James McDonald

A bittersweet farewell to our 2000-series! 🚇
 
Today, we removed the final one from Greenbelt Rail Yard. These trains were first introduced in the early 1980s, operated nearly 200M miles, and carried more than 775M passengers.
 
Now, we’re making way for our 8000-series! 👋

Poster for One Love Reggae Music Festival. Black background with text in yellow, blue and white. Texts read: Oct 4, 5th annual One Love Reggae Music Festival, 11am to 9:30pm. Free admission. Coastal Fermentory & Ironclad Distillery. 206 23rd Street Suite B, Newport News, VA. Bands listed: Eastern Standard Time, Rio, Cultivated Mind, Lost Soul Society, Nature’s Child, Trevor Daniels and The Reef, Young Lions, Lionsbridge, Native Dread, Josh Craig.

Our next show is this Saturday in Newport News. One Love Reggae Music Festival!! Come forward!

This is very true, unfortunately.

I’ve been trying to organize an oral history project at the RF&P HistSoc for these same reasons but it’s quite a task to undertake. Progress is slow.

IC is really under-appreciated, and this bubbles over into model production.

Wow

I cycled thru many scales before landing on HO as my primary. Nowadays I mostly restrain myself from purchases outside of HO unless they’re from pre-1990 Eastern Europe. Then I’ll buy TT or N stuff.

It’s always sat poorly with me because its “humor” posits that an interest in trains and being on the spectrum are things to be ashamed of. Neither are.

CE-15 is at the B&O RR Museum in Baltimore, although its design is a little different. I feel like the Detroit Photographic collection has a pic of a clearance car but not being that into MoW I don’t think I ever paid it much mind.

Flyer for Eastern Standard Time showing bass player with an expression of delight and hand raised like a claw. His fingers point toward the text listing upcoming shows, which are September 27 Oktoberfest at Five Mountain Brewing in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania and October 4 at One Love Reggae Music Festival at Coastal Fermentory in Newport News, Virginia.

Our next shows…

I’ll look for the reference. I think it was the subject of someone’s electrical engineering dissertation. I mostly remember it because the document had real photos glued into it.

It’s been years since I read about it but IIRC at one time the PRR had (or planned?) a substation over the tracks in, I think, Philly. Maybe that approach would free up room?

Back from @supernovaska.bsky.social . What a great weekend!

Reminder, that if you want an HO scale model of the first 4-2-0 built, the Experiment of the Mohawk & Hudson, you can get a 3D printed kit on my shop here: 3dptrain.com/products/183...

Eastern Standard Time, a ska ensemble, on stage

Next at Supernova, Eastern Standard Time

That bed looks amazing!

FWIW one of the early executives of the M&PA came from a WB&A predecessor. Also, if I can play along, maybe add in the Chesapeake Beach Railway to the system.

I thought to myself “ok, that’s a *really* niche reference; but this being bsky, maybe I’ve found someone else who knows late 80s East German music.” Accidental laughter is also good tho.

Stille Invasion?

As an icebreaker, I asked my college students, "If you could time travel to any decade in the past, where would you go?"

Dear readers, I'm sorry to say that the overwhelming majority said the 80s. The 1980s.

When I asked them why, they said, "seems cool!"

3/4 color wedge photo of three diesel electric locomotives passing under a signal bridge on a multi-track railroad line. Green trees make up the background.

16 years ago today, CSX 8201, CSX 8509, and CSX 8803 were heading west through St. Denis, MD on their way to Jessup, MD to pick up a transfer run to Baltimore. 8201 was L&N 3573 built in 1974, 8509 was ex Seaboard built in 1983, and 8804 was originally Conrail 6373, built in 1977. My photo.

diameter, but I can’t afford such machines. So I print what I can and scratchbuild on top of it. For really high end finish work (like the 25 cars I mentioned earlier) I’m hoping to outsource.

That sure looks nice. My printer is an Ender 3-something. It struggles with detail at HO scale. I can’t get scale board grooves out of it. Same for a few other filament printers I’ve tried. I’ve seen 3D prints using liquid resin that have much greater fidelity including grab irons at scale 1/

Screen capture from 3D modeling program showing blueprint of a boxcar cutaway and the roof profile is being traced in 3D to create a roof block.

Image showing bed of 3D printer on which a boxcar roof printed in purple plastic rests after print completed.

I’ll never give up scratchbuilding but I augment it with 3D. My own printer is not good for finish parts. Ok for interior bits. Images attached of boxcar roof superstructure traced from prototype plan and as printed. This will be sheathed with styrene roof boards too small for my printer to render.

I’m encouraged that 3D printing is reaching the delta of quality and affordability ever more quickly. I bought a 3D printed boxcar kit the other day that was not much more involved to assemble than an old Athearn blue box kit. Scarcely any details to apply. 2/

If by designs you mean plans there are absurd amounts of plans readily available but so very few people with an interest in that time period or subject. The first century of RRs is broadly ignored by modelers today, slipping rapidly out of lived memory. 1/

I suspect they’re curved to avoid becoming plugged with snow. Bending a horn doesn’t much change the perceived sound. Physically it changes the waveform but not in ways that would register to listeners. The side facing bells would mean louder to the side than front of the loco, tho. Odd.

Agree. Also time savings. I need a 25 car train of the same car, which doesn’t exist as a commercial model in any scale. Scratchbuilding that many cars would be months of work. In far less time I can draw the master once and get them printed.

Eastern Standard Time Put together top musicians from Washington, DC’s Jazz and Reggae scenes, give them the recipe for the original Jamaican Ska, throw a heavy dose of vintage Soul in the mix, shake well, and the result i...

Oh, hi there. It’s your friendly neighborhood EST here to say a) it’s Bandcamp Friday so we’d love your support there (easternstandardtime.bandcamp.com naturally) and b) we’re playing Froggy Daze festival in Narrowsburg, NY tomorrow and Supernova in Virginia next weekend. Very excite.

A book is a tree that makes you hallucinate vividly