The Patagonian Express

While working on the “C”, I have also been working on an old project, the Ferrocarril de Agricultor. Recently, I have been looking at videos of the Ferrocarriles de Argentinos (La Trochita) in the Patagonian region of Argentina. They had some interesting engines, freight cars and fantastic scenery. I am interested in their “bordes altos” open top cars. Something very different from North American narrow gauge. No they are not like Maine two foot pulpwood cars! You can see two of them in the photo below. From what other fans of the railroad have told me, these cars carried things such as wool and other bulky loads. Usually when loaded they had a tarp over them. The cars have steel frames and wood sides. If you are interested, contact me for more information.

href=”https://modelrailroadimagineerings.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/1744-13105086321.jpg”> “Bordes Altos” open top car behind Henschel Mikado on the Ferrocarriles de Argentinos. Photo by John West[/

Chasing The Patagonian Express (an interesting video-turn the sound down.)

I like this video, especially the opening scene with a 30 inch Baldwin blowing its whistle coming around the bend. If you watch the whole thing, you will realize it is a wide open country,difficult to really model in a scene. However, it has lots of character, some interesting rolling stock and locomotives, such as the Baldwin in the video. The Henschel outside frame 2-8-2 Mikados are nice engines as well, and available in On30! A fascinating railroad that adds a piece to our Imagineering puzzle!

FINALLY!

After an almost 11 year break in having a functioning model railroad, finally got started. Attended a MADModule meeting on January 22nd to learn about building modules. Very interesting, especially since Linn Wescott’s L-girder design is the only method I’ve ever used to build my model railroads in the past. Liked the module design so much, purchase a kit and came home that night to put it together.

The “Stewartstown” plan is large and requires more space than is available at the moment, so decided start with something a little smaller and easily portable. Since the idea of a basic track layout to support several different model railroad interests is something that still has my interest decided to pick two of my model railroad imagineerings, the Ferrocarril del Agricultor (FdA) and the Maryland Central. To test my idea, chose to model the end of a branch, no elaborate track plan but something simple to keep things moving. Plan on using three 24 inch by 48 inch modules to represent the towns of Pie de la Montaña (FdA) and Bentley Springs (Maryland Central). Since it has been quite a while since handlaid my last switch, decided to try to include several different switches to practice making switches. So, working on a track plan to include a 3 way, a wye, several point switches and at least one stub switch.