Renewed Man-Crafts Campaign

The Old Line Corridor needed another couple of dozen trees, so I made a few dozen Supertrees. (Some rules of model railroad trees: you will always need more trees than you think; your trees are probably too small) The weather has been particularly nice, so I worked outside. I also used matte medium to bind the foliage instead of 3M spray cement--much neater and more pleasant smelling, as the spray cement seems to get everywhere and is extremely difficult to cleanup and deodorize. The Aqua-Net super duper hold is a final coat to mitigate the inevitable "shedding," and imparts a vaguely hair salon-like whiff to the undertaking.

More N Scale Electrics: A Little Joe!

Click through to http://milwaukeeroadtrainshop.com/home to see an actual N scale Milwaukee Road Little Joe electric locomotive in action. Not sure if this guy is custom making these models, or what, but his model looks great. Reminds me of the persistent--and to my ear, dubious--rumor that Kato is/was contemplating an N scale Little Joe to go with its Hiawatha passenger set.

All Things Must End: Last Days of Black Mesa Electric Ops

Black Mesa & Lake Powell, the Four Corners robot coal carrier ceased operations late last month. Apparently, the railroad's sole "customer," Navajo Generating Station, is a notorious emitter of greenhouse gases, and has long been a target for closure. BM&LP was essentially a sort of large-scale conveyor belt between the Navajo Generating Station and a large mine 80 or so miles away. Thanks to YouTube user SouthShoreTrain for the video, which he shot--impressively--with a smart phone and a drone.

BM&LP's closure draws to an end the last electric freight operations that resemble--after a fashion-- what big Class I electric mainline freight ops would look like, if we had that sort of thing here in North America. Indeed, when the BM&LP opened in the mid-70s, around the time soaring diesel fuel prices prompted UP, Conrail, and others to contemplate mainline electrification, it and other single-purpose electrified coal haulers in the Southwest and Ohio were seen as glimpses into a electric railroad future that ultimately never came to pass.

The first HO electric loco model I ever owned was a BM&LP E60CF by American GK, and an early post to this blog featured some of my own photography of the BM&LP from 2005. Sad to see one of my great electrified railroad inspirations reach its end within my lifetime.