Wednesday, August 6, 2014

I spent last weekend enjoying the Huckleberry Railfan Weekend and working with the Great Lakes HOn30 Module Group displaying their layout.

It was a blast! I came after set up and the layout seemed to run well. Tom brought the new Minitrains Fiddletown and Copperopolis 0-4-0 locomotive and it ran reliably and beautifully. The appearance of outside frame and the motion of the counterweights give it a definite narrow gauge appearance. The only downside seemed to be the position of the weight inside the tender which caused it to lean backward.

I took my Linekin Bay module along and ran it as a free-standing layout. After a quick cleaning I was glad to see that trains were running pretty well on it. I ran an MDC/Athearn/Roundhouse 2-6-0 steam conversion on it for 3 hours, then ran the Frary-Hayden FM Morse diesel conversion (FS&K No 26) for several hours. The next day the motive power was again No 26, a re-geared AHM Plymouth diesel in original paint and the new rail bus. All ran well, but the track behind the wharf station needs some work.

Public attendance seemed good and the Huckleberry Railroad hosts a nice event.

One of the highlights was watching Jim run his live steam SRRL No 6 Forney locomotive pulling a Moxie train and SRRL No 19 Prairie locomotive pulling a mixed train.

I'll post pictures in the next few days.