Special delivery

While in Portland I discovered that the Central Brewing Company of Vanvouver, BC, had built a facility to brew a really good beer called “Steelhead Stout”. So I ordered a car load to be sent to the CEO of Younkins Paper Company.


WARNING. the CEO's keys to his Mini have been confiscated.



Please view the slide show of the deed

Railfanning the North Bank Road

While in Portland I had the chance to railfan the North Bank Road SP&S layout and Tennessee Pass (DRG&W) layout.

Photos here

Shasta Route OP session

Yesterday I had the privilege of operating on the HO scale Shasta Route. Set in 1952, it runs from Redding in Northern California up through Dunsmuir yard (photo on right). to Klamath Falls. CTC from Redding to Black Butte then runs Time Table and Train Orders (TT&TO) from Black Butte to Klamath Falls. about 15 crew members spent most of Saturday operating. I ran helper engines up and down the mainline. mostly big Cab Forward steam engines.
Here are more photos.

Just posted video of helpers on Shasta Route:

UP 844 in Feather River Canyon

Rainy day..lowsy for fans, great for steam plume. Clio trestle shot is good. So many rabid fans all over the place. hard to get good locations and keep up with it. still it was worth the chase.

UP 844 over Donner

railfanned this on Friday April 17, 2009
From Truckee to Roseville.


IF you want to look at
High Def here

UP 844 over Donner on Friday

We will be up there photographing. stay tuned
About 844
Twitter feed for UP 844 http://twitter.com/UP_Steam
Position updates to you phone!
There's also a web position map.
Also I will twitter

No More Cable Mess

Why didn't I think of this?


How To Make A CHARGER BOX Very Easy - No More Cable Mess! - video powered by Metacafe

New signs at Portland Union Station

Thanks to Dave Haehn for laser cutting these signs for clock tower on Portland Union Station:

Express Freight on OWNRy

2 minute video with 3 scenes on my N scale home layout, the Oregon, Washington, Navigation & Railway or OWNRy. Bluffs represent Eastern Oregon areas, Portland city scene and passing Portland Union Station. Do you notice the one little signal glitch and the new Union Station Signs?

M10000 Enters Portland

Debut of Union Pacific M10000.
1 minute, ambient sound. Notice new Union Station Clock Tower signs.



Also HD version video here

Original 1996 OWNRy video

Thanks to Al Lowe up in Seattle who took this old Video back in 1996, we have an archive of my original layout in Kirkland, WA/ Actually not original which was on a 5x9 plywood but that is a different story. This video was taken during a local NMRA layout tour. Mark Bridgwater can be heard on the video discussing theautomated layout during video. THe train control I used was Jocotek which ran on Win 3.1 (they never upgraded to Win 95 which is why I abandoned it for DCC when I moved. The Jocotek system used analog cab block forwarding and routing to set up automated train control so I could program a route the train over a particular route. it would run around, turnouts would turn. it would stop and start. In the video I was running 3 or 4 trains at the same time, all automated. Wouldn't that be neat today on the layout? Actually pretty neat and you can see the bluff scenery is similar to current Pasco side of layout representing Eastern WA. first scene opens with a little branch line scene unfinished. you will see some buildings that currently reside on layout. I gave many away to UNW buddies before I left.
The large yard represented Pasco, my main yard. The bridge is Joso bridge and it was given to Mark Bridgwater who incorporated it in a scene on his Feather River layout. it ran through a tunnel to the family room where I had a reverse loop staging yard. Oh, yes, here is the link

real men ballast their tracks

Spent last week with Jim Younkins here working on layout in between operating sessions elsewhere.

Jim took some photos and posted on Picasa (click here for album)

More work on details and checking out track and turnouts for proper electrical and functioning.

Also here is some shots of "before and After"

remember, "real men ballast their tracks"

Twitter is cool!!

I have a twitter account (kentwilliams) which you can follow if you want. I subscribe mostly to interesting digerati because they sometimes say cool things. Twitter is becoming more mainstream though. I also now subscribe and read Lance Armstrongs twitters, among others.

recently I subscribed to Pete Carroll (USC football coach) and Steve Sarkisian UW coach). Pete noticed and actually sent me a real tweet. I knew I would like this guy even if I am a lifelong Husky. See photo..

FM - H 15-44's

Was railfanning the owNry and saw these UPRR H15-44's today on the southbank of Columbia River. Pulling an MOW train. Amazing considering only 35 units were built for American railroads.

From Wikipedia:

The FM H-15-44 was a road switcher manufactured by Fairbanks-Morse from September, 1947–June, 1950. The locomotive was powered by a 1,500-horsepower (1,100 kW), eight-cylinder opposed piston engine as its prime mover, and was configured in a B-B wheel arrangement mounted atop a pair of two-axle AAR Type-B road trucks with all axles powered. The H-15-44 featured an offset cab design that provided space for an optional steam generator in the short hood, making the model versatile enough to work in passenger service as well as freight duty.

