The Royce Files

My railyard is dormant  My layout has been dormant for quite some time. I redid the configuration but have yet to re-lay the track or do a power overhaul. I have also been looking for 42" turnouts and K-line switches. There are a few engines waiting to be run. I really want to get it up and running again before Christmas Dalton O-Gauge layout Visited the Dalton Threshing Reunion a few weeks ago. The smell of steam abounded. They have a little 2 foot gauge steam engine on the grounds that gets plenty of runs in during the weekend. There is also an area for model trains. The Spud Valley club brings their HO modular layout and then there is another guy with a small American Flyer layout. A large O gauge layout fills out the rest of the room along with a few tables of leftover HO pieces that must have been donated. The O layout is pretty bare for now- just a big double loop and some buildings here and there and particle board landscaping. No fancy Lionel accessories adorn ...

While wandering the hills of San Francisco last month I encountered this image on the street. I am not sure if I had seen it before but it seems familiar. It appears to be a representation of a 6 eyed fish or maybe a whale. I have yet to find anything on the web about the image so I will just post this here to see what happens.

Visited the San Francisco bay area back in July and enjoy plenty of rides on tracks. From the Airport I took the BART Train to the Embarcadero and later got on a street car much like the one pictured above. The next day I rode more BART and street cars and topped off the day with a ride on a California Line cable car. All the street cars in the Market Street and Wharf areas are historic and either restored to original livery or given a paint to honor a certain street car line from elsewhere. The Pacific Electric car above is one such repainted. It originally served the city of Philadelphia. Pacific Electric was a line in southern California with some connections to the Southern Pacific Railroad. The store of the line is no unlike others in America. Rapid growth as people moved outside the city centers and then some ebbs with automobile use increases until finally became uneconomical to maintain the service. Really it is hard to understand how we let these modes of transport die a...

It is a cold run man The biggest story from the marathon probably has been- it was cold . The second and lesser known story I will discuss in a later post. A third does exist but it is more romantic. And that being said there were not too many interesting shots  to get since most people were bundled up good. The only thing I did not see was someone running in a ski mask, but I suppose that I might have missed that one. The marathon was fortunate to be run during the best weather of the weekend. As the weekend progressed the temperatures and precipitation made for a much cooler Fargo than previous years. But having the race this early in May is hit or miss with the weather. 2 of last years top finishers did not even run despite being registered. I would not say the conditions were adverse. They were good but certainly not ideal. The biggest challenge for running in Fargo is wind.  Nonetheless 20,000 is certainly a good draw for a race in cooler weather. Starting indoors c...

cheer squad It might have been freezing but Fargo showed up to cheer on the runners. All along 9th and 8th and Broadway masses thronged to glimpse the running spectacle. I believe this is one of the reasons this event draws so many participants- there are spectators. I have done other races and nothing makes a long run go better than a few words of encouragement or the excitement of lots of people. It is that energy that a crowd generates for the runners that makes this marathon special. The Fargo Marathon gets it right when they route the races into the neighborhoods and not on the outskirts of town. bell boy is tuckered out after 4 hours

30 degrees Fahrenheit at race time this morning! Fortunately all the races started in the FargoDome. Lots were well bundled up and some less so. The top runners treated the weather like any other and cruised the course with shorts and tank tops. As a spectator I was chilled. I am glad I went back home and picked up gloves for the family otherwise I would have begun running to keep myself warm. This might have been the coldest starting temperature since the inaugural race 11 years ago. And on that day it snow too! The chill did not keep 9th and 8th St from cheering on the throngs of runners fast and slow. Many spectators were in place well before the 7:30 start of the marathon and good parking was limited. Nonetheless it was a great time. Eric Loeffler on 9th street Nothing terribly dramatic at this year's race from what I observed. Marathon victors won pretty handily. But I must give a shout out to Keith Lehman. This is a guy to watch for the future. He might come back an...

The  Northern Trackers have a great spot in Crosslake, MN that features 3 scales of model trains in addition to a 1/2" scale model of the the William Crooks, Minnesota's first locomotive. I try to visit whenever I am passing through the area. The Crooks model sits outside their building near a G scale layout. Inside there is an expansive HO layout that models the railroad activity of the northern Minnesota from the early 1900s. Above there is a G scale loop. In another room there is an O-scale 3 rail layout with some interactive accessories. The real William Crooks locomotive sits in the Lake Superior Railroad Museum . It formally had been on display at the St. Paul Union Depot but since 1972 has been in the Duluth museum beside another venerable engine, The Minnetonka. An excellent article on the Saga of the William Crooks . As for the person, William Crooks - he was the chief engineer for the railroad which the locomotive belonged- St Paul and Pacific. He was a Colone...