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Here is information about the Banning Train Festival’s Model Contest.

This will be a judged model contest with four $50.00 cash prizes to the winners.

The purpose of the contest is to introduce the general public to the best efforts in the hobby as represented by "contest quality" models and provide a "wow" factor for both railroad hobbyists and the general public.

These are the basics:

• Models must exhibit a considerable degree of alteration, weathering, additional details, lettering, scratch-building or kit-bashing.
• No proxy entries
• Limit of two entries per category per person
• Contest Categories:
1. Locomotive
2. Freight Car
3. Passenger Car & Caboose
4. Railroad Structure - Display footprint limited to 18 inches x 10 inches maximum for O and small scales, 30 x 20 for larger scales.

Levity contest entries will not be considered. Levity display entries will be allowed on a space available basis.

There also will be a non-contest display area for persons who wish to show their work without participating in the contest.

The rules, scoring criteria and an entry form are available OFF LIST from me at:

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Don’t forget the Train Festival (October 19 & 20) will feature operating modular layouts, railroad exhibitors and vendors, a Saturday swap meet and modeling clinics so join us even if you do not plan to participate in the contest.

See you in Banning!

Bob Chaparro
Banning Centennial Train Festival

Train Festival Website:
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My wife and I took a few days off to drive up the North Shore of Lake Superior recently. The weather as perfect and the leaves are just beginning to turn in some areas. One of our stops was Two Harbors which often rewards us with either railroad or ore boat action. This time I was able to catch the tourist train from Duluth stopped at the Two Harbors station. It has an eclectic mix of cars behind the SD-18...





including an Alaska RR RDC...


a two level C&NW commuter car...


..a boxcar that had a heating or cooling unit inside that was roaring away...


and this pristine looking Soo Line caboose.


There was also an old coach behind the Alaska RDC but the lighting didn't let me get a god pic of it except from this distance.


All aboard!

I've tried slicing electrical tape, scale chain, wire and pony tail elastics. The pony tail elastics work great but they dry out after about a month and break. What is an easy source of tie downs??

I model 1920, give or take a few years. Locomotives weren't required to light their headlights during the day during that era - and I am guessing that without the requirement, most railroads only switched on the lights at night. Despite that I have known that fact for awhile, I've always put working headlights on my locos. I think it stems back to my youthful days in the hobby when I considered a working headlight a pretty cool feature (especially directional lights) , and I would be upset when the bulb burnt out. And I figured it would be easier to add a working headlight while I was detailing the loco, rather than deciding later I wanted a headlight and tearing back into it. I also thought that when or if I ever convert to DCC, a headlight would be one other thing I could control and make the DCC seem more worthwhile (considering I'm not a fan of sound).

But here's the reality - I'm not going to add all kinds of intricate bulbs into my buildings so I can run trains in the dark. I'm not going to add special blue or dim bulbs to my layout room to simulate night. And I am not going to switch the lights off completely in my layout room - because I want to actually see my trains and the way my switches are thrown, etc. In other words - night operations are never gonna happen.

And adding an LED to a steam locomotive headlight also means running wires to the LED, and those wires are almost impossible to hide completely. So this next loco I am finishing - I'm doing without the working headlight. Just a clear lens in front of the headlight casting.

I am looking to buy a few old HO scale Roundhouse smooth side ore cars. Any road name is ok. Thanks

Don

Just want to share a photo from several years ago...

One of the things I enjoy most about this hobby is the liberty that it gives us to explore our creativity. Here are a few of my home made HO flat car loads. Please show us yours.

The first load is made from copper pipe painted flat gray. The tie downs are made of thin slices of electrical tape.

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