering, which is nearly universal among American modelbuilders, does not seem to have caught on yet, requiring transatlantic calls, various means of payment, and all sort of gyrations to order models that are, in some cases, incomplete without gearboxes, motors and wheels that must in their turn be purchased from yet another set of vendors.

In some ways, the British kitbuilding industry is light-years ahead of us: the brass craftsman loco kit has essentially give up the ghost in the States, and soldering skills are periodically revisited as a "lost art" by Model Railroader. But it sometimes seems as if the biggest challenge of all is getting your hands on the model you want to build!

(And that photo is a link to London Road Models' beautiful North British Railway R-class tank engine)

La Veta Photos

A fan on the Yahoo D&RGW group took the ride over La Veta Pass, and returned with some great photos. The 1744 managed 4 cars without assistance.

BTS Boxcars

So....I've been busy. But while I was getting on with my life, BTS released their interesting new U.S. Military Railroad house car - a slightly modified version of the arched-roof car they released a few years back. These fill an interesting niche - there aren't many commercially available craftsman kits for freight cars (ore cars excepted) shorter than 28 feet. Rio Grande Models has some nice models and Rem's offers a few thirty footers, but for the most part the turn-of-the-century market has been dominated by the ubiquitous Model Die Casting 36 footers for those with scratchbuilding skills and the Labelle 34 footers for those without them. The arched-roof versions look pretty eastern to me, but the peaked roof versions would look pretty good over a set of Rio Grande Models' "California" style arch bar trucks as Central Pacific equipment.

B&O Big Six Video

Classic Trains has a teaser video of one of my favorite locomotives: the B&O's Big Sixes. The first clip is perfect - a drag freight-era locomotive lugging a sluggish, heavy load at about ten miles per. Loud, greasy, dirty, and perfect.

Comatose Railroad Worker Awakes...

After nineteen years, and discovers that life is a lot nicer in de-Communized Poland.

That has to be like waking up next to the chick from a Bulgari ad.

(h/t, Protein Wisdom - because not just anyone can summarize the news!)

Sopranos Hobby Shop Whacking

So....Bobby Bacala got it while buying the "Blue Comet."

The "Blue Comet" might well be the most famous of all Lionel trains - here is a link to the original, built in the more-massive-than-O "standard gauge" that Lionel dropped during the Depression. For those who aren't interested in dropping quite that much money for Depression-era electrical technologies, MTH has also started a modern "Tinplate Tradition" set which is still pretty expensive - although you can buy it piece by piece.

MTH did a modern version in O Scale - here's a link; it's nice, but it lacks the satisfyingly shiny enamel finish of the tinplate models, to say nothing of their size.