As would be expected, work on the layout slowed some during the summer months but there was in fact progress - just not as much. I would go out in The Cave, piddle around with the trains and structures, take out sets and video them for Y'allTube and generally had some fun without getting too serious about progress. Enjoy! Opa Fritz
I know what you're saying, "Hey, the light pole is crooked." Yup. After installing it and seeing it this way I thought to myself, "Oh man I screwed up" BUT THEN I had to think a little. Light poles, telephone poles, trees, etc are all things that get crooked in real life (for example, when we take our little jaunts to IKEA we drive down Rainbow Blvd and there is one house in particular with an electrical pole - in their backyard - that is leaning so bad Bettina always asks when it's going to fall on the house!!).
Okay, add to that the fact that my pole in this location is right next to the loading dock then a plausible scenario is that at some point in time it got hit by a truck and now has a distinct lean to it. It adds character LOL
Fun on the lake
My favorite railroad is the Milwaukee Road and I was able to latch on to a New Marx Milwaukee Road Chippewa Set 10501-8
My 'night' photography leaves a lot to be desired. Even with the camera on the 'night' setting this is what I got. In person of course it's far better
The lights on Ed's Pub
The freight dock light
The cabin and signal tower
It's the middle of June 2020 and the corner hill now has a coat of paint - no more looking at a snow white mass in the corner
Marx Rocky Mountain Express Set No. 15640
Marx offered the Wm Crooks engine in a variety of configurations: electric, clockwork, with gold filligree, plain, tall smokestack, short smokestack, with plastic tender, with tin-litho tender. This Rocky Mountain Express has the electric, short stack, no gold detailing version
The Plasticville Roadside Stand project is about as done as it's gonna get. By mid-June the roof has been painted and the structure has been given a name: Deer Crest Fruit Ranch
The name "Fruit Ranch" is an homage to the real Fruit Ranch which once operated in Milwaukee. There were two locations both of which were quite large. They were a grocery store specializing in fresh fruit and vegetables from what I recall and even as a kid I actually enjoyed going there. I mean, kids don't normally enjoy going grocery shopping, but this place had a certain ambience that I liked. The center support beam which comes with the kit has been omitted and I like this look. There's a good chance I'll add more details to this but for now it's good-to-go
Running sets is fun but sometimes you just want to put a train together with stuff from the bins. I mated the Rocky Mountain Express Wm Crooks to the tin-litho tender. The two don't match up exactly because the tin-litho tender went with the clockwork Wm Crooks which sat lower (BTW I don't yet have a clockwork version of the Crooks yet, just the tender that went with it). Sooo, I quickly made an adapter, taking a strip of metal off of an old track lock-on and cutting and bending it to shape. It actually worked really well!
Oldtimer cars made by the New Marx people.
Original Marx made a huge mistake by not offering a wider range of Oldtimer cars other than the combine and passenger cars that came with the Tales of Wells Fargo set
Well, now that I've got the Oldtimers out, time to have a bit of sillyness
The old portion of what used to be my Marxville and Plateau train layout had, once again, become overrun with clutter. The old layout board is 'L' shaped and I have been running trains on on one leg of that 'L'. That leg is what I've begun to call the Tinplate Layout - at least for now - because as you'll see in coming installments, I've ended up with four layouts in The Cave and have to figure out a way to differentiate between them. Enjoy! Opa Fritz
I had featured this clockwork Joy Line train before but it was missing the obcservation car. I was able to latch on to one at a reasonable price and gave it another spin around town.
One of the consistent themes this year out in The Cave, has been the running of Milwaukee Road trains. I've run Marx, Lionel, and now American Flyer Prewar O-gauge trains all with Milwaukee Road cars. This American Flyer Prewar set features:
-the #1201 Box Cab Electric
-American Flyer Lines RPO car
-Chicago, Milwaukee, & St Paul Ry Coach
-American Flyer Lines Observation
This AF train is nearly identical to the one shown above but here we have:
-the #1218 engine (which has no headlight - by design)
-Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul Ry RPO car
-Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul Ry Coach
-American Flyer Lines Observation.
On both of these AF sets, the observation car is lettered for American Flyer Lines but the color scheme is definitely Milwaukee Road!
