I finally got the brick masons and roofing crew to show up this week.
The masons started on Monday. As of quitting time today, they has put together the cut stone wainscotting, re-set the stone window sill, the stone lintels over the window and front entry door, and had completed replacing all but about 20 feet of the top 3 courses. They will get that up 1st thing tomorrow morning, finishing the restoration of the ,asomery on the front of the house. Next in line will be replacing the two broken stone Intels over the dining room windows.
The roofers installed the membrane roofing system on the new roof I built on the 10x30 foot front porch today.
Great progress on a project that has been dragging on for a couple of years. Tough to get good contractors to work on small projects. Iām still waiting for the concrete contractor who poured the new porch slab to come back and pour the front porch steps.
Train news. Not much, but I will be accepting an invitation to display our portable layout at local train show next November.
Leo (aka āDannyā) said, āIām outta here!ā last night (4 weeks early). Both he and Middle Princess doinā fine. Wifey and I were nearing Baltimore, yesterday morning, to attend the grandsonsā āgraduationā, when we got the news. So it was a bit of a crazy, exciting, day.
Congrats, now go buy him a train set [:D]
All in good time, Smokey1. [swg] Iāve learned to wait until I see what interests the boys first, then tailor acquisitions accordingly. Oldest grandson likes military, next grandson digs construction stuff, etcā¦
Congratulations to your family fife on the new addition. Its good to hear that mom and baby are both doing well. Those early arrivals can be worrisome. Our newest will be one month old already on the 10th. She is thriving. How far away are you from your daughter and her family?
Have a great day,
Northwoods Flyer
Fife I already sent my grand nephew a prewar standard gauge passenger set, track and a ZW. My luck his sister likes trains as does his mother. I sent in original boxes inside the set box a #8, 337, & 338
Thereās maybe a slight haze from Canadian fire smoke here, hard to tell, but no smell at all. Here in Virginia weāre probably too far south to be really affected.
I got an e-mail from a Canadian friend a little while ago, heās OK, but considering the fires are from the Pacific to the Atlantic which is very unusual heās suspecting they might have been deliberately started. Serial arsonist? Who knows? He DOES say if a fire starts in the wilderness it often goes undetected for quite a while. Anyway, Iām waiting for an update.
Northwoods - Normally, 4 minutes away. However, WVU In Morgantown is 90 minutes. Oldest Princess lives over 2 hours away.
Morninā guys and gals. Sunny & 60 along the Patterson Creek cut-off. āTEAM DEUCEā (Wifey, Alexis and I) have been working non-stop to get Middle Princess castle ready. They should be home with baby today, or tomorrow. She got released on Friday, but they stayed with baby, who is doing fine, but needs to gain a little weight. [I] I suggested lead sinkers in his Huggies. Hey, if it works in those bass fishing tournamentsā¦
Now my attention has turned to get the chapter caboose interior painted. Got to get the walls cleaned and prepped, which will be a big job in itself. Hope to have it all done by next Wednesday. Will be there today, but canāt work on it and have it open to public at the same time.
sunny and 72* now.
I realign inside track at far end as it seemed to spread out at the far end, Well I guess I would to when just about every piece was either 1/8" to 3/8" between the ends of the rails. That end was not screwed down as at present this is temp as I want to put ceiling tile down, and then it will become permanent at that point, will paint the ceiling tile green, then lay track temporary and paint gray under where the track will go.
Out side track is connected but needs screwing down some so I can run trains. get both of these screwed down and I will be running two again at once.
Next is putting down a temporary third loop and see how it fits before doing any more. Iāll put it down with screws after I get the table is completed.
Morninā guys and gals. Good soaking rain along the Allegheny front range. Middle Princess, baby, and fam are all back home. Heās little, but cute. We shall keep him. Will post a pic when I get to my PC. Big brother was very loving to the new kid in town. Had us all in tears.
Made the mistake to poke around eBay for a few days. I ended up spying a lot that looked rather tempting. It was an auction with a āmake an offerā, and a little negotiating later I was shocked to find that my upper limit was the right price in the end.
Iām not planning to keep all of it, but thereās a number of treasures in it- a Santa Fe F3 A-A (looks like a 2333 or 2343), a 2332 GG-1 (definitely going to be a keeper), two āmadisonā heavyweights that look to be in pretty good shape, and an aluminum coach. The rest was some misc '40s freight cars, everything looked like it was fairly light on the play wear, just dusty. Hope everything is packed well.
All told I think Iām a bit over $180, but I figure Iāll overhaul everything and part with as much as I can bear to let go, to make back some of the cost.
Life is seldom dull now everybodyās back from college. Lifeās been relatively good with plenty of train repair work coming my way, mostly from one customer. Itās nice to have a little disposable incomeā¦ though perhaps next time I should learn to keep off of eBay as soon as I have a little spare change to play with!
-Ellie
That sounds like a pretty good haul for $180 Ellie!
Keep this up and it might be worth your while to rent a table at a local train show and see if you can turn a profit on some of the things youāre getting and working on.
A modest profit maybe, but itās always handy to have cash you can turn into something else.
(I donāt go anywhere near e-bay myself, I hold off until weāve got a show. I donāt need new stuff THAT badly and besides I want to see it before I put the cash down.)
I wish I had a local show to go to.
