IGMUSKA

15th May 2010

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Burlington Northern Mode

The few Athearn diesel locomotives I started collecting over the passed few months to keep me from going postal. After discovering just how intriguingly complicated constructing the above layout was, I knew I found something even more fun than gardening and rock hounding. After all the troubles and Youtube tutorials and the extreme penny-pinching and sacrifices I had at first during the first phases of this incomplete layout: random derailments caused by improper track alignment, manufacturing issues with one of the locomotives, getting garage sale vintage Tyco, Mantua and kit box cars, I can proudly say that I have trains on the brain!

From top right to lower left corners, Athearn diesels: (1) SD45 Burlington Northern   #6416; (2) SD45 Great Northern #417; (3)SD45 Milwaukee Road #8; (4) GP38-2 Burlington Norther #2076; Gp38-2 Union Pacific #625.

The layout:

And of course, I just had to include a slightly dated video showing off my Milwaukee Road SD45 #8 in action.

And I have since added several more boxcars, hoppers and cabooses I have yet photograph and upload. But that is for next time. Right now I am in the middle of upgrading their stock McHenry couplers to Kadee so that I can uncouple the cars on the track without using my hand.

Today I went to Milbrae and bought a kit tree set from Tom’s Trackside Trains; I know I’ll go over there for more stuff to feed my new addiction.

13th April 2010

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Interesting Distraction from the Rage

OFF THE RAILS

Not too long ago, a great friend of mine wanted help setting up his Lionel O Gauge train set which, in many ways, just fascinated me. He has a Santa Fe Chief which I Youtubed for you. This adventure led me to starting my own small train set, pictured above. Now, for many people, their idea of a model train is that train that Grandpa set up to circle the Christmas tree or that just went round and round, driving the cats and dogs crazy; I shared that idea for a bit but now see just how interesting the hobby is.

For instance, I grew up near the Milwaukee Road in South Dakota. This train was extremely orange with many assorted colored box cars. Then 20 years ago or so, the railroad changed to Burlington Northern, gone were the colorful, dazzling box cars, replaced by mile long brown coal cars. At least the locomotives were awesome, painted bright green, bordered black. One benefit was that sometimes if we’d pass a heavy train, we could wave at the engineer, and he’d blow his horn. Awesome! On calm nights, you could even hear the train rolling by 12 miles away.

After buying Athearn diesel locomotive SD45 Great Northern and some track, the first thing I learned about it is that crossing wires is not a good thing nor is having a loose track, which also causes derailments and causes the train to move slowly in the loose parts and faster in others. Patience is needed for these slight problems. Wiring the track was another learning experience. I taught myself to solder wires together for a better electrical connection as well as learning that soldering irons are very hot as I burnt myself badly on my finger.

Eventually I’ll upgrade the train layout to Digital Command and Control, equip the locomotives with sound and enjoy more of this fascinating hobby. If it wasn’t for this hobby at this time, I’d have gone postal and that is a bad thing.

5th January 2010

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Just keeping it on the ground

I survived the Great Midwest Blizzard 2009. And thankfully this blizzard brought only inconveniences, and no deaths! There were only local blackouts with many road closures resulting from the 15 foot snowdrifts blocking the highways.

Now, on to the meat, every year I notice that a couple of the Great Sioux Nation tribes resort to begging from the bleeding hearts of America for heating assistance for their unfortunate tribal households whose government heating assistance runs out during these ferocious blizzards. For me, this is so puzzling as this points to unpreparedness although everyone in the Upper Great Plains knows that winter brings blizzards. These tribes’ failure to prepare for these blizzards is genocide; on the scale similar to the headlight-blinded deer staring at you in the milliseconds before you smear it at 90mph. Why does this sad tragedy puzzle me? Because many of these tribes have casinos that cannot be used to provide heating assistance for their freezing tribal households. Inexplicably, these tribal casinos are prevented by federal regulations and funding to provide these emergency needs; the tribes are threatened with decreased federal funding for heating assistance if they use casino revenues.

The puzzling part is if the IRA tribal governments are just extensions of the federal government, why must these tribal governments be forced to continue the suffering brought about by colonization? In other words, why can’t the tribes force amendments to the gaming regulations to provide necessary services to their tribal households without affecting their federal subsidies?