The Royce Files

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...

Above we have another mystery freight car. This one took me a while to obtain due to an Ebay seller messing up shipping for over a month. What we have here is a fenced flat car. At first glance you may think- hey this is that horse car from one the Lionel General outfit or the later  Lionel Jesse James outfit . But no, this car is not from either of those. The really strange thing about this car is that it has "fake trucks." Basically what you are seeing in the photo is a plastic mask in the shape of trucks a la Marx Trains. There are only 2 axles on this unit and if it were not for the underside Lionel stamp I would think this came from Marx. I never thought Lionel would drop quality this far for a car- but they did and especially during the period they were owned by General Mills henceforth known as the MPC era. A sharp contrast to the ever collectible and solid Post War era. So from...

I t is the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house not a person was hungry- not even a mouse. All watched the clock on the oven click down- for they knew at zero a roast turkey would be found. And with would come mash potatoes and beans and culinary delights fit for the Queen. Some stuffing, cranberries and a sweet potato or two- these foods would be eaten and consumed by the next day at 2. And to top it off a pumpkin pie would be sliced then dolloped with whipped dream to top off Thanksgiving night. But now we all wait for the turkey to arrive And now watch and listen to what some people have contrived To commemorate this ole holiday of thanks. Years ago I wrote a Thanksgiving program for the college radio station in Morris, MN. A Kumm Thankgiving Pageant Then watch Charlie brown putter his way through Thanksgiving I must admit this Charlie Brown special is kinda of corny in the set-up. It not the best but it certainly is not the least. And it is one of th...

With this week starting out with Veterans' Day I think this would be an appropriate video to re-post from the Tube. It is an informative film concerning an air attack on a military train. 2 P-51s bomb the railroad and the train crew responds albeit without eliminating the enemy aircraft. You may think it is odd that that US planes would bomb a US military plane but I doubt anyone was ready with cameras to film an actual attack. The aid response was particularly quick- but what can you show in 4 minutes. Once the trucks arrived they went right at it to restore the railbed.

Sunset in Voyaguer's National Park In August the Man of 3 Name and I took a canoe trip into Voyaguer's National Park in Northern Minnesota. To our surprise we were the only canoe we saw in the park (notwithstanding the canoe party from Illinois that was leaving as we were entering the park.). Voyaguer's is a big water kind of canoe area. Most of the smaller lakes are interior to the Kabetogama Penisula. We traversed the eastern bays of Lake Kabetogma to the big waters of  Namakan Lake and base camped in Junction Bay. The weather was pleasant but did drop in the 30s one night. We also had a spectacular show in the evening skies- meteor showers. I digress as this post is about the sauna we found in the wilderness. On our way to Junction Bay we passed through a narrow gap between 2 islands. As we got closer I thought I saw some type of building on one of the islands. However, we paddled on without investigating. The Sauna On our way out we came through the area a...

It has been a full to the brim fall with lots of work to do. And now with Halloween over we are heading downhill into the new year and Christmas. Well this year I did not make it to the Great Minnesota Get Together.   Painting of Sky Ride at MN State Fair by my MFS Instead my mostly Finnish spouse and I (and the Boe) went to a reunion- the West Central Minnesota Steam Thresher's reunion in Rollag, MN. Though neither of us were steam threshers, we were allowed to go if we paid the admission price (I think it was $12 but it might have been $10). Anyways this event is incredible in that it helps us revisit an older age- the age when hard work and the brawn of steam engines ruled the land. Steam shovel at Rollag We saw lots of steam powered agricultural equipment in operation. But that is not all. There were 2 steam powered sawmills, a parade of tractors, lots of small motors, and an authentic steam locomotive that circled the entire grounds of this event....

Finally! I can catch some rest and some fish. Some great catches Labor Day cometh and I can rest from my corporate labors. It has been an extremely busy time for me at the multi-national company for which I work. Fortunately I was able to add 3 more support staff this summer to help when the going gets tough. It has been nearly 2 and a half months since the last post so and I guess it looked like an unexpected hiatus. Well, it was expected  but definitely unintentional. Let me count all the adventures I've had since we wrapped up the Fargo Marathon. I planted a vegetable garden and volunteered at the Growing Together Community Garden. A separate post is forthcoming about gardening. I returned to the Back to 50s Car Show in St. Paul after missing last year due to the wedding bumper crop. June just flew by at lightning speed. In July I had a considerable amount of stuff. On Independence Day I visited Bonanzaville with my MFS and the Boe, a new character in the Royce Fil...