Hello,

just arrived, some quick pictures:















Lutz

“…but you might try just inserting them as links which have no limits…”


Don, there are ffolkess that say that if the Bear had half a brain, the other half would be lonely!! They may have a point!!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEz53Ed7...annel=Bear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMkRRBT0...annel=Bear

The TSS Earnslaw, built in Dunedin, 1911, then dismantled, and railed, as a kitset, to Kingston at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu where she was rebuilt and launched in 1912. She was then in service with the New Zealand Railways for 57 years, transporting cargo, sheep and passengers to the high-country stations that bounded the lake.
I have fond memories sailing on her, while still in NZR service, as a youngster and was very pleased to be able to rekindle those memories.

   

Cheers, the Bear.

It's Saturday, Sept. 11th..........It's hard to believe that there are young people, teenagers that can only know about this day 20 years ago, by reading about it or from older folk like ourselves. We came together as one nation, I remember the sadness, the outrage, and just about everyone had a flag on their house or vehicle. We supported and respected our firefighters, police and those in the service, here and abroad. We were picked on and we fought back. The might of the United States of American was not to be trifled with.

Today is a different story, we want to remember and we certainly don't want anything like this to happen again, but we are no longer acting as one nation. We are all in little groups, no flags allowed, take a knee during the Nation Anthem, stick our heads in the sand when we get picked on, blame everyone in the past for what's happening now and find fault with everyone that's trying to protect us. We seem to want to make excuses for everything and allow our enemies to run over us. We are tying the hands of those that want to defend us from the bad guys.

No, this is not a political statement but a reflection on how things have changed. It's just that it's upsetting to see that everyone in the world is looking at what's going on here in wonderment and more upsetting that we forget too easily. If you live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, then stand up and shout, "I'm mad a hell and I won't take it anymore", then unite once again because there are those here that are uniting against us. I just hope it doesn't take another 9/11 to bring us back together like we were 20 years ago.

WPMA-40 on it's way down Division Street in Whiskey Point.

Bruce

   

Sorry Guys , its been a while and I forgot the one video per thread, so my apologies if I'm a "Thread Hog"!!

Gidday All, They're not the greatest quality but I'd like to share some videos that I took on  Her-in-Doors and me on our long overdue holiday.



Cheers, the Bear.

Howdy folks,

It's been a little while. I started a new job not terribly much longer after my last post and I life has been pretty crazy since then, but most notably I just don't have internet access to my laptop terribly often these days which makes it hard to keep up with online forums.

The last time I was on here I was making plans to acquire locomotives and rolling stock to build my HO Faire & Middlin RR. I did end up buying some of the locomotives that were discussed for the project in my thread (from years back, I know, y'all have likely forgotten lol) about selecting diesels for my short line. I ended up focusing on GP10s and an SD35 for that, with no switcher. The concept for it really got carried away with time, but I put together a paint scheme for them and was preparing to send them off for painting when I had the sudden, honest realization that my heart just wasn't really in it and I wanted to do something else. I was going through old issues of Model Railroader magazine that I still have from growing up and an article in one of the issues ended up reminding me of what originally got me so interested and fascinated by trains in the first place, a trip on the East Broad Top Railroad when I was very little. I road it many times growing up, and the news last year that the railroad would be coming back to life after sleeping for most of the last decade inspired me to start diving in to modeling the East Broad Top instead of my runaway proto-freelance short line. The skills developed making models for that short line certainly won't go to waste, nor will at least some of the equipment already bought for it. I have been working on the development of an HOn3 East Broad Top set during the fall of the years 1937-1942, years of some of the greatest variety on the railroad in terms of equipment, operations, and trackage.

I'm starting with a 2 foot by 10 foot switching layout of the Mount Union yard, running from the interchange with the Pennsylvania RR down to the southern end of the yard, leading to the three foot gauge railroad's mainline. The layout will include the three refractories plants (Harbison-Walker, General Refractories, and North American Refractories) which during this time were all powered by Broad Top coal (though that would soon change). NARCo also received its gannister rock (silica rock) from quarries as online industries, and all three shipped out finished product by boxcar. In addition, there was a local delivery coal trestle here, a trestle for dumping away coal impurities from the Chance process coal washing plant, a transfer shed for hand transferring of freight from local cars on to standard gauge ones and vice versa, as well as the famous Timber Transfer which retrucked standard gauge cars on to special narrow gauge trucks and back. Operations will focus on processing inbound loaded hoppers through the unloading shed, and then processing outbound loaded hoppers under the coal washout, with some going to local industries and industries on the East Broad Top, and the majority being shipped out via the PRR (at its height the EBT was shipping out around 4-500,000 tons of coal per year, so there is plenty of work to do). The yard switcher's job also encompasses switching the other industries. There was a wye located at Mt Union which will be modeled, though due to space the majority of the wye will fold down when not in use. The trackage at Mt Union is largely dual gauge and standard gauge, and the switchers there were steam switchers (0-6-0s) fitted with dual couplers at each end (one for standard gauge, one for narrow gauge). Given my current living situation and the general unavailability of East Broad Top locomotives in HOn3, a shelf layout modeling the standard gauge/dual gauge section seemed like the most reasonable place to start.
I will do my best to give regular updates on my progress with posts in the appropriate categories, but saying hi and giving an update and rundown like this seemed like a good use of The Upper Berth section. Of course, if that judgement was incorrect I will leave the moving of this thread to the discretion of the moderators.

I would love any input or advice any of you have, and would certainly love to answer any questions if you guys have any. I've been researching the East Broad Top with some degree of regularity and frequency for many years as a labour of love and a passion, and as a result have become quite knowledgeable about it within the confines of what I've been able to read and see with my own eyes.

Regards,
Amanda (exohead)

I will start off things with something unusual.

PRR DD1 by GHB International



PRR RPO by Athearn Blue Box kit



PRR ACF 70’ Heavyweight Baggage Car by Walthers RTR Heavyweights



PRR Heavyweight Paired Window Coach by Walthers RTR Heavyweights





Video

https://youtu.be/a87etKjR-tw

I recently received a picture from Charles Cooper who has a website "Charles Cooper's Railway Pages" showing a beautiful wall mural located in Southampton Ontario---it reminded me of other wall paintings I photographed in Palmerston.Hopefully other members on BigBlue may have come across wall paintings that they would care to share.

The first picture is from Charles Cooper---the next one is mine were taken in Palmerston.