I thought it would be fun to look at railroad man's superstitions.

1. Stepping on a rail would bring the trainman/carman bad luck.


2.Leaving the front engine coupler open or the caboose coupler open would cause all the luck to run out.


3.Turning a engine against the sun would bring the engineer bad luck.Turning a engine against the sun would cause the sun light to hit the engineer's seat. I was told my Great Grandfather cursed out a hostler for doing that.


4.A engine that has killed several of its crew in derailments was called a cursed engine and was widely refused.


5.The number 13. Engineers would refuse to operate a engine if the last two numbers was 13.


6.666 any engine baring three sixes was a cursed engine and refused by engineers. Of course the "fool hearty" engineers ran these engines had no problems.


7. Urinating on a firebox by a fireman would cause the engine to become hard to fire.


8.Seeing a black cat during your run would bring bad luck.


9.Seeing a white cat during your run would bring good luck.


10.Seeing a large black dog during your run was a sign of impending doom.


11.If a railroad man marries a redheaded railroad widow he was bound to the same death her husband met.

12.Laughing at superstitions will bring ill luck.

Annual Open House

The British Model Railroad Club of Montreal will be hosting the clubs annual open house on October 22 and 23 from 10AM - 4PM,this year. Entry is free for all and light refreshments will be available. So bring the kids and come enjoy the trains. All are welcome.

The clubhouse is located at :
132 Ronald Drive
Montreal West, H4X 1M8


Google: 132 Prom. Ronald, Montréal-Ouest, QC H4X 1M8, Canada for driving and transit directions.

In last days I finished a series of small oil lamps, here a picture.



See a gallery on my website with some remarks how I built them - http://us-modelsof1900.de/?p=12891

Here yet one of my railroad employees.

The Mannheim Yard switcher, YPMA-02, with SD38 6934 is classifying incoming empty grain cars. In the meantime WPMA-17 has picked up grain cars for Agway and is slowing moving out of the yard.

Bruce

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I was at a swap meet this past weekend and two different modelers gave me these:


Cary E-6 body kit
Cary FTa body kit
Cary FTb body kit
Cary F3b body kit (4)
Cary F3b body without details
and 3 Varney F3 shells.

I know the Varney shells are pretty much junk, but how about the Cary ones?

I got the FTA shell given to me when I bought this:

It's the complete S-2 kit from Cary, with Athearn running gear. My plan is to build it up to look like Canadian Pacific's S-2 in original Black and Tuscan paint:

Just in case you ask yourself if multiple Proto 1000 RDC can handle an 18" curve.
Yes they can. Push and pull works fine. The bodies do not touch. Couplers are standard Kadee whisker couplers. The right RDC has the drive shaft in place and the left RDC became a dummy.

Just don't look and listen. The drive becomes quite noisy and it looks like .... but it is valid solution off the scenery part

IMG_5120 by faraway52, on Flickr

Hi all... I will be going up to Niagara falls ( just the NY side ) later in the week and was hoping someone could recommend a few good railroad photo spots. I have never been up that way, but know at one time the NYC, CP, Erie, LV, and DL&W all had trackage in the aria.
Tanks a bunch Steve O.

Hello Everybody,

it´s been a while since I discussed my last track plan here (Mindheim Track Doubled).
After the railroad room is ready built now and some changes had to be made with the wall, it is a bit smaller then I thought.

So I had to make a new layout plan and would like to know your opinions, suggestions and ideas about it.

The layout room itself is quite small: 400 cm x 280 cm with a shorter wall of 240 cm
Metric measures: 13' - 1 1/2'' x 9' - 2 1/4'' with a shorter wall of 7' - 10 1/2''

As I (like many others I guess...) own quite much rolling stock, I wanted to add some quite large and versatile industries to have a wide variety of car types.

To keep operation interesting, I also added a small sorting yard. The layout will be operated by BNSF, CSX or NS. So the setting should be in the greater Chicago area.

The idea is that a manifest train runs out of the staging and sets out cars for the layout on the siding (left top corner), after he picked up the outbound cars spotted there.
The train will then continue its journey and return to the staging (unfortunately, it has to be put there by pushing back into it or by having the locos run around its train first and then head into the staging).

Then the yard switcher begins its work. The cars are sorted in the small yard and then the local train is built on the siding.
Not every industry receives cars in every session (day) of course. The switching should be relaxed and the local train lengths should be about 10-20 cars.

If the yard switcher and the local jobs are split, two operators would have quite much fun doing their work there, I guess. Maybe even three if through-traffic should be generated.


For the industries again:

Warehouses: Box Cars and Reefers
Lumber Yard: Box Cars and Centerbeam Flat Cars
Scrap Yard: Gondolas and Flat Cars
Car Manufacture: Auto Racks
Tank Car Transload: miscellaneous types of Tank Cars
Hopper Car Transload: miscellaneous types of Hopper Cars
Team Track: almost any type of car
Container Track: Container Cars like Maxi Stacks


So what do you guys think about the plan? Maybe you have any suggestions to improve it?
Please let me know anything that comes into your mind.

I added two versions of the track plan. One with benchwork and lettering, one without.

Hope to hear from you.

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I decided to have some fun with this one. The opening sequence may be suyrprising.

Ralph