Confessions of a Model Train Geek
A model train geek, learning as he goes.
This past Sunday, I spent 4 1/2 hours operating on William Brillinger’s layout. What fun! You may recall I operated there once already, so this was round 2. After I arrived at Bill’s house at 1 PM, Bill offered me the choice of operating CN 532, stopped at Letellier, or a BNSF grain train from … Read more
I did my first operating session on my model train layout with car cards. I took video with my phone and here are the videos. I broke the video in two because it was too long to upload and I wanted to edit out a few bits where I put the phone down to throw … Read more
I recorded a video to talk about the car cards I am trying out for my layout. I am going to use it to run through a trial operations session to see how well it works. In this video I show the car cards I am using, the card pockets I installed around the layout, and … Read more
Many model train layout designers try to have the maximum spur lengths they can, to maximize how many cars can sit at the industry, and therefore maximize their train lengths. There’s nothing wrong with this but you should consider how the industry actually uses the spur. I’ll give an example: the grain elevator spur in Georgetown on … Read more
I had my first ever operations session on someone else’s layout today! I was invited to an operating session on William Brillinger’s BNSF Manitoba Limited (BNML). After driving the icy highway 75 south around noon, I arrived at Bill’s house and saw the BNML for the first time in person. Bill’s layout occupies the top floor … Read more