Holiday 2025
The year is almost at an end. It has literally flown by! And I don’t know where the time went. I seem to remember these types of statements from my parents and family all the way back through the years and Holidays’ Past. The Holidays are more of a cascade of memories to me now, with all my family gone, and the divorce taking care of what was left. The memories I have of my family are vivid enough, however, and I must admit that the solitude of the past 6 months and the ability to sit quietly with reflection of them and all that has happened in the past are more than enough to allow true reflection of where I’ve been and where I am going. I am truly grateful to have those memories. And the experiences change us no matter what we may think.
The memories of the Missouri Pacific and the daily coal trains leaving my home town of West Frankfort stand equally vivid as well. Those were the days, indeed! I recall riding downtown in West Frankfort with my parents and looking at both the Christmas decorations and the stores; and then crossing the C&EI/Missouri Pacific tracks; looking at the Missouri Pacific engines sitting idle across from the depot. Those are just beautiful things to reminisce about, in my humble opinion. Everyone had a job back then in West Frankfort, and the town was humming along during the Holiday season. I remember hot Chocolate and High School Basketball on the weekends, and watching the trains at the yard on the weekends. Those were just a part of what was really nice regarding the daily occurrences of small town life. Of course, it was made better with my friends and family being in the daily routines back then.
Tony Koester is one of my favorite authors, and he likens his modeling of the famed Nickel Plate Road Clover Leaf Sub as “building a time machine”. His modeling and operations exhibit exactly that and it’s definitely influenced my modeling focus and determination over the past 20 years or so when I was able to speak to him in person at an NMRA event in St. Louis. Time really does fly by. And our HO scale time machines are important both as art forms and for us to always remember the people and places we’ve been in the past.
That’s what I have attempted to do both in these writings and with my dormant Joppa Subdivision (not by choice) model layout. It will indeed get back to where it was at the beginning of 2024; (published in Model Railroader; benchwork up and ready for track and operations). The newer version will be better than ever…with new power added to the roster (GP15ACs and some more new 4 axle power to be named later). In the meantime, I have been kept busy at SoundTraxx and am working with many modeling projects that will also be spelled out here and (hopefully) in Model Railroad periodicals. I have one article that is almost ready and I have to take photographs and plan on that this weekend.
There are other articles that will follow, but I am also studying the track plan for the future…and I think it will be simply straightened out in a new space with less curves and compromises, and either a near-scale rendition of the Benton Jct. to Neilson Jct. section…with Saline Creek viaduct being the last “modeled” structure and scene on the layout. The track would then cross Lake of Egypt road before it enters the “Joppa” visible staging. I would also consider adding the power plant and related trackage near Joppa for operations and a place to put a ton of coal hoppers.
I am experimenting with the SoundTraxx Dynamic Digital Exhaust and the variable sensitivity of the decoders’ load reactive action, which allows the engines to notch up based on the motor load intelligently. This would make a model of Goreville Hill interesting in that engines would be working hard up the 1.43% grade with their coal trains. Imagine 4-5 MoPac non-turbo EMD units throttling up to notch 8 and making 8-10 miles per hour dragging their coal up the grade!!!…all without having to do anything on the throttle! It’s an enticing idea and would easily be accomplished with products that are currently available…so there’s that. (More paralysis-by-analysis you say?…I hope not!!!)
And, Bowser recently announced they were re-working their open hoppers with separate end grab irons and updated brake detail/cages. This adds the possibility of Karnak and the Big 4/Conrail being part of the mix once more. The Bowser catalog includes many of the cars needed for a good Conrail train of that era. This would allow MP trains to pick up a motley assortment of coal from the Harrisburg area and transport it to Joppa as well. So, there are a number of exciting developments to say the least. This too, would add to the layout and could possibly bring it back to where it was in the early to mid-2000s with an operating scheme based on the entire subdivision. It’s another possibility.
I am adding to the fleet of open hoppers again and will do so in the future. The 3209 hopper kitbashes will resume as the anticipation of operation plans take shape. So I tell myself it’s a temporary delay in operations…and I’ll just keep plugging along with the new models and finish up both the engine installs and the caboose fleet…to get them ready to make their mine runs on the 409 TSE and the 408 daily Joppa coal extra. I will finish up the GP15-1 fleet shortly and await the new Athearn GP15ACs to add to the fleet in the near future (with Blunami installed).
That’s it for the post this time around.
I wish you all a joyous Holiday Season and the very best as we bring this year to a close. See You next year!
