Weekend Photos - August 2025

[healey36]

July's in the books; moving on to August. The Lionel 258 and a string of four-wheel coaches lumbers through the 305 bridge, heading south toward the tunnel at Heat-Pump Pass:



The 258 sees more track-time here than any other loco, usually dragging a string of four-wheel 800-series freights. It just looks and sounds great.

Lionel brought out the 258 for 1930 as part of two or three sets, one being #234. There it had a string of 529/530 four-wheel coaches. Here we have it dragging 629/630 coaches (I'm short one 529). Same basic configuration, just different colors.

[gregj410]

Please elaborate on Heat-Pump pass

[healey36]

Hmmm...Heat-Pump Pass, well that's a natural obstruction which is conveniently positioned to obscure the laundry area of the basement for layout viewers, as well as the big sheet-metal indoor unit for the first floor's HVAC. If you can look through the darkness and past all of the crap everywhere, you can see the clothes-rack and the indoor unit (upper left), along with a couple of paneled columns built by the previous owner:



The two track mainline tunnel at Heat-Pump Pass houses O-31 and O-42 curves, a double-track portal at one end and a two-single-track portal at the opposite end. It's the primary reason we can't run much "big stuff", as the tunnel interior is a bit tight. It's usually not a problem as most of the prewar stuff I have is relatively short, 10-inch cars probably being about the longest. Some of the postwar stuff can be a challenge, and anything scale is pretty much not happening. I installed tunnel liners made from brick-paper printed on cardstock (big pet-peeve is a tunnel that opens into a giant cavern). I like the look, but it's a big part of the reason I can't run big stuff through there.

The portals are simple, white-pine scraps found in the shop, a few bits of trim added, than shot with some textured spray-paint left over from another job. The western portal has a keystone embellishment "LL" (Lionel Lines) that the wife made for me using some foam letters she had in her old scrapbooking stash:



When we built this thing, we started by screwing the portals to the table, than built the ridge/hill behind it. The structure is all foam-board, the top being some foam partitions over a flat horizontal foam bulkhead, then paper-towel strips dipped in HydroCal.

I tried a bit of foam-carving of rocks, a mixed bag at best. I'm going to do more of that eventually, seeing if I can make something that looks even close to what you guys come up with. I need some foliage up on the top...get to that eventually.

I'm slowly getting the mess in the basement cleaned up/organized. I picked up a couple of rolling racks from Bezos, and have been making storage boxes from stuff I get over at Shipping Station. The big thing is, I'm really trying to stop acquiring stuff and work on/with what I have. There's a lifetime worth of projects laying around...slowly starting to get to them.

[healey36]

Nearly 2300 users online at MTJ at 0813 today...one wonders if this is legit or if we're being attacked by bots.

[webenda]

Nearly 2300 users online at MTJ at 0813 today...one wonders if this is legit or if we're being attacked by bots.

Good question.
In total there are 2395 users online :7:41 am CST, Aug 02, 2025: 3 registered, 0 hidden and 2392 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Some of the bots have even managed to become registered.
Registered users: Bing [Bot], up148, webenda

Thank you for the photos and explanation of Heat-Pump Pass. Very interesting. The rock carving looks realistic to me.

[healey36]

Thanks, Wayne, re: the rocks. It's a skill (carving foam) I covet.

I think MTJ's typical user count runs around 85-90, so no idea why the occasional surges. Also no idea what a snapshot user count looks like on OGR, but I'm guessing it doesn't run in the thousands.

[gregj410]

Ok well there you have. Heat Pump pass! I like it! Gives me a good visual now on what’s traveling where. A few trees on that mountain and to the left about where that Lionel boxed water tower is sitting and Heat-Pump pass will be cleverly disguised.

[gregj410]

Nearly 2300 users online at MTJ at 0813 today...one wonders if this is legit or if we're being attacked by bots.

Maybe during a political kerfuffle in the lounge

[healey36]

Nearly 2300 users online at MTJ at 0813 today...one wonders if this is legit or if we're being attacked by bots.

Maybe during a political kerfuffle in the lounge

I took a look at the number of users for each discussion forum, added them up, and it wasn’t even close to the total user count on-line. No idea what’s going on. It even reported folks browsing the N and HO forums; I can’t even get into those.

[healey36]

Ok well there you have. Heat Pump pass! I like it! Gives me a good visual now on what’s traveling where. A few trees on that mountain and to the left about where that Lionel boxed water tower is sitting and Heat-Pump pass will be cleverly disguised.

That water tower and a few other things are headed into the "to be dispositioned" pile. I think it was an offering of the LRRC some two decades or so back. Never been out of the box.

[webenda]

I have a Pennsylvania caboose.

[webenda]

But no Pennsylvania engine.

Perhaps I can add a Pennsylvania tender shell to this tender frame.


I ordered this tender on eBay.

[webenda]

The eBay tender I received does not look like the one in the eBay photo. And the one I received doesn't exactly fit the old tender frame (only the two center bolts line up out of six bolts that held the NYC shell to the frame.) Despite seeming too big, the engine/tender combination works fine on my door layout.


New message from: choochoo33056
Hi! Believe we shipped you the wrong tender.
Yours is here. You can return thru ebay on us and get your refund as soon as we receive it. If you still want the correct one, please send a check for $13.10 (no shipping) to us and we will ship as soon as we receive the incorrect tender.

I told choochoo I would just keep the wrong tender.

New message from: choochoo33056
Ok. Sorry for the mix-up. Enjoy!

[gregj410]

Ugh Wayne! Frustrating and over a simple inexpensive tender shell.

Here is a section of a back drop I mounted to a piece of cardboard for photo ops on my little On30 island layout. I want to eventually take some pics without the normal train room clutter appearing in the background.

[webenda]

Good-looking backdrop. Seems to be right for the scene.

A black poster board is used here to hide the door to the room.

I have never liked rubber tires on model trains. Part of the mystique of railroads is how metal wheels on metal rails can get enough traction to pull long trains. In the case of this MTH engine, if the train does not have free-rolling trucks, the effort of pulling the cars causes the rubber tires to fall off.

NOTE--The engine still pulls three post-war cars with the rubber tires flopping around on the drive rods.