Thank you for your kind remarks. We all have favorites, but I enjoy interesting surprises across the globe, too.

Thanks again, Roger. I appreciate your generous words.

Thanks, Roger. Early PFM ads hooked me on GN early on. Revell was great boost to hobby in its day. Growing layouts over the years benefits from re-using as much as possible so time can be devoted to what is new, in my case track. "Good enough" is needed when going large and one can place older models in background to fill scenes reasonably.

Thank you. I got the MTH to reduce wear on my brass. I was pleasantly surprised at reasonable detail for price as MTH had marginal rep on earlier models. First thing I did, though, was rip out their compromise sound decoder and put in a Tsunami2. Boiler "grey" odd shade but these were never doubleheaded, so tolerable by itself. Most people don't over-scrutinize engine when trailed by a nice 60-car ore train... :-)

Nice.@@Missabe3

Please don't be put off by this. The desire is to show possibilities. Many hobbyists enjoy sharing and helping each other with ideas and techniques. The great thing about model railroading as with any good hobby is that one can grow into it as little or as much as one desires, based on the time, money, and space a person wants to devote to it. You already appreciate this in your record collecting hobby. My first HO model railroad was on a simple 4x6' sheet of plywood when I was 11, after playing with Lionel trains from age 3. That was 70 years ago. During the journey, I happened to be inspired to enjoy a diverse career in railroad industry. Not for everyone, but neither is stamp collecting. Any hobby is first for the benefit and enjoyment of the individual's interests. Best wishes!

Two Harbors also interesting place to visit - and see DM&IR tug Edna G.

Collected over the years. PSC you are seeing is newest brass from about 1998, picked up an MTH to reduce mileage on brass models that include Westside Samhongsa and oldest an Akane I re-motored. I put SoundTraxx in all, ripping out the junk MTH decoder along the way. The 1980 Westside was actually my first and I had to replace gearboxes about 5 years ago. Had to replace both Westside Sam gearboxes due to being only 24:1 ratio. NWSL 36:1's and back-emf tamed it beautifully. Got 1960 Akane at a reasonable price about 10 years ago, then PSC also secondhand, then MTH. Akane is surprisingly good runner especially with putting can motor in it, but not as accurate a model. MTH runs OK with better detailing than their earlier models but their decoder has DCC as afterthought and not nearly as flexible sound-wise as SoundTraxx. The PSC took by far the most work to ferret out all the places it would short itself but worth it. Very unusual equalized chassis but runs rock steady with no wobble that can occur with conventional springing in a very heavy engine.

Minneapolis, actually. Sorry.

About 50 years. Older ones not worth so much now as you can imagine, but re-motoring with flywheels from the start and more recently sound decoders give them excellent performance.

Thank you too!

Thanks much, Bob. Yes, clearly a long term project, so I made sure I also did more physically challenging things first while body still cooperating, like finishing most track plus wiring work crawling underneath or twisting underneath upper deck!

Thank you, and thank you for your service.

Hi Derek, Sorry I have not been in touch with Steve for years. I suggest you check River Rail website - he had been a host layout with their operations weekend. Someone there should know status.

Thanks, Derek. Interesting idea to include track plan. Size vs. resolution would be challenge - would need to do some "zoom in" type shooting to be readable, I think, due to size and detail. I would like to do a "railfan" version showing more equipment in action. All of this requires many more shot setups with shorter clips, plus then including "map" shots of locations would be nice approach. Just not high up on priority list yet, but it is on list!

I sent you a separate reply, Derek. on the other layout. I visited Steve Brudlo's layout during a River Rail operations weekend back then. My first layout to be named Missabe Northern (actually the 10th HO layout in my life) was built in suburban Chicago 1984-1995, then relocation to Omaha courtesy UP resulted in #2 during 1996-2002. So this incarnation became Missabe Northern #3. The first one was where I first used a lot of Homasote spline roadbed with about 80% of track hand laid. #2 was nearly double in size, #3 another 60% bigger because of my efficient construction design and very low maintenance making it practical. #3 has reused about 5% from #1 and 10% from #2, the rest is all new. Most structures and rolling stock of course migrated with me plus new additions. Thank you for noticing my track work. Track is hand laid and turnouts scratch built in place to more realistically blend together and to be more reliable and realistically smooth including for long-wheelbase steam engines. Model curves and turnouts are much sharper than the prototype would use for the situations, so building them smoother gives an optical illusion that they are bigger than they really are when trains run over them. I can then also use #8's in the space most modelers would use commercial #6's (or even 5's) to save space by extending the closure rail curve smoothly through the frog and a bit beyond to join with yard body tracks. This European practice is hard to spot but a very noticeable benefit when big engines and long cars run over them without the lurching as is apparent on too-short North American straight-frog practice models. Steam engines taking cars down to the ore docks were not turned. They faced up hill so the firebox crown sheets would be covered with water on the 2.2% hill grade if water was getting low. So they would back down, then pull the empties back up the hill "normally".

