Christmas Time!

I hope everyone had a most-merry Christmas! I received many generous gifts from loved ones, and many of them are train-related. In the past week, I completed the Christmas Train in the Train Room, hung up more railroad art and memorabilia, transferred a lot of train literature from a plastic tub to an antique display-trunk, and cleared more space in the hallway and laundry room. On Christmas morning, the Gamsbys and Seemans visited the Train Room (and the rest of the house too.)

My bride gave me a Lionel 6257 postwar caboose, an MTH Proto-Sounds reset kit, a stack of O-Scale railroad ties, an O-Scale Nativity display, and a photograph of the first C&NW steam locomotive: the Pioneer.

My folks gave me the 2013 Lionel Hallmark ornament set, and the 2014 Howard Fogg Trains calendar.

My sister gave me the 2014 Lionel Trains price guide.

And, my folks-in-law gave me an antique wooden railroad whistle, a steam train DVD set, the "Wyoming Whistle Stop" booklet, "Mailing May" - an early Idaho railroad story, a framed picture of an old toy train, and a Montana Rail Link cooler.

We gave our nephew, Edgar, a red steam locomotive ornament, a train outfit (makes him look like an engineer in overalls), and a big, warm train quilt (see picture above).

The train I set up around the living room tree this year consists of an all-Lionel cast. Aside from the engine, I alternated the train with red and green cars. At the head is C&NW 4-6-2 Pacific #2903, the first Lionel steam locomotive I purchased. Following it is a red Canadian National reefer, a green C&NW covered hopper, a red Union Starch tank car, a green Railway Express Agency reefer, and a red C&NW bay-window caboose.

I've been greatly blessed by family and friends (not just in train-related endeavors), and I wish everyone a joyous and meaningful New Year!

C&NW 2903 leads a merry train under the tree

The red & green upstairs Christmas Tree Train

The Gamsbys, Poynters, and Seemans visit the revamped Train Room

Lots of fun and useful train gifts for Mark! Thank you everybody!

Christmas Train

Merry Christmas blog readers!

The past week involved some more merry-ish projects than in previous weeks. I finished up the pile of filing that had built up, and then found and hung additional railroad art and artifacts. I brought all of my trains into the train room, and after some puzzle-work, placed them into the two closets. I cleared a bit more in the hallway, laundry room, and garage, which will allow people to actually get into the train room. I also set up the TV for watching lots of railroad-themed programs, and added a lantern-like lamp. Throughout the week, I set up and trimmed the Christmas tree, and added our antique portable fireplace to the temporary decor. I cleaned up the room, after the tree spread its little fake needles all about, and used the space to wrap several Christmas gifts for my bride. Friends Ted & Michelle came over to visit and got to see the nearly-complete room. And last night, I setup an oval track and transformer, and ran the new C&NW GP7 around the tree. Thus, the first train has been operated in the Train Room, as of Wednesday, December 18th, 2013... 3 days within my goal of "Fall 2013". Yes, an oval around the Christmas tree counts as a "functional O-Gauge model railroad" :)

The #1518 C&NW GP7 is a new addition to the fleet this year. This Lionel locomotive is modeled after the very first GP7 ever produced, and I've actually been able to see it at the Illinois Railway Museum. It is appropriate therefore, that it was the first engine to run in the new Train Room. In Illinois, I have another model C&NW GP7 (#8375) waiting in the queue to be shipped to Montana; once it is here I can double-head them.

I also set up a Christmas train under our Living Room tree - I will report on that next week! And, as usual, the Season brings other fun decorating projects - at the top of the page is our deck Christmas display for 2013. Amber added all of the spiffy accents, and I laid down the lighting.

A new arrival joined the collection this week too - a K-Line die cast hopper car in the Santa Fe "Midnight Chief" (aka "Black Bonnet") paint scheme.

The train boxes are nestled all snug in the closets

Newest addition - a die cast scale ATSF Midnight Chief hopper car

Christmas decor!

