The Royce Files

Chicago is the railroad crossroads of America. All the class I roads have a presence in Chicago and  its suburbs. I lodged near a large yard for the Belt Railway of Chicago , a terminal road that does a lot of the switching and interchange for the other railroads. It was loud and I was over a half a mile away. Further from my lodging were a handful of hobby shops that specialize in model trains. I scouted out these shops online to see which one would be closest. I found one- Golden Spike Train Shop- that would be close to the hotel where I would be staying. Unfortunately, I came to find out it had closed up a few years earlier. I looked further and realized I would need use public transit to get to the others. I attempted to Uber to one but no Uber wanted to pick me up. I was pretty flustered since I was seeing Uber drivers all over the area. I gave up and decided to schedule one in the morning. It got cancelled. Finally I decided to bus it out to Berwyn's. I only had a small wi...

As winter melts away the taste for hot dogs grows. I found myself in Chicago at the end of May for business. Hours after landing I was in pursuit of a delightfully delicious dog from one of Chicago's famous stands (at least those accessible by public transit.) But in doing so, I kind of got lost downtown trying to find the Elevated and then I got off at the wrong stop. It pays to do deeper research when getting on the L train. Apparently on the line I took, it had stations on the same road but about 3 miles apart because the route is U-shaped. I spent a lot of time walking and running to get to The Red Hot Ranch  to order a double dog. Fortunately the right "L" station was a few blocks away and I returned to downtown. Red Hot Ranch on Western On my way back to the hotel I spied Devil Dawgs . Actually I knew it was there before I had just wanted to try something outside of the Loop first. The Ranch really is a small stand. Some would consider it a hole in the wall...

Welcome to 2019- albeit we are about at the midpoint of this year. The Fargo Marathon came and wet- really wet weekend. I never got close to the course. But between the last post and now I have visited 2 editions of the Granite City Train show down in St. Cloud and each of my older kids got to go to one. I cannot recall much about the fall 2018 show except my son was given a free battery train set and I picked up a Santa gandy dancer. In spring I finally found a Lionel Train Orders Depot but then I lost a bag with a N scale car, a few trees, and a O scale shack. I also bought another Western Fruit Express reefer.