My wife and I are leaving the US at the end of January for another three-to-five year job at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. At 61 this will probably be my last full-time assignment working for the Air Force. After this tour we plan to come back to the US and settle down for a while ..read more

Last week month I sent a new engine to a buddy for DCC and sound installation. I got the engine back last week and ran an ops session with it right away on my Hermitage Road layout. Here’s the report. I had the layout set up for a Seaboard ops session with mostly southeastern cars ..read more

The most recent Naperville Railroad Prototype Modelers Conference, now known as Chicagoland RPM, was held on October 10-12, 2024, at the Northern Illinois University Conference Center in Naperville, Illinois. Chicagoland is one of the premier railroad prototype modeler events in the country, providing attendees with clinics, presentations, layout tours, vendors, historical societies, and more. The ..read more

At Chicagoland RPM in October, our friend Tony Koester revealed his latest project, an O scale Tribute Layout on the Wabash “High Line” branch from Bluffs, Illinois to Keokuk, Iowa, which he’s building in his four-season porch. The real railroad gained notoriety in the 1950s for its locomotives. Because of a spindly bridge across the ..read more

I got sick of work last week so I took Friday off and went up to Litchfield, Illinois to visit my buddy Lonnie Bathurst. Lonnie has a large HO scale layout in the back half of his office building and we spent the whole afternoon cleaning track and upgrading scenery. Above. The layout is the ..read more

This is Part 2 of my trip to Minneapolis back in August 2024. Part 1 can be found here: https://railroadprototypemodeler.com/2024/09/19/no-200-visit-to-minneapolis/ After spending a fun Thursday with my buddy Clark Propst in Mason City, I drove north on Highway 65, which parallels the old Rock Island, to Northwood, Iowa, to try and find some inspiration on ..read more

What a fitting subject for my 200th post–a visit to Minneapolis, my home away from home during my youth. Above: A westbound Milwaukee Road freight train at Chanhassen, Minnesota in August, 1980. This is the first train picture I ever took. I was 16 years old. My mother was from Chanhassen. Her father–my grandfather–owned a ..read more

The Hermitage Road layout is about 95% finished so recently I added some details to the track and industrial settings to help make things come alive. Below. This is a switch stand at the Monticello Railroad Musem in Monticello, Illinois. I’m using this photo and others like it as a guide to finish layout details ..read more

Last weekend was a busy weekend at the Golden household. My youngest daughter graduated from high school on Saturday afternoon and then attended a prom for another high school the same night, and then hosted an after-prom party here at the house. Saturday was crazy. Sunday was Mother’s Day and after church I made sure the wife was happy, well-fed and didn’t have to do any chores. My other almost-adult-age children kept me busy the rest of the weekend, celebrating another year of college complete. Meanwhile I celebrated finishing an O scale Pacific Fruit Express R-40-10 refrigerator car model ..read more

On the way back from the O Scale National in Lombard, Illinois I stopped in Atlanta, Illinois to visit the J.H. Hawes Grain Elevator museum. The J.H. Hawes Grain Elevator was built in 1904 on the former in Atlanta. The east-west crossed the busy, double-track Chicago & Alton RR a block east from the elevator. According to town’s website, found at https://atlantaillinoistourism.com/grain-elevator-museum/, The historic J.H. Hawes Grain Elevator Museum was in operation for 75 years and is one of the few all-wooden grain elevators in America — and it still runs! A unique piece of American farm ..read more