Galesburg "City Job"

[w neal]

On the advice of council, I cannot reveal identities of those involved. The custard lobby is strong.

[Steveruger45]

Perhaps another iPhone issue with photos ?.... maybe this one is caused by holding the phone inside out 😊

[Missaberoad]

Front facing camera gives a mirror image... Take a selfie and see 😁

[CRL]

That photo is from an alternate universe - everything is reversed. 

So it’s really 3 left handers and 1 right hander? Who’d a thunk...

[Steveruger45]

Front facing camera gives a mirror image... Take a selfie and see 😁

Just did.  Well well well, I learn something new every day. I don’t take many selfies, not pretty enough. 😁

[TLOC]

Stopped at the Galesburg City and had an enjoyable talk with Bill.

[TLOC]

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[TLOC]

Sorry about the multiple posts but... anyway Bill’s layout is awesome. Trainfest to me has always been an exciting day of discovery. For some reason and this is just me, it’s getting old.same layouts with not much new. I understand why Bill will be building new modules but some of the stuff there is old and not the best of quality. Bill’s layout is neither but he wants to change, to me that is cool but other folks stuff, not so much. The vendors and manufacturers were great. I couldn’t find Ryan at YD but they were very busy. I did talk to Mike S. there.

I didn’t take but one other picture and that was for a build I am doing. I did buy some fiber optic lights for my Paper Mill. Loved the ST stuff both N and HO. Walthers showed some N kits built up of there concrete tilt stuff but I saw nothing new there. The Iowa Scaled Engineering guys were there and I will be buying the culverts and grain bins. Both HO and N models are very well done.

Tom

[w neal]

It was another great time at Trainfest. I arrived earlier than my scheduled move in time on Friday, so I began by carrying in my layout, rather than waiting to drive in the building. I got the layout set up on its legs and, since I had been up since 3 a.m., I walked to breakfast as mentioned earlier. The rest of the afternoon allowed me time to properly clean the track and even set up some details and rolling stock.



Friday night was spent at the train slide show. Despite the rather rowdy atmosphere (which is part of the charm), there were some amazing visuals. The drone movies were especially well done.

After a good four hours of sleep, I got an early start on Saturday and was busy from the word go. I got away from the layout a few times, thanks to my friends who travelled from home. I really didn't get a good look at the other layouts as my time was limited.

Saturday night was spent having a traditional butterburger and seeing a few layouts with my gang of friends. My thanks to Fcnry for opening his layout to us. Most kind.

Sunday my friends showed up for a second time and gave me a few breaks. I took time to chat with several visitors. One was from North Carolina and another from Alaska. One fellow was kind enough to hand me some copies of pages from one of the Santa Fe's C.L.I.C. books containing diagrams of ATSF trackage around Galesburg.

It took about 2 hours to pack up the layout on my own. I grabbed dinner at the diner and began the 5 hour trip home. I managed to beat the snowfall before it hit, although it was raining. I did nervously monitor the car's outside temperature guage. Luckily, it did not hit freezing until I was nearly home.



Since CB&Q was the featured railroad for the weekend, I decided there was flooding on the Mississippi causing this temporary re-routing...





I got some work done on Cedar Creek, which was re - routed by the Santa Fe I'm sure...





A few interior details for Illinois Power & Light...






I like to hint about pooled power on the Santa Fe in the 60s. This year's display...




Thats all folks!

[milw156]

I took a few also, really like the attention to details and how cohesive it all looks. Hope you did not have to pay a vendor fee for your sale table! I always enjoy seeing this layout! Those lights in the first pic are really awesome.

[w neal]

Always fun to have guest operators on the City Job:

[w neal]

Since there are a lot of pictures of the layout posted from Trainfest, I'd like to restate something. One will note that this layout is very flat, with few trees and no grades.

I just wanted to point out that the prototype "Galesburg Industrial" is very much like that today, although these days the trees have really grown up (recall we are trying to model the 1960s). The real place does have a small grade as the Industrial heads north to meet the Santa Fe mainline. The "Transcon", as the mainline is called today, follows a bit of a river valley (Cedar Creek) through Galesburg itself. So, thats why the "G.I." needs a grade.

Anyways, I keep thinking other modelers must think to themselves "What a flat, boring layout". Its true. There are no mountains or features that make the scenery breathtaking. But that's the way the prototype is. I'm sure the Santa Fe picked it out that way. Lots of flat land for future factories to build on. I rekon they also kept the trees and shrubs trimmed to help with visibility for the train crews, especially around the wye.

Thanks for listening. I feel guilty getting recognition sometimes, especially when I see other modelers who are trying to recreate beautiful scenery. Again, I credit Jim for his original vision. Keep it simple. Less is more.

[SAH]

There's no reason to feel guilty for soaking up the kudos for any part of the Galesburg job Bill.  A well executed layout is a well executed layout, regardless of the locale modeled.  I think you've done a fine job of capturing the essence of small town, flat land railroading.

[TLOC]

Ditto what SAH wrote.

Tom

[w neal]

Thanks but I dunno about all that.