Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO)

[steinjr]

Found the charger for the camera. My wife had hidden it by putting it where chargers are kept, instead of leaving it wherever I last left it ...

Here are some pictures from today:

1) My friend Svein switching the yard with an RS-3:



2) The junior engineer is picking up some cars:


3) One of the three beautiful Norwegian 4-8-0 engines Svein brought along:


We had hoped to put a decoder into the engine above, but none of us had a screwdriver quite small enough for the screws holding the top of the tender down ... to quote Kevin Kline: "disappointed!!!!". We had both been looking forward to seeing this beauty run.

Oh well - Svein plans to go buy some smaller screw drivers - we'll see it run next time:

4) An exotic meeting in the Milling district - an RS3 from Great Northern passes a Norwegian steam engine under the road overpass:


5) We got an urge to find out if his steam engine could pull, so we made an improvised transition coupler of soldering wire (couldn't find any twine), so we could couple freight cars with knuckle coupler cars to his engine, which has chain link couplings:


It worked - sort of - until the first uphill, where we had some runaway cars ....

6) At the end of the visit we sat down and had something to drink while we looked at the first section for Svein's new layout - which also is built of 6 mm (1/4") plywood, in the way Ian Rice does it. Here the turn table and some turnouts have been test fitted:


I think this will be a lovely layout.

Svein's track plan can be seen here:


The Norwegian words on his plan:
"Tømmer" = log loading
"Ferge" = car ferry
"Frilastspor" = team track (literally the word means "free load track")
"Gods" = freight house
"Stasjon" = station/depot
"Privet" = old fashioned name for a room where a man sits alone .... :-)
"Lasterampe" = loading dock
"Industri" = industry


Smile,
Stein