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Model Railroading

3 Oct 2013

Conrail 8110 GP38-2 in HO

[singlepic id=21 w=320 h=240 float=center] After the baby was born, I received the most awesome of gifts from a close friend of mine: a Life-Like Proto2000 GP38-2, painted as Conrail 7993. These engines are wonderfully detailed, out of the box, and they run really well. Well, I’m modeling the early-mid 1990s, and by then, this […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

30 Sep 2013

Conrail’s Aspinwall Belt track expansion

In August, I posted an outline of the so-called “temporary layout”, Conrail’s Aspinwall Belt. I thought I would share some layout progress and additional thoughts. As I mentioned last time, the goal of this layout was to quickly get to the point where the kids and I could run some trains. This way, Dad can […]

J. Alex Lang

Model Railroading

4 Aug 2013

The Aspinwall Belt

I have always been troubled by having too many hobbies, and never time for all of them. Consequently, I go through various phases… As a kid, HO scale model trains (along with a few military aircraft for good measure). High school was mostly music, with a bit of railroad photography; college was about the same. […]

J. Alex Lang

Railroads

13 Jul 2013

Heritage locomotives in Pittsburgh

As of late, many of Norfolk Southern’s famous Heritage fleet of 20 locomotives – modern diesels painted in historic liveries for 20 of NS’s predecessor railroads – have been passing through Pittsburgh. Many of these have been making long-distance trips from the Bakken Shale (in the Dakotas) bringing crude oil east to refineries in Delaware […]

J. Alex Lang

Railroads

28 Jun 2013

Trip Report – Position Light Signals

It’s been awhile since I’ve sent any sort of trip report, as it’s been awhile since I’ve been on any sort of trip. With baby Allison now at 7 weeks, my wife was ready to get me out of the house. I greased the wheels by cooking some good food, and making sure my wife […]

J. Alex Lang

Railroads

7 Feb 2013

Scanning slides

I recently acquired a collection of approximately 8000 railroad slides, mostly Kodachromes, spanning the late 1960’s to sometime in the 1990’s; these were taken by a longtime friend, Peter McGilligan, upon his passing in October, 2012. After giving it some thought, we bought a Pacific Image PowerSlide 5000, and am now scanning 100 slides at […]

J. Alex Lang