Friday visit to the BLR

Matt and I were down by the rail yard this morning , while we were standing by the yard crew station house. You guessed it D&RGW locomotive # 251 a Forney arrived at the station with the morning passenger service to Kensville. We watched the passengers get off the train and a new group of passengers get on. The train was only there for about 5 minutes and it was off to it destination. We walk up to the Big little Railway locomotive # 257 that was sitting on a siding getting up steam, getting ready to go and pick up three empty log cars and six full ones to be taken to Billsville. The engineer started the engine moving,we stood there watching the train being made up. Shortly thereafter the engine gradually pulled away with its load. As the engine passed us we waved to the engineer,then we made our way across the tracks to the station. We went to the snack bar and settled down for coffee and donuts and waited to see what else would be happening around the station that morning.

Farm Concert

I was walking down by the rail yard this morning and it was a bright and sunny day. In the distance you could here music playing , so I wonder off in the direction of the music to see what was going on. As I approached the little farm house by the tracks you could see a group of people sitting on benches and in front of them playing was a three piece band. The people sitting were shouting and singing along with them. Everybody seamed to be having a great time. Behind the band sat two older gentlemen playing checkers while their dog slept at there feet. A little girl was just coming down the steps of the house, while her mother was working in the garden. Along side of the house were an old 57 Chev car and a old pickup truck and in front of the pick up truck was a vintage fire truck.

Over in the far corner of the yard were two bulls watching the goings on, in the distance you could here the 3:15 passenger train approaching, I ran down to the fence at the side of the railroad tracks and sat on a large boulder and waited for the train to approach, It didn't disappoint me,for it was a big steam locomotive pulling a baggage car, passenger car and a combine car, as the train passed bye, I waved at the passengers on the train and some waved back to me. Well the train has gone off into the distance and I could here the engine blow for the crossing at Melville. Looking at my watch and realized that it was getting late and I'd better get home for supper, jumping up and beginning to hum " I've been working on the railroad ".I began skipping along the path by the tracks and headed home. Take care see you later.

BIG little RAILWAY - LAYOUT

Layout Change

I have removed the wye from the layout today. The main reason was that I was not using it very much, so by removing it, it has allowed me to have two more siding for rolling stock. One of the sidings can hold up to five cars and the other will hold two. Oh Boy where is the nearest Hobby Shop. It also allows me to display my BNSF SD70MAC a lot better, because I can now display it on the front siding so you can see it as you come into the train room. Where it was before was on a siding behind the station and in order to see it you had to remove all the passenger cars and freight car from there sidings. A real good change for the better. A new layout diagram while be published shortly.

DOWN BY THE TRACKS

Hi:
My name is Gary and I am taking a walk down by the tracks on the BIG little Railway. Here it is Sunday morning and it is cloudy . Things are being to happen, people are waiting to board the 11:00am local passenger train due in shortly. I can see a young mother with two children, a workman carrying his tool box and several other workmen going about their duties prior to the train arriving . I can now here the train blowing for the station, the children are getting excited as the train approaches. The train has arrived and everybody boards its. The engineer gives two blasts of the whistle and the train begins to put away slowly and disappears in the distance taking passengers to far away destinations. Maybe I will come down to the station tomorrow and I will get to see more things going on as it will be a normal workday.

Equipment on the BLR

The BIG little Railway consists of 6 locomotives (1) D&RGW 2-6-0 Mogul, (2) D&RGW Forney's, 1 D&RGW Diesel Switcher. Rolling stock consists of a D&RGW Combine car, Baggage car and passenger car. Freight cars consists of a Box, Refrigerator, Gondola, 6 loaded Log Cars, three empty Log cars and small caboose. All of the above are LGB Products. I also have added the Beckmann (Spectrum) Rail Truck and a USA Trains SD70MAC BNSF 9838 (for show only-obviously to large to run)

Ground Cover & Scenery

The ground cover of the layout is loose kitty litter (unscented) with Woodland Scenic materials used to complement the ground scenery. Having the scenery this way, allows me to just sweep everything up and put it into bags, if I have to move the layout. Tree are artificial. Fir trees bought from craft stores, real boulders were used where possible. Nothing on the layout is glued or nailed down except for the track.. By using trees and rocks I was able to block some of the view plains and give the illusion that the trains was not just running around circles.

Layout

With several design changes and countless hours of tearing my hair out, I was able to come up with a suitable and acceptable layout. The layout is basically an oval with eight small spurs. One at the first curve leading to the coaling station and water tower, another to the locomotive shed that houses two locomotives. One off the main line leading to two holding tracks for passenger cars and continuing on to two other sidings to handle extra rolling stock. Three new spurs (Second Yard ) have been added just in front of the sation to handle rolling stock Three switches were added to creat a wye on the right side of the layout to allow locomotives to turn around.

Name

The name of the Railway comes from the size of the Trains (122.5 G Scale)being used and the size of the room ( 11ft x 17ft ) in which they are in.