Yes, that’s oil residue from these PC locomotives sitting in an area constantly. Another little detail added today, using engine oil by AK with actual soot dabbed on top while wet to give a bit of oily greasy look to the spots! Continue reading

Here we continue on first trick with the local area based locomotive NW2 8806 switching the inbound and outbound cars the local has brought out from Riverside yard. Today’s crew includes Charlie as engineer, Fred as conductor, and Jimmy as brakeman on 8806’s crew. Of course the local has the usual five man crew. The… Continue reading

Just a short post today showing a bit of the weathering on my old standby,  GP7 5628. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t show the rust on the cab roof.  Looks like the old gal has been sideswiped at one time looking at that handrail stanchion! This locomotive is absolutely still my best locomotive,  almost twenty years… Continue reading

Here today is a map of the railroads of Cincinnati circa 1952. Numerous railroads and their lines ran through and around the Queen City. The line I model runs along the lower left corner of the map, based out of Riverside yard in Sedamsville. A yard I actually ran into while track inspector was McCullough… Continue reading

Here is this week’s photo from the original Hitop branch layout, working the coal in West Virginia: Continue reading

In this post we’ll finish up switching Monsanto with the rest of our crew, this time myself, Fred, and Jimmy.  It’s now dark as we come back from lunch and get 8806 going. What we need to finish is to move the tank cars from the holding track to the loading/unloading track, then move the… Continue reading

A look at the layout this morning, including the next local with inbound cars: Continue reading

Today we’re switching out Monsanto Chemical. As 8806 is basically assigned to the industrial area out along the Ohio here, there’s always a local out of Riverside yard that brings inbound cars and then of course takes the outbound cars back to the yard. So today we start with the local on second trick bringing… Continue reading

Amazing photos recently of the Penn Central along the Ohio River in Cincinnati during these three periods. Check it out! Continue reading

Here is this next week’s layout photo from the original layout: Continue reading

A new sight we haven’t seen before, and that’s this conveyor that some company has trucked into the team track to start unloading  some type of commodity: Continue reading

Here we go with the new series and our new characters. So let’s meet them! Obviously Steve is myself.  Dan, Charlie,  Chris,  and John along with Bob,  Jimmy,  and Fred are all people I worked with or were closely associated with the Indiana and Ohio Railroad in their early years. In fact,  here’s one of… Continue reading

Coming soon to the layout will be quite a few details from miniprints including brooms, telephone booth, Ice machine, and other details. You can find miniprints here: https://miniprints.com Continue reading

Here is this week’s photo from the original NYC/PC Hitop branch layout: Continue reading