Site Seeing – Last mile switching on the Florida Central

Danny Harmon spends a day out following a railfan friendly switch crew of the Florida Central as they switch customers around Orlando, Florida.

---

First Mile / Last Mile

This is where I believe that real railroading happens. It is where the customer meets the railroad. It’s also where modellers with small spaces, budgets and time allocation get the most bang for the buck when designing and building a layout. There’s a lot of great locations and close up detail shots of the crew working and the locations for inspiration.

Sit back, put on your headphones and enjoy the sights and sounds of a couple of vintage locomotives as the train crew prepare their train, run out to, and then switch, the customers spurs. (Clickable video below)

---

---

Make sure to like and subscribe to Danny’s channel. Recently he’s been doing a lot of switching videos. I hope he does a lot more to come. Supporting him might just get him to do more too.

Advertisement

Site update – 14 November 2016 – A new Kendallville Indiana image gallery

A big thank you goes out to Charles Malinowski who recently offered me photos of the Kendallville Terminal Railway Co to post here on Andrew’s Trains. I’ve added a new gallery page in the USA Gallery section for his photos of the line. I’m hoping that there are more to come for this great and very modellable shorty shortline railroad.

Update 1: New Gallery Page

The new gallery page link above takes you to Charle’ image set, at what appears to me to be West Rush Street. The image above is full of Autumn (Fall) detail and I just love the time worn look of the railroad. There does not appear to be a single straight piece of rail in the photo, great stuff. Enjoy the link and let me know if you like Charles Malinowski’s images.

Site seeing – June 19, 2016 – The big city edition

Today’s site is a masterpiece. No more hyperbole, so let’s get straight to it.

Site 1: Industrial switching layout – City Limits

While the site is in French, using Google translate allowed me to get a better understanding of the content. Visually I find this layout a stunning, well thought out and executed ISL. I hope that you enjoy it too.

Site 2: YouTube – City Limits

Site 3: YouTube – City Limits 2

Site seeing – March 26th (the “Have a great Easter” edition)

While tooling around the Shortline Modellers’ site I mentioned in my post of March 24th I found a video that I wanted to share with you. Onto to todays site.

Site 1: Painting diesel locomotive trucks

I find it amazing that when you need something the most it so often appears out of the mist, landing at your feet, as if sent by the gods direct from Olympus itself. Watch on as Shortline Modellers’ Shawn Branstetter goes through what he did to paint, weather and masterfully finish the diesel locomotive truck in this video.

I hope that he keeps on posting videos like this. If some of the articles I’ve only scanned so far are near as good, this site will become a modeller’s resource for many of us.

Like this post and comment if you find it useful or would like further information; if you’ve not already subscribed to keep up to date you can do so now using the link at the top of the post.

Site seeing – March 24 (The night before the Easter weekend edition)

A post popped up on Facebook today that had me dreaming of Narrow Gauge ideas. Just one more model to add to the list of things I’d like to build before… well I guess as modellers you get it. Follow the link below to some really good modelling.

Site 1: Shortline Modellers website and forum

I’ve had a quick look around this site, and found some outstanding modelling going on there. Seems like its young and in the early stages of being filled out. Don’t let that dissuade you from visiting however.

That’s it for today. Like this post and comment if you find it useful or would like further information; if you’ve not already subscribed to keep up to date you can do so now using the link at the top of the post.

Site seeing – July 28

I’m always looking for interesting ideas for small layouts. Interchanges especially can provide a great way to represent the rest of the world on a small layout. And so I segue into today’s site of interest. Note the image below is from the RailPictures.Net site and published courtesy of the photographer Tom Sink. Those GPs sure look handsome in those colours though…

Two South Orient Railroad GP9s (former DRGW) lead a train east of Alpine, TX in 1994 on the former ATSF San Angelo Subdivision.

Site 1: The South Orient [ Link to blog –> ]

Recently over on the Rails West blog B. Smith has written about his time on the South Orient. From late 1992 he was the conductor on the railroad working out of Alpine Texas. The list of articles are in the resources section below. One particular piece caught my eye however, in the most recent post:

“The cars coming to the South Orient in interchange are on the Mexican side, ready for us to couple into and bring into the United States, as soon as I unlock the gate.”

An international border, a bridge and an interchange all in one. Ooh I can feel a design coming on already. Inspiration is certainly where you find it, but I’m not sure I’ve been this inspired for some time.

The whole recollection series has interested me. Take the time to visit the blog and read about the line. There’s even a teaser talking about traffic patterns in the future.

For now I’ll leave you with a TxDOT video on the line’s revitalisation:

Resources:

1. Remembering Belding — Old School Railroading in the 1990s
2. Lonesome Casa Piedra – Last Run of the Texas Pacifico South of Alpine, TX (for now)
3. Reflections on the South Orient – Part 1
4. Reflections on the South Orient – Part 2
5. TxDOT’s page with all of the information on the line

Happy rails to you all…