News out of Orbisonia...

From the Train's newswire:

Rockhill Furnace, Pa. - A new nonprofit organization has signed an agreement to operate the East Broad Top Railroad for three years, and the organization hopes to attract enough grant money during that time to buy the Pennsylvania narrow gauge from its longtime owners, Joe and Judy Kovalchick. The railroad, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, has had a precarious existence in recent decades, with each operating season rumored to be its last.

The new organization, the East Broad Top Railroad Preservation Association, was put together by Larry Salone, who took over as executive director of the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum in 2007. Salone is a restaurant- and engineering-company owner who says he took his first train ride as a kid on the East Broad Top, which the Kovalchick family has operated as a tourist railroad since 1960. Joe Kovalchick's father, Nick, was a salvage dealer who bought the railroad after its last common-carrier runs, in April 1956.

Salone, who scheduled a press conference at the railroad Friday, said during a visit to the EBT last Saturday that the railroad's current employees would remain on the payroll, and that the schedule for the coming year would remain largely unchanged. But he said he hoped that riders would begin to notice small improvements as soon as the EBT opens, on June 6. The railroad will accept credit cards for the first time, he said, and shuttle buses will run between the East Broad Top and the Altoona museum during the museum's annual railfest weekend, June 27-28.

He said he planned to begin seeking money to reopen about six miles of track from the current end of operations into Mount Union, where the railroad transferred coal and other freight to the Pennsylvania Railroad in a dual-gauge yard. Salone also discussed putting a second EBT steam engine back in service - most likely No. 14, a 1912 Baldwin Mikado that is nearly identical to the only engine currently operating, No. 15. In addition, he talked about converting additional freight cars for passenger service so that the line's 19th-century coaches could be reserved for special occasions.

The East Broad Top began operating in 1873 along a main line roughly 33 miles long, of which about five miles are currently in service. The rest of the railroad is almost entirely intact but is badly overgrown. In addition to six narrow-gauge 2-8-2s in three sizes, the EBT has a unique 1927 Brill gas-electric car in operating condition, a standard-gauge 0-6-0 in Mount Union, and a sprawling machine-shop complex that is being restored by a volunteer organization, the Friends of the East Broad Top. The Rockhill Trolley Museum operates on a portion of the railroad's old Shade Gap branch.

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Andrew

Just finished the last of these 3 Z scale cars (the boxcar) for a client today.







and this one for me



I have 3 more of these to finish up.

Hi guys, i just spent the day building this structure for a member on another forum, Scale Rails Online. His name is Dustin and he asked me to build a HUGE grain elevator for him. So he sent me the kits (3 Walthers N Scale ADM Grain Elevators) and i spent today building this HUGE structure.

The main Structure measures about 2-3/4" long x 3-1/4" wide (4-3/4" long x 3-1/4" wide with the large hopper car shed), and the silo structure measures about 29-1/2" long x 2-3/4" wide. All together it measures about 34-1/4" long x 3-1/4" wide. The Silo structure has 2 rows of 23 silos, making a total of 46 silos!

The entire structure is made to be set against a wall, so the back side has been left open. There are a total of 4 Cargill Signs on the structure. One of them is located on the front of the silo structure, 2 more along the side of the silo structure, and 1 more on the side of the main structure. It was painted white with Gray Conveyor Housing, Hopper Car Shed, Doors, and Roof Top Machinery.

Here are some overall pictures of this MASSIVE structure


















Just thought i would snap some pics off and share with you guys before i box this up and send it off to Dustin

I guess I haven't posted any pictures of what I've been up to lately. My previous layout was built on a smooth door, but due an to upper level management decision, that layout was abandoned and a new one started on the top of shelving units. The layout's base is 1.5 inch foam board on .5 inch plywood, and all resting on the shelving unit tops, and split into roughly two equal 8 foot sections for an overall length of almost 16 feet and only 16 inches wide. The basic design is a simple dogbone layout where the plywood expands to 22.5 inches to accommodate the 11 inch radius curves at the ends of the layout, and supported by wall mounted decorator shelving unit braces. Code 80 flex track was used to minimize joints, and all turnouts are Peco Insul-Frog and manually thrown. There can be no drilling into the shelving unit tops, so all the wiring had to be hid within the foam board. I cut trenches into the foam to place the wiring, and ran 18 gauge wire to the Digitrax Zephyr unit.

There's a yard in the center that has tracks that move freight cars to the eastern town's industries and allow for passenger service to the western town (that's not done yet). There's passing tracks parallel to the mainline located at the north and south middle sections of the layout. There's a fueling station at the northern end of the yard area that will service diesels on both tracks it rests between. An engine service building is also just east of the yard. The tracks the Amtrak is on connects to the western mainline loop. The buildings generally follow the design and function of those between my two key cities of Salsbury and Pineville, NC. The yard was inspired by what I saw when visiting the Norfolk Southern Charlotte Yard just north of the city.

We're set up for continuous 4-train operation, with switching and spur service to the various industries/plants around the layout. A train leaves the yard and travels in either direction around the layout, taking an inside passing siding as needed to allow the faster Amtrak service to pass and make a stop at either the western station or eastern station as necessary. Smaller local freights are built up from the yard and have access to either the eastern town from the spur from the yard, or around part of the mainline and off the passing siding as a backing operation into the western industry area. My only problem is there's no way to get vehicles from one end of the layout to the other. I might try several Rix overpasses strung together located above the yard area and parallel to the mainlines (which somewhat resembles the traffic conditions in and around the yard in Charlotte). But it's not that important to me that all the roadways connect from one end of the layout to the other.

Well...here it is. I'd appreciate all the critiques and ideas you might have. I know there's a tremendous amount of scenery to add, roadways to build, buildings to paint etc. Since the track is down but not affixed, I can still move things around a bit. I know these aren't the best pictures possible, but with 16 narrow feet to capture, it poses a slight camera angle problem.

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I have been meaning to photograph this for some time but can never remember to take my camera with me.
Although it's not a train,it's train related especially for those of you the model coal or stone hauling roads.
I know nothing about it's history other than it was made by Autocar and it's for sale.
Enjoy-Bob

Every so often on the radio, I hear the morning DJ's talking about a national day of... such and such. Today (May 6th) was the Great American Grump Out, tomorrow (May 7th) is the National day of prayer, and May 8th is World Red Cross day. About now you're probably thinking... interesting but so what? Well, it just so turns out that Saturday, May 9th is

hi all


i have for sale 5 ho scale CSX 100 ton Bowser hopper kits id like to get rid of. the kits are sealed in their original boxes. the car numbers are all differant too. im not sure what they are worth so if you are interested let me know and im sure we can arrange something. theres nothing wrong with these kits, i just have way to many hoppers than i need.



todd

Hi Guys,
A buddy over here took this picture and would like to know what it is .... i think it may be GM from what i can fine out about it on the net but no positive identification.

Hi guys,

After trying a loco over a newly laid section of track all went well until this my usual loco i use for testing started acting erratically the display on the cab showed its speed at 11 slow and then when i increased it it dropped lower and then all of a sudden a lot higher the loco did respond to the read out but i cant get the read out to settle to a reasonable speed, i tried another loco which did the same .... the programme track is working fine readback ok, seems the wheel encoder has gone as the other buttons work fine has anyone else had this happen ?

So at the moment i am using the powercab cab for it while its away for repair.