The Royce Files

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...