Gang, after enjoying six or seven hours of the first day of the heat wave in the service of replanting roses, weeding the garden, and every other dang fool thing I can think of doing outside, it’s time to have some fun.
Two weeks ago I went to a big train show (features on the front page). I scored these sweet craftsman old time box cars. The gentleman selling them had two or three others, but money was short, nothing to put them in other than plastic bags, and the road names were not that interesting. He thinks that the smaller ones are La Belle kits. I can scrutinize them better now that they are photographed, but for what I can see through my old tired eyes, they are better built than what I think I can ever achieve. Look at those grabs running up the ends, I have not looked at each one but from what I’ve seen, I don’t see a single one that’s misaligned. St Louis and Cairo Short Line cars! Never expected to get my hands on one of those that alone two.
Yeah totally man. The OP of this thread features a few kits that I didn’t actually understand the scale at the time. I was familiar with O scale because of the UP25831 Shoving Platform but didn’t know about narrow gauge on HO scale track.
An interesting feature of this layout was the moving “supplies boat”. If you notice in the “Pickled Parrot Rum Co” layout (9:12) there is a boat at the pier for the secret entrance to the pirate’s tavern (9:17). I took a picture of this same boat earlier docked in the main cove on the other underside of this layout. It actually moves with a magnetic drive device under the “water”.
Puerto Borracho Railway posted a video describing the workings of the supplies boat on the Pickled Parrot layout. It’s set to Public so you don’t have to login or even have an account there