The folks who run Grandt Line announced that they are shutting down the company. The website has a lot of information.

No matter what scale Grandt Line  will be missed.

Bloomberg news reports that Norfolk Southern is going to be purchased by Canadian Pacific. NS board turned down the first money offer. That will make one big realroad.

I was surprised to hear that Railroad Model Craftsman  and Railroad and Ralfan (among others) has been sold. Apparently Carstens Publications suffered the fate of a lot of print media. The whole operation was sold to White River publications  at the cend of August.

I started reading RMC when it was printed on comic book paper. I have subscribed for at least 40 years and am glad that the magazine will still be published. I found it to be less formal than Model Railroader (which I've also subscribed to for 40 years.)

I wish the new owners well. Losing RMC would be very bad for the hobby (which is already declining.)

This past weekend I was surfing through the channels when I saw the image of a guy standing in front of a locomotive. I stopped instantly and saw that I was on C-SPAN 3, a channel I'm sure many people watch (insert dripping sarcasm here.)

Anyhow the show was all about the early days of the B&O. They talked about the rebuild of the roundhouse, the various locomotivers and rolling stock that is on display at the B&O museum in Baltimore. They showed caboose #c-1775, which is the B&O oldest caboose in existence (I'm sure Jonathan has probably modeled it already.)

Of interest to me was a C&O combine which was a Jim Crow car. For those of you too young to remember, Jim Crow laws were segregation laws. There was a partition to separate black riders from white riders. I've heard of these cars on the Southern Railway but never thought of them being used on the C&O.

Check your schedules - C-SPAN # runs a lot of interesting stuff on the weekends - good stuff for your Tivo or DVR.

Doing some research on North Korea I found that they have some 762 mm gauge track - that's 30 inches. Also, there is a 760 mm gauge railroad in Bosnia - that works out to about 29 inch gauge. Modeling these in On30 would sure be a challenge!

I road trains in Croatia many years ago (when it was still Yuigoslavia) but don't remember the gauge. I would imagine that it was meter gauge.

For the readers among us, there is a great book about the building of the Central Pacific. It's part biography, part history with a little legend thrown in. For example - where did the term "Hell on wheels" come from?

The book is "the Great American Railroad Wars" and the author is Dennis Drabell. It is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and is available in Nook format so I would assume it's also on Kindle.

I am amazed at what shenanigans went on with Stanford, Huntington and the other two California robber barons. If you think Uncle Sam is mis-spending tax money now, then read this book!

My neighbor is looking to buy an HO train set for his grandson (who is 11) for Christmas. He approached me for advice. Here is my question - how do I know what kind of track comes with sets or should I assume all the sets come with the black/steel trackage. The Bachmann ads do not mention the kind of track. We live about 150 yards from the shores of Oyster Bay, NY, and dampness is a huge problem. even keeping NS track clean becomes a chore.

Any advice would be appreciated - are there are sets that are better than others? by the way, they are not interested in DCC.

I have been model Railroading since Ike was president and the only set of trains I ever dealt with was Lionel trains given to me by my grandparents. I generally do not think sets have the same value or quality as buying individual pieces.

How close is too close to a train? Check out this video and see for yourself!
http://www.wimp.com/vegetablemarket

Carstens Publications, the producers of Railroaad Model Craftsman, announced in the latest issue of RMC that their narrow gauge planbook called Slim Gauge Cars will be available again in an expanded, updated edition called Slim Gauge Cars II

The first edition has some really nice plans and the ad says that they have added a lot of new material. The ad is in the October 2010 edition of RMC - page 106 - next to back page. I'm going to order mine with the latest edition of the On30 annual when it becomes available.

Happy modeling!

I am an afficionado of BBC AMerica and they recently began a series with a British fellow named James May. The show is about toys. The model railroading show was great. He went to the largest train layout in the world - in Hamburg, I believe. Then he decided to put his model of the Flying Scotsman to the test. He said that it had actually never gone anywhere so he found a deserted railway line which had been made a bicycle path. The path is 10 miles long. He then recruited a whole lot of people to put down 10 miles of track and run the engine the length of the path.

Unfortunately, just as they were getting stareted the power went out here for a while so I missed the end of the program. I'll have to wait for the rerun

If you get BBC AMerica you might like this program " James Mays Toys"

I'm going to ask out British readers just who is James May? Is he a comedian? I know he's been on "Top Gear" for ages.

At the Mid Atlantic Narrow Gauge Guild show this past Saturday I discovered a new (to me) manufacturer. It is a company called Hamm River. I don't read the On30 board very often so this company may have been mentioned before. They have lots of nice little detail items like barrels, sacks and metal drums.

