Here is this week’s photo from the original layout:

Here’s a project finally completed and installed! Scaled down and printed by a local FedEx store, these look great! Many thanks to FedEx 👍

It’s dusk in Cincinnati along the Ohio River as we’re working several industries. First up we watch the local crew from Riverside bring in one gondola for Sullivan scrap and an N&W insulated boxcar for Stephen’s Grocery. This crew first shoves the boxcar down against us in 8806, then spots the gondola: Fred, Jimmy, and […]

Today the local out of Riverside has brought us quite a few inbound cars. Looking at the waybills shows a gondola for Sullivan scrap, three tank cars for Monsanto Chemical, an Evergreen boxcar for the team track, and a WP boxcar of paints and stains for Armitage Furniture. Previously yesterday the local brought out a […]

This week’s photo from the original layout:

A multitude of details is what imo makes a layout come to life. As in the real world, there are vehicles everywhere, signs everywhere, power poles and lines everywhere. Putting these and more details on a layout just adds more and more realism. Such is the case with my layout. Below are just a few […]

Yes, that’s oil residue from these PC locomotives sitting in an area constantly. Another little detail added today, using engine oil by AK with actual soot dabbed on top while wet to give a bit of oily greasy look to the spots!

Here we continue on first trick with the local area based locomotive NW2 8806 switching the inbound and outbound cars the local has brought out from Riverside yard. Today’s crew includes Charlie as engineer, Fred as conductor, and Jimmy as brakeman on 8806’s crew. Of course the local has the usual five man crew. The […]

Just a short post today showing a bit of the weathering on my old standby, GP7 5628. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t show the rust on the cab roof. Looks like the old gal has been sideswiped at one time looking at that handrail stanchion! This locomotive is absolutely still my best locomotive, almost twenty years […]

Here today is a map of the railroads of Cincinnati circa 1952. Numerous railroads and their lines ran through and around the Queen City. The line I model runs along the lower left corner of the map, based out of Riverside yard in Sedamsville. A yard I actually ran into while track inspector was McCullough […]

Here is this week’s photo from the original Hitop branch layout, working the coal in West Virginia:

In this post we’ll finish up switching Monsanto with the rest of our crew, this time myself, Fred, and Jimmy. It’s now dark as we come back from lunch and get 8806 going. What we need to finish is to move the tank cars from the holding track to the loading/unloading track, then move the […]

A look at the layout this morning, including the next local with inbound cars:

Today we’re switching out Monsanto Chemical. As 8806 is basically assigned to the industrial area out along the Ohio here, there’s always a local out of Riverside yard that brings inbound cars and then of course takes the outbound cars back to the yard. So today we start with the local on second trick bringing […]

Amazing photos recently of the Penn Central along the Ohio River in Cincinnati during these three periods. Check it out!

Here is this next week’s layout photo from the original layout:

A new sight we haven’t seen before, and that’s this conveyor that some company has trucked into the team track to start unloading some type of commodity:

Here we go with the new series and our new characters. So let’s meet them! Obviously Steve is myself. Dan, Charlie, Chris, and John along with Bob, Jimmy, and Fred are all people I worked with or were closely associated with the Indiana and Ohio Railroad in their early years. In fact, here’s one of […]

Coming soon to the layout will be quite a few details from miniprints including brooms, telephone booth, Ice machine, and other details. You can find miniprints here: https://miniprints.com

Here is this week’s photo from the original NYC/PC Hitop branch layout: