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Railroads

16 Aug 2016

20 Cylinders on the East Slope

“Man…” I thought, “I’m not getting out of bed for this!” John Z had just burst into the room explaining that a train was stopped outside The Station Inn, with a rare SD45-2 being towed behind the newer, more typical Norfolk Southern locomotives that pass by here daily. I reasoned that breakfast was more important. […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

13 Dec 2015

Recent Roster Additions – Atlas C40-8W

Christmas music is playing softly, I’m sipping a beer, and the kids are asleep (well, the baby is resisting, but she’ll be asleep soon enough…) so I will take a moment to update on things on the Aspinwall Belt. We had a great operating session in late September, with a group of newer folks. We […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

24 Sep 2015

Remote Dispatching the Onondaga Cutoff

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of serving as Conrail’s Mohawk Dispatcher on Dave Abeles’ HO scale Onondaga Cutoff. Dave’s model railroad is located in northern New Jersey, and I was serving as the “2nd trick” train dispatcher from my home near Pittsburgh. The “first shift” dispatcher starting the night off, was […]

J. Alex Lang

Railroads

20 Sep 2015

Requiem for “The D&H”

Those who know me, know that I’ve never been much of a fan of sports. I am, however, a fan of the railroad industry. And at the end of this week, a piece of historic railroad changed hands, leaving me feeling like Baltimore fans must have felt when the Colts packed up late one night […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

5 Sep 2015

GATX 2000, ex-Union Pacific SD40-2

As I model the Allentown, PA area in the mid-1990s, I knew that I would need a yellow-and-gray GATX SD40-2 lease unit for the Delaware & Hudson trackage rights trains that plied the rails from Rouses Point, New York to Philadelphia, Penna. During this era, railfans drowned in a sea of blue Conrail locomotives, and […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

17 Jan 2015

Minor expansion, plexiglas view guards

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated here, so I thought I should do that while the basement clears out from Testors Dullcote fumes. Over the Christmas break, my daughters and I completed some minor expansion on the Aspinwall Belt. Inspired in part by Dave Abeles’ recent Island Track addition, we relocated the Bethlehem […]

J. Alex Lang