By the way the operating layouts were great - there was lots of Bachmann products running around.

Access the site at www.hammriver.com.

This weekend I, along with three friends, braved the cold to go to the big model railroad expo in West Springfield, Mass.

We parked a great distance from the main building and walking to the building with no shelter was like a scene from "Dr. Zhivago." Then there were the long lines.

People who say that model railroading is in decline needed to be there. The place was mobbed. I was jostled, poked and had my feet stepped on. There were so many people that it was often impossible to reach exhibitor's tables.

I was looking for dealers with Bachmann items but the large majority of what I saw was Lione, American Flyer or G gauge or F scale (or whatever they call it). There were many vendors of scenic products as well as DCC manufacturers.


The modular railroads were simply super. There was one that must have been at least 100 feet long and 40 to 50 feet wide. Lots of nice long HO trains.

The Bachmann booth was the nicest one there. They even had carpeting. When I finally found the building where Bachmann had it's display, the Bachmann wasn't there. I wanted to take home a Bachmann G Gauge articulated. The thing is a great model!

I would have second thoughts about ever going there again. It was a horror show. Give me Timonium!

In the HO discussion area there was a person asking questions about a Bachmann K-4. I guess the responses weren't to his liking so, in what must have been a fit of pique, he "locked" the strand.  I had a comment to add but this person closed discussion. I assume there was too much to read and absorb.

I had no idea that individuals could do this. I think that only the administrator, the one and only Bach-man, should have that authority.

What say you?

Afficionados of the steam engine will just love this website: http://www.trainweb.org/lfnwfan/html/Larry%27s.htm

The current Gazette has a review of a kit by Micro-Mark that modifies the Plasticville bridge for On30 or S scale. I had a Plasticville bridge fifty years ago and it is very comforting to see that they still are available.

This kit will make a decent looking bridge available for a reasonable price. I bet we'll see a lot of bridge kitbashing thanks to this kit.

Sorry to bring up the old "trains in pictures" topic but last night on TCM they showed "Dodge City" a 1939 oater starring Errol Flynn. The film begins with a train going to Dodge City. I couldn't make out the locomotive but I think it's the ubiquitous Sierra Ry. number 9. The locomotive in the film has two drivers with white tires and a third driver under the cab which I guess you are not supposed to see. It also has a phoney stack. Anybody know anything about where the film was shot or the origin of the engine (and three car train?)

Interestingly, the film shows wood being thrown into the firebox but the black smoke belching out of the stack makes me think that it's not burning wood.

Yesterday New York City announced that it was opening up the former NYC High Line in Manhattan as a park. This 30 foot high rail line was built in 1930 to serve factories along Manhattan's west side. Many warehouses had doors that opened up onto the line. It was built to get rail traffic out of the street.

It has been abandoned since 1980 and now the City has made the lower end a park. People will be able to walk, bicycle or roller skate on the roadbed. The rails are still in place - they are being covered over.

This abandoned rail line would make a very interesting scenic feature on a model railroad, especially one with a city theme.

As a youth I remember diesel switchers moving reefers. The lower end the line serviced many meat packers. The northern terminus was the big yard at 72nd street - which is also abandoned.

I just returned from a very enjoyable day at the Kimberton, PA. fairgrounds at a narrow gauge meet sponsored by the Mid Atlantic NG Guild.

On30 was well represented by two very nicely done modular layouts. The theme of one was the EBT (What else in Pennsylvania.) There were lots of Bachmann products on display, operating and for sale. One dealer had a very decent supply of all the Bachmann trucks as well as the new underframes. I bought two packs of underframes, red and black, and was surprised to see that they come with the couplers already installed.

For me, the highlight was a very nice modular G gauge layout. The stars were two F scale live steamers - a 4-4-0 and an SRRL prairie (#24). These engines smoked up a storm as they took turns transversing the layout. SRRL #24 gets my vote to be a Bachmann On30 model.

Clicking around the 100 plus TV channels I have, I came across a movie entitled "Kansas Pacific." Made in 1953 the plot is very silly - building the Kansas Pacific in 1961. It involves Quantrill's Raiders, cannons, pistols from the 70s and a locomotive probably built around 1900 - Sierra #9. There is also a 2-8-0 featured, probably another Sierra RR engine.

The film is worth watching for the trains but the plot - ugh.

So let's add this to the ever growing list of railroad themed movies!

A posting on another website says that Bowser will no longer produce their HO steam engine line. I can't find anything about this on the Bowser website.

If they end their HO kit line it will mean the demise of another pioneer in HO. I hope it's not true; what would HO be without a Bowser steam engine?

Unfortunately, high quality steam engine models done by companies like Bachmann have put the kibosh on old metal kits.