Weekend Photos - September 2025

[healey36]

While working hard to get a few big outdoor jobs complete, I found time to knock out one of Carstens' "cut-out" projects, this from the March 1952 issue of Toy Trains magazine. What he referred to as a "wayside station", it reminded me of the Baltimore Transit Company shelters I saw as a kid along the streetcar line on Old Frederick Road in Catonsville.



Not too many parts; still, it took me a few days to build it. I made a few minor changes along the way, but nothing significant. I did, as Carstens recommended, go ahead and cut the posts out of some balsa scraps I had, and I added some internal strips to make squaring it up and cementing it to a base easier. The roof is strips of cardstock laid horizontally. We made the station name "Patapsco", a semi-generic Baltimore location that could be almost anywhere on the west side of the city.

I tried to attach a copy of the template here, but couldn't figure out how to do it (if you even can do it). If anybody wants a copy of the plan, PM me with an email address and I'll send it to you.

Anyway, August is in the books and we move on to September. Just a few weeks and we'll be tromping through York again...can't wait.

[gregj410]

Looks great Paul! Nice to do projects that you can start and finish pretty quickly.

As for the big outside projects, who has time for trains now? Wow, beautiful weather lately and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon. Fall weather this early? Feels like a set up for an October blizzard.

I’ve been clearing out a spot back by the creek that borders our property. I promised to take my granddaughter fishing this fall. She’s 4, can’t wait!

[healey36]

Thanks, Greg; always fun cutting up cardboard!

Taking the little “guys” fishing is terrific fun. I remember my son not being too impressed, but my daughter was a hoot. She loved it, no qualms handling bait or a fish, patient, could keep her interested for a couple hours. Now her husband takes her fishing out on the bay...not sure she’s that excited about it anymore, lol.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

While working hard to get a few big outdoor jobs complete, I found time to knock out one of Carstens' "cut-out" projects, this from the March 1952 issue of Toy Trains magazine. What he referred to as a "wayside station", it reminded me of the Baltimore Transit Company shelters I saw as a kid along the streetcar line on Old Frederick Road in Catonsville.

That looks great!

[webenda]

...referred to as a "wayside station",...

I agree, the 'Station' looks great.

I am reminded of the Amtrak station in Benson, Arizona.

[healey36]

Thanks, Wayne; gotta pull out a streetcar and see how it looks.

Considering the day-time temps in summer in Benson, I’d have expected something a bit more “sheltering”, lol. Did some time in Tucson back in the Hughes days...place could be a blast-furnace, even at 10:00PM.

[webenda]

Did some time in Tucson back in the Hughes days...place could be a blast-furnace, even at 10:00PM.

I worked at Hughes Tucson from 1971 to 2008. Yeah, it gets hot there.

June 22, 1988 the weather service said we (Tucson) hit a new record high of 114 °F.
Well, we did not. The Airport had just replaced its liquid-in-glass thermometer with a digital thermometer.
The old weather station was between two runways. (On dirt/sand ground, not a grass field as specified by NOAA.)
The new digital thermometer's cord was not long enough to reach the computer indoors, so they placed it between a parking lot and the building where the computer was. (No grass there either.)
The error in reading was two or three degrees higher than at the old location. NOAA had already recorded 114 °F and, once recorded, no temperature can be changed. The error due to location was adjusted in the computer's weather application. That was so wrong for many reasons.

Tucson's current record high is 117 °F set on June 26, 1990.

Perhaps it wasn't that hot after all. Perhaps someone returned from lunch and parked in front of the new weather station. The car's radiator might have skewed the reading to a new record of 117 °F.

https://www.weather.gov/twc/TucsonMonthlyNormalExtremes

[healey36]

From 2016, here's the Amtrak shelter at Surf Beach, California:



Looks more like a pillbox that might have been built in 1941

Photo courtesy of Victor von Salza.

[HONDO74]

Did some time in Tucson back in the Hughes days...place could be a blast-furnace, even at 10:00PM.

I worked at Hughes Tucson from 1971 to 2008. Yeah, it gets hot there.

Wayne you lived in Tucson for a long time. What was the rational for leaving and moving to the Midwest ?

I lived in Tucson for only one year in the early 50s. Wish I had never lived there. They say that is where I acquired Valley Fever.

[webenda]

Wayne you lived in Tucson for a long time. What was the rational for leaving and moving to the Midwest ?

I lived in Los Angeles, California, from 1942 to 1969 and in Arleta, California from 1969 to 1971. I moved to Tucson to accept a job at Hughes.
I lived in Tucson from 1971 to 2020. I moved to Columbia, Kentucky, in 2020 to marry Lynnette Buchanan (now Lynnette Benda).

[webenda]

From 2016, here's the Amtrak shelter at Surf Beach, California:.

I think the design is beautiful. I asked Google who designed it. Google answered, "No one knows. You might have to ask the city of Lompoc."

Harrumph! There is a plaque on the other end of the station.




The architect was Erich Brown.


'

[webenda]

It seems like it would be easy to change the funny thing that Lionel puts on the front of steam engines to a model coupler of some kind.
Then I could triple head my three cars and a caboose.

[HONDO74]

Here is a youtube video that a person did showing how he did the front coupler.

How to add a Front Coupler to a Lionel Postwar Steam Engine!! (Running a Lionel Doubleheader)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m8L2aXvPNw

[webenda]

Here is a youtube video that a person did showing how he did the front coupler.

How to add a Front Coupler to a Lionel Postwar Steam Engine!! (Running a Lionel Doubleheader)

Thank you, Hondo.
Do you like the way Railchief74 did this?

[webenda]

The sun came out today, just in time to illuminate the last engine in the trinity of engines I posted.

This 2-10-0 has no problem running around 27-inch diameter curves.

But, it derails going through an O27 turnout arranged to form an S curve at the end of an O27 curve.

The leading truck does this just before the drive wheels leave the rails in the turnout.


The resulting short circuit stops the locomotive before it falls off the end of the uncoupling track section.