Southern Pacific E9

While I was cleaning up the hobby'room' a little, I came across a locomotive that had been sitting in a box for quite some time. A great model of a SP E9. I hadn't used it much because it's from a railroad era I don't model , it hasn't been converted to DCC yet, and I thought it was much too big to do justice on my small layout. But then I came across this picture; here we have a once big mighty E9, hauling only two passenger cars, probably during their last days / years of service, no longer in front of a long express train, but a short and humble local. I'm now researching until which years the E9's could still be found in this service. Perhaps could I 'stretch' reality enough to do the same on my layout? (it will require a repaint of the loco as the grey is much too light, and some heavy weathering too. :-) ).  To be continued at some point....

 oh, and aparently this is my 200'th post since the start of this blog :-)

Tunnel Vision

Here are a few progress pics of the tunnel I'm building in a corner of the layout, Cordelia Tunnel.

Cordelia Tunnel is a short tunnel on the CFNR, and in reality is straight. It's not going through a 'huge' mountain, just an annoying hill that got in the way of the railroad :-)  I'm going to try and capture the feel of the area so also in my case, the 'hill' isn't tall, and will be populated with some trees and part of a vin yard area. I've test fitted a portal (be it a wrong one, this one is european in shape, but I've got a couple of Woodland Scenic ones available), and part of the surface is painted with an earth tone latex paint. 

Railflyer products drive progress

It's been a while that I reported on the progress in regards to the new drive (traction motor) developments made my the small manufacturer Railflyer products.
Here's a YouTube video of one of their 6 axle chassis operating, with one powered axle, proving the concept. circuit board developments are on going to power all 6 axles simultaneously. Progress is steady, and as quick as can be expected from such a small company. Very promising stuff.

SP action in HO

I managed to be attending my local club meet this Saturday, and had fun meeting the others, and seeing a lot of SP action. We had a coal drag doing 'rounds' headed by a pair of SD45's, and almost 50 coal cars in tow. In the yard, an SP GP9 was doing the switching duties, while a pair of SD9's were being readied for snow service at the service facilities.
The picture captures a little of the atmosphere. The SD9's owned by Brian Moore, the GP9 by Rob Mallet. Photo by Brian Moore.

Magical modelrailroad video

What more can I say, magical. The kids loved it. :-)