DIY Shelving

A snowy day for interurbans - photo taken by Tim Vermande from rrpicturearchives.net

Happy winter to my blog readers ~

This week's Train Room guests included our friends Paul and Annie, who came over for supper last week. Over the weekend, I worked on several wood-related projects for the home, including some shelves for the Train Room. Several months ago, my bride helped me salvage several 1/2" thick boards which had been part of a large shipping crate. These were being thrown out, so we decided to adopt them. Now they are being given new life in the form of display shelves for the Train Room! I cut them to length, and over the past few evenings I've been treating them with some cherry wood stain the previous home owner left. So far the shelves have cost $0! I'll just need to pick up some mounting brackets/hardware. I went ahead and scanned for studs in the walls and marked them appropriately, so this little project should be finished up shortly. The shelves will be used to display not only model trains, but also a mighty miscellany of railroad-related artifacts I have collected thus far. Also over the weekend, I acquired a nasty cold thanks in part to various snow-clearing activities. I am still dealing with it, and my long-suffering wife is doing her best to help me rest and recover.

The ninth in this series of future passenger trains will discuss interurbans. The term "interurban" may refer to a piece of physical train equipment, or to the electric railway that runs said equipment. When I use the term, I am most likely referring to a type of passenger train that ferries passengers between cities or suburbs. Interurbans are usually capable of high speed travel, and may consist of one or more self-powered passenger train cars. You may think of an interurban as a cross between an electric streecar and a pleasantly upolstered heavyweight passenger car. I've had the pleasure of riding many preserved interurbans at the Illinois Railway Museum, and at several other points across the United States. The Electoliner, disucssed eariler, is a type of interurban, but warranted a discussion entry of its own. The other interurban currently in my roster is the K-Line produced Chicago South Shore & South Bend two-unit set. A picture of a real-life set is at the top of today's posting. This is a very fun train to run, with good sound effects and good dependability. As the name implies, this railroad connects South Bend, Indiana with downtown Chicago. A form of this electric line still runs today. I would gladly add more interubans to the collection if presented with the opportunity, but affordable O-Scale options are rather limited. While manufacturers like K-Line, Lionel, and MTH have produced samples of interubans, the more prevelent means of acquiring O-Scale models is to build them yourself. There are thousands of stunning 2-rail options available, and properly built kits are very valuable. While I've become comfortable building structures from scratch for the train layout, I don't feel a desire to build any sort of rolling stock from a kit. The Chicago area had dozens of different interurban lines, and this seems to be an untapped market in the realm of O-Scale trains. At present, there are two models on my "some day" list: the fancy 3rd Rail-produced CNSM Silverliners, and the more affordable CNSM set from K-Line, which is from the same family as the CSS&SB set I have. Maybe someday there will be more options available for the many O-Scalers across the country that want to add more interurbans to their fleets. There are not any local examples of interubans to model, as Billings was not served by any electric railroads. In the first part of the 20th century, the Billings Traction Company ran battery-powered trolleys to transport citizens, but we'll have to touch on that in a later discussion! Until next time - keep your rails shiny ~

Free boards cut

Free stain being applied