This past weekend and week I had to go to the Phoenix area for a conference. But first I visited with my good friend Mike Stoner who lives in Sedona. We didn't have much time for a lot of activities but made great time with that we did have.
The first thing we did was visit Verryl Fosnight's Union Pacific Railroad. OMG this is a BIG railroad! Still being built it is housed in a huge warehouse building. Here are some photos and you can see more details at the Yahoo Group, Wyoming_Division.
From there we drove to Flagstaff to see a few BNSF trains and that we did. 4 trains in all. It was getting dark by then so we headed back to Mike's house for an update on Mike's layout. Mike is building his 2nd railroad (the first got flooded in a friggin' water leak) and the new one is going to be awesome too. Here are a few photos.
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| More GP60's! |
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| Mike Stoner and me at dinner waiting for Brandi, his GF. Until she showed up, we were getting weird looks here on Valentine's Day! LOL |
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| Mike's layout under construction...again! |
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| Mike hand lays his turnouts! |
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| He's a details oriented guy. |
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| This is N scale! |
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| Mike uses McHenry couplers and body mounts them on all equipment. He likes these over MT's because MT's tend to have too much slack and bounce, causing strange things with the cars. I agree, however, I'm not spending time body mounting anything! |
The next morning I drove down to Phoenix to my hotel for the next 4 night. Luck me, my hotel was right next to the UP tracks and at a RR crossing too. My colleagues didn't think it was very exciting because 2-4 trains came by each night! There's something comforting about a train horn in the middle of the night...to me anyway! LOL Here are a few photos of Phoenix, although most of the trains I saw were in the dark from my hotel room in the comfort of my PJ's.
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| This and the photo below are of a gypsum board mfgr yard. Seems like they waste lots of board. |
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| Yet another UP train in the night. |
Frank Kenny CPRX
