Building the Great Northern empire

This year, I'm focusing on purchasing Great Northern rolling stock. On the train layout of the future, GN will be the 3rd-most represented railroad (after C&NW and NP). At the beginning of 2016, my GN roster consisted of a Mikado steam locomotive, a reefer car, a hopper car, and an express mail car. Since then, I've acquired two Postwar Lionel 6464 boxcars, a Lionel boxcar, a Weaver boxcar, and coming next week, a Weaver stockcar and MTH caboose. I've also had some repair work done on the Mikado steamer. So far, my plans to beef up the Great Northern stock has been working!

Ultimate plans for the GN will include another boxcar, a pair of flatcars, two ore cars, two more reefers, another stock car and another caboose. Additionally, (and further down the line) I'll be adding an F3 or FT diesel-powered streamlined passenger set, a Geep diesel, and a small yard steamer. Photos of the new GN equipment will be here next week. Keep those rails shiny!

Searchlight 6520

Hello, this week I purchased a Postwar Lionel searchlight car at a local estate auction. My folks were actually the purchasing agents, so thank you to them! I purchased this in order to use the searchlight housing to replace the broken one on my existing car, but now I've found out this won't work... My searchlight car is #3520, but the new one is #6520, which is a bit fancier. So now I've ended up with two different Postwar searchlight cars, both of which need some repair, but I'm happy to own them. The 6520 also includes the original box. Here's a photo, and keep those rails shiny:

Searchlight #6520

The Town of Red Stone

Howdy folks, there wasn’t any train activity this week, so today I’ll talk a bit about a town I’ll be building on the future train layout.

The train layout will be based on the mid-1950’s, and Red Stone will be a bustling western town of about 2,000 people. It will be an important railroad community, linking the fictional layout to big cities like Denver, Kansas City and San Francisco. The four chief railroads that will have operations in Red Stone will be the Santa Fe (ATSF), the Katy (MKT), the Rock Island (CRI&P) and the Frisco (SL&SF). The town will have plenty of through-passenger traffic, and will be located near oil fields, cattle ranches, crop fields and a military base, which will provide interesting freight traffic.

Generally, Red Stone will be south of the city of Silver Falls and west of Cedar Falls, a logging town. North of Red Stone will be a desert area with some interesting sandstone rock formations, and a small creek will run along the east side of the town. Several train tracks will be located along the south side of town, and that’s where a collection of railroad buildings will be found (station, sheds, water tower). East of these structures, at the end of McLintock Avenue, will be a church with a cemetery and a small park. Traveling north on Huskie Street will bring visitors to a variety of businesses including the Big Boy Bakery, Jackey Lowp’s Bar, and the Wall Pharmacy. There will also be several homes and a gas station near the corner of Huskie Street and Tamarack Road. North of town will be some bleachers where onlookers can view rodeos and other events near the sandstone rocks.

From a real-world standpoint, the Red Stone area will be located at the southwest corner of the future train layout, and will a 7x9 foot area, so it will be roughly the same size as the current train set I’m operating. Initial plans are shown in the pictures below. I hope everybody has a great day, and keep your rails shiny ~

Red Stone details

Red Stone showing Area divisions