Mishap at Black River

Last night as a BLS crew was running on the Mud Bay & Southern Ry near Black River there was a near fatal crash. Evidently the bridge over the Black River was out. BLS #10 hit the ground and skidded several feet before coming to rest hanging precariously over the Black River. When questioned, the engineer said the first he knew there was a problem was when he felt the engine lurch to the ground. The conductor said he didn't know anything about it and wouldn't comment further. The MB&S general manager had no comment. So, the question is, who was running the train? No one seems to know for sure. A full investigation is pending. (Photos and text courtesy of Jim Younkins)

Southern Pacific Shasta Route, Black Butte Subdivision

Operating an HO Model Railroad of the Southern Pacific Shasta Route, Black Butte Subdivision in 1952 era. Layout owner is Otis McGee. Website. What a delight to be able to run on this layout. I will re-record these videos in higher quality next operating session, if Otis invites me back. See links below to photo gallery and videos. Links will open a new browser page.

Some still photos here.

Video - Operating "The Scoot" local passenger train.

Video - running North Coast Periishable train from Dunsmuir to Klamath.."Up the hill"...

Video - Dunsmuir yard engine terminal

Hinton, West Virginia - Andy Schnur's MRR

I took this video with my digital camera in August at Andy Schnur's Chesapeake and Ohio HO model Railroad in Bay Area of California. This layout is based upon the C&O prototype where main yard is Hinton, West Virginia. You will see a coal drag coming into Hinton Yard, where a helper engine is added to the end of train in front of caboose, and then the train going up the hill to other end of layout. Steam engines using Tsunami sound decoders and Digital system is NCE. (I taped this at 320 with 15 FPS and will record it again at higher resolution someday)