Category: model railroad operations

Rocky Ops 2022

Flew to Denver with some buddies in April for 3 day weekend of running model trains, railfanning and seeing others layouts

Originally scheduled to fly from Seattle, when we cancelled our Camano island farm trip I scrambled to purchase flight on United. Had planned to use alaska air miles but now have a large charge on credit card. Oh well.

So now an early morning wake up call and drive to SMF airport. Find a parking spot and head to airport

Parking area reminder
I am still gonna wear mask in airport and on plane.
And playing Wordle. A fun game

I am meeting several buddies in Denver. Mark and Dwight from Atlanta, Phil from Tucson, AA Pete and Mike from Portland. We will stay at same hotel in Longmont, and attend same 3 model RR operating sessions. Should be fun. A couple of the guys were late in arriving thanks to airline delays. Seems to be the norm these days.

We first visited Pat Lana’s n scale CRANDIC model railroad based in the Iowa. Lots of fields and cows and green trees. It is all about 5 feet off floor almost at eye level. It’s completely in the center of the basement room not touching any walls. Full walk around.

One end of layout.
Selfie with Mark and Mike in background
50’s era roundhouse
Wow and I thought I had a big city scape

After a quick dinner we moved over to Harry Lindsey’s Los Pinos HO scale layout. Harry is also a classic car collector. Has 6 of them. Fun operating layout and Harry a great host

Stayed overnight in Longmont Saturday morning we drove up to Cheyenne to operate on the Wasatch & Union Pacific NScale model railroad built by John Rimmasch whose career is in restoring old steam engines and rail cars.

15×15 ft layout room.
Double decked
I got to switch the passenger train station area.

Icing on the cake after lunch was a visit to the Cheyenne railroad park to see the biggest engine in the world, the Union Pacific “Big Boy steam engine. Only 25 were ever built back in 1941 just before WW II.

We got to climb up on it.

In Greeley, Colorado, we visited the Colorado model Railroad Museum, an amazing HO scale layout in a 10,000 sq ft building based upon the Oregon California and Eastern (OCE) The OCE runs between Klamath Falls to Lakeview, Oregon. It is a fictional representation of a real railroad with a lot of creative license. The builder turned the whole operation into a non profit museum run with volunteer help. For more info visit https://www.cmrm.org/

We visited a couple more layouts in the evening

We spent Sunday morning operating on an amazing layout. A BN or Burlington northern RR set in 80’s. The owner built the house over that layout. Quite amazing. Takes an hour to run from one end to the other.

All’s in all a satisfying weekend. Next train trip in august. To Atlanta.

Sound Rails 2022

A little bit different this week. I am traveling but using a plane and car. Flew to Seattle area for long weekend of running model trains on very sophisticated model railroad layouts in people’s homes. This has been a life long passion of mine and i used to have my own large model railroad layout(s) with operations. We downsized, went full time RVing for awhile and moved back to our home at Ananda Village. Many friends asked if I would build a new railroad empire. NO WAY! Been there, done that, have the tee shirt. Now i just get to visit and enjoy other people’s train layouts.

Early morning flight made better with 1st class upgrade
Alaska Air going green or paper.
Nice to be back

First stop in Olympia was Mud Bay & Southern Railroad.

We flew in early to go down to Olympia for lunch and running trains. Layout builder and owner, Jim Younkins, has been a friend for 30 years and one of the best modelers I ever met. He used to come up and help me on my layout. I ran his Elma yard, one of several yards on the railroad.

Amazing scenery in N scale. 1/180th scale
Rochester yard
Elma yard, in the garage where I worked today
JB, me, Jim, Phil

We visited another layout in North Seattle in the evening. Interstate 5 from Olympia to north Seattle is real fun ( understatement). Kirk Reddie publishes a model railroad magazine and his layout is based upon Milwaukie Railroad in Puget Sound along with Great Northern and Northern Pacific. Features King Street Station, and cascade mountains.

New scenery
Can’t see it but this is the Portland Inion station from my layout now residing on Kirk’s layout

Friday we are headed to Mill Creek NE of Seattle to operate on the Everett & Monte Cristo RR. A beautifully crafter HO scale layout based upon a gold mine 68 miles up in the cascades. Trains ran from Everett to service the mine and towns along the way. We are running in the 1890’s here. The “good old days”

Yours truly and Phil in Everett yard
Monte Cristo Gold mine
Long view
Do Voss, layout owner

Late afternoon we drove over to south Issaguah to see a beautiful Great Northern railroad in south Issaquah. Beautiful northwest scenery.

Delta yard, Everett, Wa
Diss creek trestle in Cascades

Our hotel was in east gate area of Bellevue. Nice accommodations and centrally located while still affordable.

Saturday found again up in north Seattle at Burr Stewart’s basement HO layout modeling the old Burlington Northern railroad in the 1970’s.

Burr Stewart
Stacy street yard
Main room area
Me switching Argo Yard

Sunday we drove

down to Tacoma to run on a beautiful N scale railroad (1/160thcscale), called the Tenino Weayern RR and owned and operated by Tyler Whitcomb who works for Union Pacific Railroad. Beautiful scenes as Tyler originally was an art student before he drove real trains.

Tyler giving us orientation at Tenino yard
Kent running the mill job.
Someone is Flirting at the local coffee shop

All in all it was a wonderful weekend of running trains and visiting with long time friends and acquaintances. now back to Ananda Village for Springtime at Ananda during April.