A Venerable Chief
I am finally coming out of the deep freeze which the blog has been in since December. It seems like it has been coldest winter I recollect. To warm up 2014 I'll be posting a bit about my model railroad. It made a major acquisition this weekend with the assembly of a train table. Now I need to start to lay track and clean up the floor layout upstairs. For now I will feature one of the 'road's' special trains.
Once there was an fine train that could take you from L.A. to Chicago. It was BNSF predecessor Santa Fe's Super Chief. The funny thing is that I learned a lot about the Super Chief by listening to Jack Benny. He would have a train episode nearly every season. Here one from his TV shows. Simply hilarious.
The Lionel 212 Alco FAA pair belong to my father. He recollected to have acquired the diesels and the 3 passenger cars in the early 1960s. I have childhood memories of my dad running the train around the house along with a little trolley.
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About a year ago I decided to recommit to model railroading and thus decided to throw my lot with O scale. After making a few purchases on e-bay, I brought the Super Chief set to my temporary layout from home. If you have read an earlier post you will note that my father's re-painted Navy Yard Switcher arrived earlier and was not working well until I lubed an cleaned it. The 212 was the same way. Also, It has some body damage due to a battery that was not removed prior to long term storage and the E-Unit toggle was missing. I cleaned it up as good as I could. It still ran pretty sluggish. I then purchased some new brushes for the motor and that did the job. Runs really good for a 50 year old train. Still has life left.
Once there was an fine train that could take you from L.A. to Chicago. It was BNSF predecessor Santa Fe's Super Chief. The funny thing is that I learned a lot about the Super Chief by listening to Jack Benny. He would have a train episode nearly every season. Here one from his TV shows. Simply hilarious.
About a year ago I decided to recommit to model railroading and thus decided to throw my lot with O scale. After making a few purchases on e-bay, I brought the Super Chief set to my temporary layout from home. If you have read an earlier post you will note that my father's re-painted Navy Yard Switcher arrived earlier and was not working well until I lubed an cleaned it. The 212 was the same way. Also, It has some body damage due to a battery that was not removed prior to long term storage and the E-Unit toggle was missing. I cleaned it up as good as I could. It still ran pretty sluggish. I then purchased some new brushes for the motor and that did the job. Runs really good for a 50 year old train. Still has life left.
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