Missed a couple of your questions. The ore docks had crossovers on the double track approach, so the hill engine could duck out of the way and get lined to pull a different track of cars now empty up the hill. Meanwhile a different engine would get positioned to shove the loads the rest of the way onto an open dock track. When traffic was low, the hill engine might run around to make the shove itself. The use of Homasote spline roadbed actually made it easier to reuse long stretches of track and the large Sandstone scene because the supporting bench work did not have to move with it, adding too much weight to handle. I dismantled the bench work to move and store more easily, reused it at the new location, then placed the roadbed back on it where it belonged. Scratch built dock was never finished before next move, but Missabe 3 timing worked out because by then Walthers had released their ore dock kits. Long approaches were scratch built.

Thank you. My interest, as a railfan and retired railroader, is seeing trains going somewhere making money, not crawling through a maze of inner-city terminal trackage surrounded by "clutter". Seeing decent size trains flowing 30-40 mph through very large radius curves and easements is more photogenic for me than thumping along at 5-10 mph through a bunch of rough commercial turnouts. This is balanced with a lot of yard and industry track as well, so I have the best of both with variety in both as I saw in my career.

Thanks, but not me. 100% Minnesota, USA.

No, about 1/3 (350 or so) are unique numbers. For operating convenience, all cars are grouped in "mine blocks" of 5 cars each. Raw ore was sampled at mines in mine blocks of 3-7 cars of similar chemical composition, so I chose 5 as the average and to make counting easier. I then can have one car card for each block of 5 cars so a sixty car road train is only 12 car cards plus caboose card, much easier to manage and carry along than 61 cards. When I started expanding the fleet for this version of the Missabe Northern, I would buy five 12-packs of Walthers cars at a time, then make each block with 5 cars the same number. This makes ore and mine switching easier. A block has dummy couplers within the set and working Kadee couplers on each end only. Where I did need new numbers for older MDC cars and repaints, I made my own decals with consecutive numbers, numbering sets with last digits of 1-5 or 6-9-0, again to make spotting in long cuts easier to locate where to uncouple. If every car was unique and independent, it would be an administrative nightmare to keep everything straight, which is why full size railroads had an army of clerks to do the car checking in the yards and organize the paperwork. I prefer to model what is fun, not what was very tedious.

Glad you enjoyed it

Ugly tagging too often obscuring essential car identification was not yet a fad in the 1940's. For those of you with modern interest, there actually are a few decal sets of graffiti available.

Glad you like it!

What do you think my railroad would look like if I spent the same hours and money in 1/10 the space? Or 1/100 the space on a shelf module? Building nice models and super-detailed scenes is a nice hobby for those with little space. So is stamp collecting. I choose railroad function and performance modeling, not a scene or two that happen to have a train wandering through with no place to go. I also have great respect for the exquisite work of military modelers, but that's not my personal hobby interest. Realistic operation is a branch of the hobby for those with broader interests than just model building. Each has their place to be enjoyed, which makes this such a broadly appealing hobby.

Double heading steam engines is not realistic for operation on the Iron Range. They used big engines for the era to avoid extra crews. The heaviest grades on the DMIR where climbing up out of the Lake Superior basin with the empties. Where occasional heavy freights moving out of Duluth needed to climb the 2.2% Proctor Hill grade, pushers were used because it is safer than risk of pulling out draw bars or breaking knuckles with all the power up front. Proctor Hill was 7 miles long - too short to fuss with mid-train helpers.

Yes, I grew up a couple miles south of that very bridge, at Orchard Gardens. :-) The RIX model captures style well. My Dad did some repair to the waiting shelter when it was in original location along passing siding next to Old Lyndale (now County 5) where I'd walk down to wait for school bus.

Thank you. Track is both a model and scenery - I like continuous flow and character of hand laid. I had been a longtime fan of Floquil, so had to move on when they disappeared. I liked the way ore docks and approaches turned out using Rustoleum primer (flat red) so used that for some of the MDC cars I wanted to repaint. Most cars whether Walthers or MDC are factory paint. A couple color pics I have of Proctor Yard showed mix of Missabe dark browns and boxcar reds including faded versions, so not too worried about perfect color matches. Large groups of slightly different shades just look like batches from different years. GN cars for my era were mineral red, akin to box car red. "Proper" prototype matches look too dark under artificial lighting anyway.

Thanks. Like most model railroads, a work in progress so always something to do when I want.

Thanks. I run them in mine blocks of 5 cars each, one car card with all 5 numbers. Keeps train packs reasonable size, switching reasonable while moving nice cuts, and longer road trains looking more like they need the big articulateds they have.