The new #1518 C&NW GP7 model

The original #1518 C&NW GP7 prototype

Great Progress

On Saturday morning, I finished scraping the floor. This allowed the rest of the project to proceed quickly. I cleared everything out of the room, and using a shop vac borrowed from a friend at work, removed all of the scraping debris. Using a mixture of TSP and water, I treated the floor, and then dried it using a mop and the shop vac. Next I applied the concrete etching liquid to the borders of the room. This has special time limits and procedures to follow. It has to stay moist while it is "cooking" the floor, and must remain on the concrete for at least 30 minutes. Etching prepares the concrete for painting, so the paint will adhere properly. It must be completely removed from the floor before painting, so I rinsed it with the mop and sucked up the remaining liquid with the shop vac. Once it dried, I repeated the process on the remaining "middle" part of the floor. Then I had supper with Amber and her folks. I finished up Saturday night by painting the brown trim border around the bottom of the walls. I activated the moisture-detector test, which is just a piece of plastic duct-taped to the floor.
On Sunday morning, I checked the moisture-detector, and found it to be dry on the top and undersides. While in Laurel, MT, I took a picture of several BNSF locomotives waiting for orders to pull their trains WB (photo at top of this entry). After church, I checked for moisture once more to be sure, and then started the first coat of floor paint. I did some border work with the brush, and used the roller for the rest. After 4 hours, I applied the second coat, this time brushing the entire border, at Amber's suggestion. The results were very good!
On Monday night, I brought in six planks of boxcar wood from our shed. A few years ago, our friend Jeff from church gave me one of his boxcar sheds. I took it apart (with help from my friends Darren, Kevin (Keg), Bill, and Andrew) one board at a time, and now most of it is sitting in our shed. It was originally Northern Pacific boxcar #31628, built in 1918. I cut the 6 planks into trim pieces for the Train Room, and nailed them to the wall. I placed pieces which still have some of the original boxcar paint on them in spots that are easy to view. Since this wood is nearly 100 years old, and spent most of its time outside, either as part of a tree, or part of a boxcar hauling grain throughout the country, or as part of an animal shed, some of it has rather large holes or cracks. This is why I painted the brown border around the bottom of the floor, so there wouldn't be white paint showing through these eccentricities.
On Tuesday, I cleaned and vacuumed the room again, and moved in the larger furniture pieces which sit along the eastern wall.
On Wednesday, I moved in the pictures that will be stored, and started sorting the papers we have accumulated since moving into the house in April. That project should be wrapped up tonight. I also started hanging up some railroad artwork and artifacts on the wall.

The floor has now been scraped, scrubbed, and etched. The brown border has been painted as well.

The finished floor!

Now the boxcar wood trim has been added. The upper right section of this board has some of the original red boxcar paint on it.

The room is now complete! Thank you to everyone who helped and tolerated this project (especially my bride) to this point. Looks like new walls and floor!

And this is what it looked like about 4 months ago...

Tree Incentive

We've made it to December - that means I just have a few weeks to meet my Fall goal. Outside looks and feels quite Winter-y already, with 9" of snow and high temperatures below zero. I've been blessed with a new incentive to get the Train Room floor done though... and it is a Christmas tree. Right now, the items that are headed back to the Train Room are blocking the path to part of one of our Christmas trees. And, in my wedded bliss, I can strongly sense that my loving wife would strongly like to decorate a Christmas tree as soon as possible. So, scraping efforts have been doubled. 25% of the entryway/closet area has been scraped, and I've arranged to borrow another shop vac from a coworker, as the one I've been using is somewhat hindering the process at the moment. I believe this weekend will produce much progress.

The eighth in the series of future passenger train discussions is "The Canadian". This is a streamlined 7-car version of the real-life Canadian Pacific "Canadian" which entered service in 1955, and a form of it still operates today. The Canadian connected Vancouver, BC to Sandbury, ON, and then on to either Montreal, QC or Toronto, ON for a 71-hour trip. On our honeymoon, my wife and I were able to ride on The Skeena passenger train (a.k.a. "Jasper - Prince Rupert"), a small sight-seeing consist that runs on some of the same tracks as the current Canadian. We traveled from the bustling metropolis of Dunster, BC (I'm sure you've heard of it) to Jasper, AB. Dunster has a population of about 27, but they use the metric system, so I'm not sure how that converts. Anyway... it was a very fun and pretty 60-mile ride. We had practically an entire passenger car to ourselves. At the end of the train was the Waterton Park vista dome observation car (Canadian Pacific #15417). I was allowed to tour it briefly before the train left Jasper. Jasper was not on the original route of The Canadian; instead, it was served by Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian National passenger trains. My Canadian is an O-scale MTH set, pulled by Williams F3 ABA locomotives. Lionel originally made a semi-scale version of this set in 1957; the locomotives from that original set are some of the most sought-after Lionel collectibles of the postwar era. Mine have little collector's value, but they make for a very sleek trainset, and will be pulling The Canadian around the train layout of the future for years to come. The observation car on my set is based on the Sibley Park (original Canadian Pacific #15413). The CP's color scheme of grey and maroon, with yellow accents, and their nifty beaver logo is rather ritzy, and graces the top of the blog today while running on the SPCR&GC RR. Keep your rails shiny ~

Section scraped in front of closet door

25% of this section done

The Canadian in the Canadian Rockies

Newlyweds and the Waterton Park in Jasper, AB