Iām not sure where you live Smokey (or if youāve mentioned it Iāve fogotten) but hereās two reliable sources for train shows. Mind you most of these are club-sponsored shows, the bigger shows like Greenbergs or āThe Great American Train Showā may not be listed as they advertise in other places.
Never pass up a club-sponsored show, you never know what youāll find.
https://railfan.com/timetable/
https://www.railserve.com/events/
Wayne, eBay definitely isnāt the best place for buying trains. In my experience, train shows are the best place to buy trains. eBay prices are usually ridiculous, and you never know if a seller knows how to safely pack up the stuff youāre buying. I donāt have a ton of local shows, and flea market prices (when Iāve been to them) arenāt always much better, sometimes much worse than what I might be able to find at a show.
Stillā¦ sometimes I get the āitchā to get another train, and itās all too easy to pull up a web page and start scrolling.
Iād have problems with buying too much stuff, if I werenāt so picky about what Iāll buy. I have some strong ideas about how much is too much, and often my limits mean thereās nothing much out there Iād care to buy. Maybe I still buy too much stuff, but itās hardly worse than how much I spend at a show.
Definitely going to be a modest profit if I turn one at all. I have to sell somethingā¦ the question is, which do I need less- a pair of 2600 series heavyweights, or a second pair of Santa Fe F3s? Currently Iām leaning towards the latter, but I havenāt even tasted the stuff yet. Itās far too early to say whatāll come next. All I know is if the pictures can be trusted, the paint on those 2600s look pretty damn goodā¦ and the GG-1 has most of itās stripes. At least the side they show!
-Ellie
Morninā guys and gals. Occasional rain and 60ās in the Potomac Highlands. Spent yesterday at the Chapter caboose up at the WM Station, in Cumberland. If you see CRR 1072ās doors open on VR, it will be me sanding away inside. Hope to finish project by next Thursday.
Ellie - Nice collection. I use ebay like the old āWish Bookā, when I was a Fifeling. It also makes it easy for my kids to shop for Dadās Day.
Ellie, if that GG1 cleans up (Carefully!) and if itās still a good runner or can be made to be itās worth close to the $180 you paid for the whole lot. You can flip all the other things you donāt need and still make a tidy profit if they clean up as well.
I wouldnāt be put off by the wear on the ācats whiskerā striping on the G, the striping wasnāt all that durable on the post-wars and typically was the first thing to go if the engine saw a lot of use.
Iāve always thought the GG1 was one cool-lookinā engine, I remember seeing the Conrail ones in the 1970s, but never had the urge to own one. Maybe one of these days, and even then it might be a good used Williams or K-Line example, if I can āstealā it! [;)]
I DO know someone who sells on eBay, heās 100% reliable and stands behind what he sells. Since heās local here Iāve bought things from him at our club shows and donāt bother with his eBay site. His prices are VERY reasonable but he doesnāt give the stuff away, if you know what I mean. His sources are usually collections that come his way by TCA referrals or word of mouth. If youāre interested e-mail me and Iāll give you his information.
He does other shows besides our own but the furthest north heās gone (to my knowledge) is the TCA York show and the Kutztown PA āFlash Train Meetā so heās not likely to come up to Massachusetts.
Fife, Iāve done the same sometimesā¦ can work out nicely.
Wayne, as far as I understand itās extremely rare to find a 2332 with intact, complete ācat whiskersā- the rubber stamping simply wears off from handling. My impression was the GG-1 in the lot is pretty good as far as they go, relatively little worn away. I think later models had somewhat more durable lettering.
My plan right now (though it may change) is to keep the 2332, the passenger cars, and the N5c, and to part with the rest. The F3s are getting a full service before they go, and everything is getting a good dusting. But againā¦ I donāt even have the stuff yet. Itās a bit early to have it all planned out.
As far as buyingā¦ Wayne, I imagine your guy is great, but probably upper end if not higher than my budget. I buy inexpensive projects and fix them up- for me, the ideal is always going to be junk bins and cardboard boxes going for cheap. I complain about prices, but really what I mean is āitās tough to find a box of trains fresh out of someoneās garage, goin for cheapā. Sometimes frustrating, but in the end, it makes it all the more thrilling when I do score a find. And for me, a lot of the pleasure is in getting to work on the stuff. Itās not half as fun if stuff already works flawlessly when I buy it! But by that token, I expect to buy stuff that doesnāt work, at ātrain that doesnāt workā prices.
-Ellie
[:(] Sadly I have stop buying O gauge trains, I still have more than I will probably ever run. I have been buying off of eBay when I do, but I
Iām usually careful when I do. I feel basically safe doing so as ebay has buyers back. I have yet seen where ebay has backed a seller. (Which is sad as been burnt a couple times by bad buyers but ebay believes them before they believe you itās rare I sell on ebay anymore so I really donāt have a good way to sell items) Because of my PTSD shows are out for me, crowds and I do not mix.
Anyway my latest purchase is 4 standard gauge passenger cars production sample 418, 419, 431, & 490 in Mojave. This is from a seller I have bought from a few times and is actually a model railroad hobby shop out in CA. So I feel safe doing so and normally his asking price is not out of line on stuff. These are the 18" cars again but MTH version remakes of prewar cars.
I normally would not been able to buy 2 of the prewar cars of these for what I paid for these. So Iām happy.
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