The Royce Files

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. 

240 miles separates where I am at and the Twin Cities. Almost the same amount separates my home base and Winnipeg. For 70 less miles and reduce my drive time by 1.5 hours, I can get to St. Cloud, the Granite City. Once again I spent some time at the Granite City Train Show a few weeks ago. This train show has been going on for a while- maybe like 10 years- and it has been my go to show for buying model trains and railroad related items. Last spring they moved the show from the Armory to the River's Edge Convention Center in downtown St. Cloud. The convention center allowed much more space and a lot more parking. This spring the show was just a bit sparse. I noted quite a few vendors were not present. I overheard amongst the chatter that the Newport Club was having one of their sales the same day down in Woodbury. I have written about that one and attended last year. Woodbury is a large draw and Twin Cities based vendors may find it more attractive than lugging their wares up ...

Northern Lines Railway is a little short line out of St. Cloud. While I was at the Granite City Train Show last year at the Armory, I noticed these GP7s parked in the yard out back. I was unaware of who these belonged until now. The paint schemes on 1411 and 1602 are definitely Burlington Northern and possibly the former owner of those engines. The 400 seems like a familiar paint maybe Indiana Harbor Belt or Bessemer Lake Erie. However I have found nothing exactly resembling it. This is all the power which the short line uses over its 25 miles of trackage between St. Cloud and Collegeville to the west and Rockville to the south. There are a few videos out there of the 1511 and 400 in action.   

Granite City O Gaugers layout Earlier this month- November 14th to be exact- I partook of a train show in St Cloud, MN. The Granite City Train show is a twice yearly event at the St. Cloud Armory. One show is in fall and the other is in spring. This show brings in quite a number of both train enthusiasts and vendors. I would suggest that this is the biggest train show between the Twin Cities and Winnipeg and quite possibly Western Washington. Most scales were present along with much railroad collectibles and antiques. I think I even saw some standard gauge track for sale. But saw good amount of rusty or old track which I do not need. My friend and I tend to look for salvageable operating equipment in O scale. There was a modest amount at this show. This was my third time attending the show.My sub-mission for this show was to acquire more items for scenicing my dormant layout. I came out with quite an assortment which I will post later. In this post I show some of the layouts t...