Raymond Loewy heavily influenced the look of the unit, which empasized sloping lines and accented such features as the radiator shutters and headlight mounting. The cab side window assembly incorporated "half moon"-shaped inoperable panes which resulted in an overall oblong shape. The platform (underframe) was shared with F-M's 2,000-horsepower (1,500 kW) end cab road switcher, the FM H-20-44, as was the carbody to some extent. The platform and carbody was also utilized by the H-15-44's successor, the FM H-16-44.

No H-15-44 is thought to exist today in any shape or form.

Truckee station on Timber Creek RR

operated tonight at Gordon Briggs' Timber Creek RR. Proto 48 layout.




here is a shot at Truckee Station. SP freight coming through the yard.

Rebuilding West Portland Depot track

Time to rework Portland Depot tracks. Currently we have a depot siding next to station and then mainline then huge freight yard with industries, engine terminal and coach yard. Need to add a way for Inbound Shasta Daylight to get over to station so passengers can disembark or get on train without crossing mainline. In addition, need to improve ability of yard goat to exchange head end express/baggage cars and rear end pullman/diners on the passenger trains.

I have extended the west depot track switch to Willbridge crossing and added a spur long enough to handle 80 ft passenger car and 4 axle locomotive as you can see in lower right. In addition I am adding a 3-way switch at the freight yard throat capable of routing traffic to main or, through a double slip, over to the depot track. Recently, "Fast Tracks" has produced a jig for both of these turnouts that enable switches to be built with code 55 rail.

More soon.

Fast Flying Virginian (FFV) 10 minutes

Shasta Daylight

HO Version

Snow removal in Columbia Gorge

While you have had a lot of fun the past 2-3 weeks iwht snow up in Pacific NW, we have had our fun here on the OWNRy also. Photos here.

Best wishes for a more prosperous and fun 2009!!

Christmas Train 2008

We had to take down our Christmas tree today because it had dried out. We put up a little tree with lights around the base. We did leave the Christmas train up. Here is a 2 minute video of that train as it passes through the little village. I added the sound from a sound track.



The train has 12 cars representing the 12 days of Christmas. Hope you enjoy.
You can also view in HD on my MobilemMe gallery (larger download and requires more bandwidth)

Fast Flying Virginian

Passenger Train - Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad ) (FFV)
Filmed this at Andy Schnur's HO scale C&O Layout in bay area
This short video is merely a teaser. If you have good broadband then go to the following link to
View good High Definition version which is longer (10 minute) and more involved.

Originally ran from Washington DC to Cincinnati. We set out Pullman at White Sulphur Springs & change Engines/pickup Diner in Hinton, West Virginia. Sound is in tender using Soundtraxx Tsunami decoders. (We know the bell is a bit loud).

John Provitz' N Scale layout

one of the most beautiful N scale layouts which lives in South San Francisco area.

From JohnProvitz_SP_BayArea

12 x 23 N Scale with SP & the State Belt RR along San Francisco's waterfront along walls. Central peninsula has NWP with Petaluma, Tiburon, & Healdsburg on one side and Eel River canyon on the other.

From JohnProvitz_SP_BayArea

Market Street has a cable car. The Ferry Building is busy receiving commuters from PCC's. The State Belt runs along Embarcadero & below Telegraph Hill & Coit Tower. 3rd & Townsend station receives the Daylight & Lark plus many commuters during the mid 1950's and early 60's. WP and AT&SF have limited trackage as well.

Link to photo album

Link to Video

WP heritage unit Youtube Test embed code

Test of better way of embedding youtube video I found from wherethehellismatt website.

This is regular youtube embed code:



This is embed with a change of code:

Just back from Sonora where I ran trains all weekend with freinds. Smoke better here. Hope we don't get more lightening.

Still only 1/2 mile visibility here due to wildfire smoke. Maybe next week but more lightening this weekend. Going south to get out of it.

Staying inside today mostly due to smokey outside.

Fire season here. Lightning strikes over weekend not only knocked out power for a while, but also caused almost 4,000 fires throughout Northern CA. Sunday was pleasantly warm and windy. Monday now is smoke filled. More like an August day, than June.




Feels quiet, subdued, almost eery outside.

Operating the Shasta Division

Got a chance to operate on Otis McGee's Shasta Division RR. 1952 era full steam, sound, etc. Signals working. Really a lot of fun.

Ran Extra West down the hill. then spent remainder of day running the Grass Lake turn from Klamath Falls to Dorris to Leaf and back.



CTC Panel is new but replica of original. tied in to CMRI signal boards and uses JMRI logic. Pretty cool.

More photos here

glad to be home tonight watching the US Open...and eating ice cream! Go Rocco!

in bay area for weekend to run trains, oh yeah, might eat some good food and sleep also...

iPhone, the day after...Now what?
At least the skunks are gone, thanks to 90000 BTU cayenne, and just about all the other mammels too.

listening to WWDC Steve Jobs Keynote

Just returned from Palo Alto where we held video conference with Seattle. Bandwidth problems forced us to use plan S....this after 40 manhours of work.