Recent action on the QA&P (HO scale)

Awesome work like usual Tom. What did you use for a paint color? Looks great

 

Boy do I understand.

Make no mistake: I love railroading. I loved handling trains, running engines, switching, line haul, whatever. Loved the sounds of railroading: Engines working hard under you/behind you, standing at a switch looking for your cut car and hearing the sound of the wheels pounding through the frog (or especially wheels pounding a crossing at speed). Loved the shaking of the ground you could feel during such. It was factors such as these and countless more about railroading that caused me to love railroading.

I detested the BS. Railroading was getting more and more infested with BS from the FRA, Managerial decisions, more and more rules, rules, rules*, invasion of privacy, on and on.

(* Like a rule against paper clips on the floor?? Tripping hazard?? Seriously?)

Given the monotony of the rubber stamp equipment seen on today's railroading along with the stark lack of switching interest along the mains... you couldn't run fast enough to pour a model of "modern" railroading on me. I like very little about the "visuals" of "today's" railroading. (I loath graffiti, for example.) The only factors that occasionally pull me track side concerning today's railroading are the sounds (engine and rail sounds) and sensations (hard working engines, ground shake and such) that fortunately can still be found in today's railroading.

SO, Tom, I certainly understand your desire to retreat back in years in your modeling to a times when you enjoyed railroading much more than "today".

Been there. Doing that.

Andre

 

I have a friend with whom I take twice-annual railfan outings. Over the past 20 or so years we have ventured as far east at the coat of Maine and as far west as Spokane, Washington, as far north as Winnipeg and as far south as Galveston Island, Texas. And do you know what? I could mention other neat spots, like Horseshoe Curve or the Starucca Viaduct, but with the occasional exception of a Colorado narrow gauge, a Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum or a regional like the A&M, everything else on rails looks like a rolling conveyor belt. As my friend says, "if it weren't for wanderlust, I don't know why we do this at all."

GS

 

Greg:

Certainly a "seen one you've seen 'em all" situation in today's railroading.

Tuesday Wild Child (wife) and I were out riding our dual sport motorcycles in the Black Fork Mountains. We popped out of the mountains at Eagleton and high-tailed a couple miles to Rich Mountain Country Store. (Delicious hamburgers!)

As we sat there eating, through the window I could see the rails of the KCS. Soon, I could hear one grinding up to the summit there at Rich Mountain. It was a coal train. On the head end was a pair of UP somethings. (I honestly don't know what engines I saw, just that they were "today's engines".) Behind the pair of ubiquitous yellow engines rolled rubber-stamped hoppers of coal. At the hind end, some more "today" engines were shoving.

I always watch trains, no matter, because, well, I like trains, but there's just so much lacking in today's railroading.

Here's a pic of Wild Child saddling-up so we can head back into the mountains. If you look close, you can see the KCS rails across the hiway on the far right.