Large Scale Central

rounding up strays

I was on vacation this past week. The first weekend I was at the Greenberg train show with both HO groups I belong to. Wednesday we took a ride on the Titusville and Oil Creek Railroad. I also spent some time tuck pointing my house, and doing some minor repairs. But mostly I played trains and did a stray round up. Many of us have strays, at least I think we do. Pieces that are in boxes, hiding in various places, waiting to be rediscovered and put to use on our railroads.

The first thing I had to do was put runners in the bottom of my storage cabinet, and add the last shelf. I was hoping I could make 2 shelves fit, but there just wasn’t enough space.

Somehow, before I got my phone ready to take a picture, some cars rearranged themselves, and a few found their way from the workshop to the cabinet. Sneaky little buggers, ain’t they?

Then it was time to unbox the and gather the strays, get metal wheels and KaDee couplers on to them.

Oh look. Its the ECLSTS show car.

This LGB car was once a sound car, but the sound has long ago been removed. Also it has a broken step. I had better fill out a bad order form on this one.

I bought this car to do a weathering demonstration on, many years ago. I have finally just placed it in service.

And now the cabinet looks like;

Uh on. One last stray.

Kind of appropriate that last stray is a caboose.

Did you use a lariat to round up those strays? (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)Nice assortment of cars, with various colors, makes for interesting trains.

Glad you got up to the OC&T. That’s a great ride behind an nice old Alco. Next best thing to steam.

Nice job filling out the cabinet. Probably makes room elsewhere since they’ve been rounded up. I like all the those colors too, especially all those old wood sided ones.

Bill, no lariat, I didn’t learn that skill when I lived for a summer on a farm in Oklahoma. It was more like herding cats.

Randy, they weren’t running an Alco when I was there. The one Alco had an A frame over it, like it needed some attention. They were running a beast I have never seen before. It was a B B diesel, but the trucks weren’t of a design I had seen before. It also had a Safety Cab on it, like the cabs on them dash whatevers. On the frame was painted MLW, so I am guessing it was a Montreal Locomotive Works product.

The USA reefers and wood side boxcars are kind of heavy, and they limit the length of trains that my LGB Moguls can pull. I am hoping that I can soon convert the really draggy cars, of whatever brand, to ball bearing journals.