Thank you. All scratch built in place - no templates. This allows turnouts to be smoother flowing to give the illusion of being bigger than they are, much like spiral easements give illusion of curves being larger than they actually are.

@@Missabe3 they look so great!

Thank you, Harold.

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it

Thank you. 72 pockets per side, capacity 35 ore cars and a caboose per track. 4 Walthers kits per side, 8 per full dock, x 2 docks. For practicality, cars shoved onto dock keep the caboose, then train departing to go back up Proctor Hill backs in to get the caboose before making climb up the hill.

@@Missabe3 Thank you for the quick reply.

Every subject has it's own special appeals and we each bring our own priorities and different skills to the table. I happen to prefer loose car railroading over modern unit train railroading because of the much greater amount of switching involved and of course steam power. Taconite trains are unit trains serving a handful of massive taconite plants then mostly dumped in storage areas handled by conveyors and moved to the docks mostly by conveyer. Ore trains are dedicated trains of ore involving much switching and existed in an era of many small mines requiring local service, switching and classic shoves onto the ore docks. No comparison for operating interest and diversity - for me.

I have full fleet of diesels to handle operations circa early 60's. But most modelers run diesels in part because they are easier to maintain and handle poor track. Running a large fleet of steam reliably for large operating sessions is one of the aspects of the Missabe Northern that makes it more rare.

Azatrax makes excellent infra-red detector circuit boards to control switch machines or other devices. One version they offer is called spring switch. The turnout stays lined for the normal route. When rolling stock approaches from the reverse side, the switch points are lined to allow exit. A second detector just past the points "sees" the equipment coming out and holds the turnout in position until the train has passed, then with about a 3-second delay to be safe, it throws the points back to the normal position. Very reliable. I have heard of people doing actual sprung points, but I figured that would be too risky with steam engine pilot wheels. They might not have the weight (or spring pressure) to push the points open reliably. I prefer to remove the springs on pilot trucks and add some weight to them so that the main engine weight is on the drivers for tractive effort. I also did not want to risk the points not fully returning to normal position - not a desirable situation for a Yellowstone or N3 with 60 ore cars possibly picking the points. No video of my push-pull switch machine control - at least not yet. Heart of it is DPDT toggle switch that provides spring pressure to hold points securely. Extremely reliable electrically, extremely reliable mechanically, extremely inexpensive. All my frogs are power-routed with SPDT set and the other SPDT set used at times for fascia LEDs on harder to see turnouts. A large railroad isn't nearly as fun if one has to do maintenance on switch machines and track cleaning. I would never have built a home railroad this size if I didn't have proven methods to minimize work and maximize fun time.

@@Missabe3 Can't do that because I have no power in the track at all. All my engines are completely battery powered and i love them...

@@Missabe3 Would love to see a video on the push pull switch controls. I am trying to do some of my ideas now...

Glad you enjoyed it!

Ah, queens of the fleet are favorites of mine - character. First 10 ordered from Baldwin for use in western mountains as pushers and handling steep curvy branch lines. Then GN started building their own hybrids from 2-8-0 consolidations and ordering just front 2-6-0 engines from Baldwin, per the very well researched "Steam Locomotives of the Great Northern Railway" book by Middleton and Priebe. Weak T.E. performance was overcome when converted from compound Mallets to simple articulateds. Small drivers severely limited speed, so lost favor over time but about 1/3 of fleet assigned to Minnesota iron mine territory. Their life was extended into mid-50s snaking into curvy mine leads and relatively short runs to gathering point at Kelly Lake near Hibbing.

Interesting history, so did you kitbash these yourself then? They’re a beautiful looking locomotive.

@@allychat8496 Sorry I missed your follow-up question back when. PFM imported Tenshodo brass models 1966-1978, then Oriental Limited imported excellent Samhongsa models in 1984. I have one of each acquired 2nd hand. Haven't kept up if newer ones done as I only needed the two. I did do the Glacier Park paint scheme on my Tenshodo in 1977 so gave it the number 1977, correct in the series. Painting something like this is easy - the time and tedious work is full disassembly, masking, and re-assembly!

Well, I'm guilty of modelers' license over-doing one feature. I think there is only one railroad tunnel in all northern Minnesota (on DW&P climb up out of Duluth). But on model, tunnels allow view blocking between scenes and expanding a scene for more operation a few inches above a scene below supposed to be several miles away.

Oh, forgot, briefly because I answered some of this on one of the other videos: L-shape 64x90 ft., 3700 sq. ft., 80% double decked. Private, monthly op sessions until pandemic, often open house for local conventions and regular host with Minn-Rail group in Minneapolis/St. Paul area every second-year regional ops meet (they have website).

Glad you enjoyed it!