trainphilos

[trainphilos]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles...

Another cold and rainy day here in Southern Delaware. Or, as the locals like to call it tongue in cheek: “Lower Slower Delaware”! Lower Slower Delaware Bumper Sticker Not sure whether or not Brad and myself would be considered “locals” by now. However it has been four years since we packed up in Washington DC and decamped to Rehoboth Beach in Lower Slower Delaware. We’ve never looked…

[trainphilos]

Adieu to 2024

To all my readers: Thank you for subscribing to my blog and have a nice 2024 Holiday Season, as well as a good 2025! My HO scale layout is still a work in progress. Enjoy a few photographs of my attempts so far:   Schellville Christmas Market. Just down the street from our house.

[trainphilos]

The Northlander

First off and totally unrelated to anything having to do with railroads is this: Northern Lights in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware! This photo was taken in front of our house. (admittedly a while ago) Why go to the far northern reaches of Norway or Canada when one can see this spectacle from the comfort of one’s home? This photograph, with its red and green hues, was taken with an iPhone. The naked…

[trainphilos]

...of Anoraks, Pufferküsser and Tragics!

A short foreword and explanation: My friend Michael in London has been doing a blog since blogs became a thing. He started out to review, comment on and complain about all things Apple. Hence the blog’s URL: www.macfilos.com. However over the years his obsession with photography and cameras, in particular Leica equipment, became the main focus of his blog. The blog name stayed the same, but it is…

[trainphilos]

Hallelujah...they've finally done it!

A few weeks ago I received a set of Bachmann HO scale Amtrak MidWest passenger coaches. These are HO scale models of the new Siemens Mobility “Venture” passenger coaches which will be replacing the awful, long in the tooth Amtrak “Amcans”. The “Venture” coaches themselves are based on the tried and true Siemens Mobility “Viaggio” design, which has been successfully in service with European…

[trainphilos]

New Toys!

During the last few weeks a couple of new items were added to the rolling stock roster of my model railway. As per usual I had totally forgotten having “pre-ordered” them over a year ago. Model train manufacturers tend to announce new future projects with an option for the customer to “pre-order”. This pre-ordering process gives the manufacturers a rough idea on how many model train enthusiasts…

[trainphilos]

...and still working on the railroad!

Just about three years in, my HO scale model train layout is still very much a work in progress. It is not even close to being finished. In fact I am already tearing up some parts of the layout since I am not happy with the way some of it turned out. I am beginning to get this sneaky suspicion that this project of mine will really never be finished. Fine by me actually! It keeps my busy. Besides,…

[trainphilos]

Adieu to 2023

2023 is history. Not that I will look back upon it fondly. Too many scary things reared their ugly heads during the year gone by. I fear though, that 2024 will disappoint us even more. November 2024 will be a water shed moment for the US. And I am not hopeful. But enough of these dark thoughts. It has been quite a while since the last blog appeared here. I just never seemed to find the time and…

[trainphilos]

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa!

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa!

I suppose I should say it a third time, adding another “mea maxima culpa”! All the while beating my breast. At least that is what the Confiteor in the Roman Rite prescribes, when acknowledging having made an avoidable mistake.. Well, I am not going around beating anything. Though I will admit that not writing a blog for ten months is regrettable. I shall make up for lost time! A Ride on the…

[trainphilos]

Make way for the APT...

Make way for the APT…

…that is for the Hornby OO scale “Advanced Passenger Train”! Hornby is a United Kingdom based manufacturer of OO scale model trains. Very recently the company released a model of the British Rail  “Advanced Passenger Train”, generally referred to as the APT. I won’t go into much technical detail regarding the prototype. Suffice it to say that in the mid-1970’s British Rail was looking for a high…

[trainphilos]

Working on The Railroad

Working on The Railroad

To say that 2021 was interesting seems to be a colossal understatement. First Brad and I moved from DC to Rehoboth Beach. Then it finally appeared that the US had gotten a grip on the whole COVID mess. Perhaps it would be possible to make travel plans again. I had not been to London in three years to see my friends and the bi-annual InnoTrans rail industry exhibition in Berlin would finally be…

[trainphilos]

New house, new trains, new adventures.......

New house, new trains, new adventures…….

It is hard to believe that Brad and I have been living in Rehoboth Beach for nearly half a year now. Yes, we have been busy. Still it is remarkable how time flies. More remarkable is the fact that we really do not miss DC all that much. There was some concern initially that we would find the transition to life in Delaware difficult. Far from it! Of course it did help that we had some friends who…

[trainphilos]

Tempus Fugit.......

Tempus Fugit…….

It’ been a very long time since I had to read Virgil’s “Georgics”. Latin was a required language when I went to school and I hated every minute of it. My study habits were atrocious, passing the prescribed Latin courses only by the skin of my teeth. Of course what Virgil really wrote was: “Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus”. There are various translations, but I sort of like this one:…

[trainphilos]

Derailed.......

Derailed…….

It has been said that all good things must come to an end. Platitudes aside, I have to report that the Chesapeake and Tenleytown Railroad is no more! Both the TT scale pike in the attic and the G scale garden railway have ceased to exist. I have worked on both layouts for many years with varying degrees of success, chronicling my trials and triumphs here on this blog. To me the most fascinating…

[trainphilos]

I've fallen hard

I’ve fallen hard

for the TT model train scale, that is. In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I had given up on HO scale, because of the space requirement for running prototypically long trains. My attic just was not large enough. Running an HO scale ICE 4 just looked ridiculous. N scale seemed to be the answer. However I quickly realized that I neither had the patience, nor the dexterity to deal with…

[trainphilos]

FINALLY!!!

  One hopes that the four year long nightmare has come to an end. I wish the new administration all the luck, fortitude and success! It can only get better.

[trainphilos]

Idle hands and all that!

Idle hands and all that!

This is not particularly railroad related, however it seems to be a bit of a sign of our times. So let me explain: After dithering around for many years, our local electric power company (PEPCO) finally decided to relocate the electric distribution lines in our neighborhood from poles to underground conduits. It was beyond embarrassing that in the Nation’s Capital the electric power supply in our…