South Shore Caboose

Some great pictures of a South Shore Caboose taken by Chris Trott and posted at SnapShot Chicago.

Trost Hobby Shop closing

Trost Hobby Shop over on 63rd Street is closing tomorrow for good. The Berghoff, Fields, and now this....

via Gapers Block Yet another longtime Chicago landmark closing

Cross Posted on Illinoize

Lombard Hobbies, Sep 30, 2005

Lombard Hobbies on St Charles Road in Lombard Illinois is one of my favorite hobby shops. They have some of the best prices and always a deep discount on something special. Usually something special I've been looking around for.

Recently arrived Athern SD45T-2s in UP colors. Jeff's elbow is in the corner of the picture but he didn't want to be in it. He's discontinued their webpage too. Said it was too much trouble, so to buy anything you need to make a trip to Lombard, Illinois.

Nobody's layout is ever finished. But all you really need is to be able to run the trains. Here's theirs.

Stuff I bought then smuggled into the house to avoid budget confrontations.

CA&E Ardmore Station, Villa Park, Illinois

One of my favorite stations. Now used by the Chamber of Commerce in Villa Park for offices. The new Metra Station in Elburn Illinois seems inspired too me by this structure.

M&StL at Grinnll, Iowa

Lyndon "Cash" Groth has a nice webpage devoted to the Minneapolis & St. Louis, Iowa Central, and the Chicago & Northwestern railroads.

You'll find some nice pictures of the joint M&StL and Rock Island Depot in Grinnell, Iowa.

I whiled away the hours at this Depot while a student at Grinnell College in the early 70s.

The old M&StL tracks cut right through the middle of campus. When I was a student the C&NW had taken over the M&StL but there were still three or four trains a day.

Now it's the Union Pacific but the traffic seems to be steady based on this article on Students and Trains.

At Grinnell College, trains have been a part of campus life since the school's 1846 founding.

Cargo trains pass through campus, running north and south, two or three times each day, said Dann Hayes, director of media relations. There is another line that runs east to west through the town of Grinnell.

"Because of that, cross trains have to go extra slow, which is a bonus for us," Hayes said.

The trains blast their horns at least two intersections before arriving on campus, giving plenty of warning. To further ensure student safety, procedures to deal with train collisions have been outlined in handbooks that will be distributed in every classroom, office and at every telephone at the school, Hayes said.

"For the most part, I think it's just common sense."

Wayne's Dunham Depot

From the Daily Herald of September 25, 2005 about preservation efforts for an old train station.

Train depots have plenty of history in Wayne. Karen Armbrust said the first one, known as Dunham Depot, was built in 1850 when one of the village’s founding fathers, Solomon Dunham, wanted a rail line closer to the land he owned.

The newer, bigger depot that the village is now trying to restore into the museum was built in 1884 and eventually boarded up after the last stops in 1950. A few years later, Karen said, it was moved to the Dunham Castle property by family member Jane Dunham.

Anyone interested in getting involved or seeking more information about the museum project can contact the village at (630) 584-3090.

The picture is not on the link but it's a spitting image of the old Revell Small Town station.

GACX Express Reefer HO kits

Steve Sandifer compares Walthers and Broadway Limited cars in a link I found posted on yahoo's passenger car list.

Elburn's Metra Station a look alike for CA&E's Ardmore Station

Elburn's Mayor Willey's blogsite has a drawing of Elburn's new Metra Station. It looks like the Metra folks were inspired by the Chicago Aurora & Elgin's Ardmore station in Villa Park.

Of people, rails, and places

Here's a blog by a fellow who enjoys Russian trains: Of people, rails, and places. Problem is he writes in Russian. No matter, I look at the pictures.

Fox River Trolly Museum

Below are some pictures taken today at the Fox River Trolly Museum. Hard to believe it's forty years old now, and that I remember visting when I was just a kid. I have a picture taken then of CA&E Car 20 I'll dig out and post. Afterwords I'm sure we went to Morris's for Bar-B-Que.

Sad_South_Shore_Car 

CTA_Interior 

CTA_Car 

CTA_Articulated 

CAE_Car20_Front_View 

CAE_Sign 

Branchline's Railway Express Agency Reefer

Branchline has some pictures up of their soon to be released model of an REA Reefer. I didn't realize the green/silver scheme was the 'as delivered' scheme. It didn't hold up well and the cars soon repainted the standard REA solid green.

Russian Model Railroading

You'll need a cyrillac character font on your browser for these to download correctly. I can't read Russian but like to fiddle around in the link looking at the models. The Russian Railway ring has an option to switch to English.

http://railroad.mnc.ru/
Russian Railway Ring

And then check this site in Polish. I can't read a thing but gaze at the pics.

Layout ideas: Elgin, Illinois industrial circle

Paul Behrens's book Steam Trains to Geneva Lake: C&NW's Elgin - Williams Bay Branch contains wonderful maps of this branch line including one on page 89 of the complete circle in downtown Elgin that served a number of factories and businesses.

It's really an oval with dimensions of two by three city blocks and traversed a small branch of the fox river with two bridges. It's a perfect concept for the traditional model railroad oval on 4 x 8 sheet. The line from West Chicago to Lake Geneva would be one side of the oval and the brick Elgin station sat just east of the oval.

It looks like Elgin's Hemmens Auditorium and new Library occupy most of this site but I'll try and get down there with a digital camera. I'll also check the Elgin Historical society for any photos or plans they might share.

Last train ran on this line in the late 1980s so this layout could cover a number of eras.

Elgin Joliet & Eastern

Found this site devoted to the EJ&E.