Edgar Harrison

This posting is named in honor of my nephew Edgar Harrison Seeman who was born this past Tuesday evening. He and mother are doing well, and I believe the three Seemans will head home from the hospital in the next day or so. We were with the new grandparents in the waiting room when Edgar arrived. It was an amazing and wonderful event, and Amber and I will do our best to provide love, support, and trains to our nephew.

This week I progressed to the 40% mark on floor scraping. The main part of the room was originally 15 tiles square, so that means I've completed the equivalent of 90 tiles. I tested the entry part of the room, and whatever is pasted to the concrete there is of a different consistency. It may require a different type of scraping technique, but it will probably demand the same amount of elbow grease. Special thanks to Bill Gamsby, who lent me his shop vac for this project. Before I continue my next swath of scraping, it sounds like the vacuum will need a little maintenance, so I'll try to get that done tonight.

The fifth in the series of future passenger train talks is the "Fence Lake 400". The Chicago & North Western railroad provided a passenger train which ran from Chicago to Saint Paul, a distance of 400 miles, which was designed to arrive in 400 minutes. Thus, the train was named the "400". The name proved popular, and several other C&NW trains were given the "400" suffix, even though they traveled farther and took longer than 400 minutes. One of these trains was the "Peninsula 400", which traveled from Chicago to Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. For many summers while I was growing up, my father, sister and I would go on a weekend fishing trip with some church members to Fence Lake in Michigan. Fence Lake is about 30 miles west of Ishpeming. I have many fond memories of fishing, camping, exploring, and rope-swinging in and around the lake, and will be recreating portions of the terrain on the train layout of the future. There will even be a small resort town called Fence Lake. My "Fence Lake 400" will take passengers from Silver Falls through the farmlands to the north-woods destination of Fence Lake , where they can enjoy a relaxing time in and by the water. The train consists of four custom-painted streamlined aluminum passenger cars made by Williams. These represent 60', rather than 72' passenger cars, so they appear relatively short next to other O-Scale models. But that's ok! For motive power, there are a few choices. I have an F7 ABA C&NW set of diesel locomotives from Williams, with the shiny paint scheme that matches this passenger train nicely. There are also 3 O-Scale steam locomotives (none of which have been purchased yet) which would look spiffy with this set: a C&NW 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler, the "Yellow Jacket": a covered/shrouded 4-6-2 C&NW Pacific locomotive, or the gigantic C&NW 4-8-4 class H-1 Northern locomotive. Thanks for reading, and remember to keep your rails shiny ~

Fence Lake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Eagle Island is on the left.

The real-life C&NW Business Train looks very similar to my model Fence Lake 400 consist. This photo was taken by James House in Elmhurst, IL in 1989.

And here's the C&NW Business Train along the eastern shore of Devil's Lake, south of Baraboo, WI. My family and I camped here numerous times, and I may attempt to re-create this scene on the train layout of the future.