my (cat's) train website

[conradin]

I got into trains because my cat loves it.  He could watch them for hours and sometimes like to batter them.  He would sometimes pick up one of the rolling stocks and takes it with him to go to sleep....my entire set up basically has him in mind.  Hence, the only scenaries that I set up for my layout are tunnels, and crossing gates.  No buildings because he willnot understand it.  No little people, freight, cars or signs because that might be hazardous to him.  No blinking bridges because the light will not be good for him.   Frequently I would put a train of flatcars with toy mice on them and run it, and he loves it.  Whenever a toy mouse drops off the train, he would get on the layout, sits around the mouse, telling me that a mouse has escaped!

http://www.cygoth.com/~buzz

I will take more pictures of him and the trains, plus the layout.

But the webpage is also a good demonstration of the program RRTrains.  The webpage was automatically generated by it.  It is a free program and it is great!

http://www.gregorybraun.com/RRTrains.html

I have around 75 cars and I cannot imagine some of you not wanting to have a program.  I am a computer person and even I would rather use this program than programming a RDB program myself.   I know many of you have cars in the hundreds of different scales and makes.  So a program like this is very helpful.

Also, I buy vintage stuff, so if you pay closer attention you basically see a lot of rolling stocks from different eras of Bachmann.  "Standard Hong Kong" means they are the old ones, made in Hong Kong, came in white or blue or black and clear cases.  Standard China means the ones that came from white paper boxes.  Standard, Spectrum, Silver, those are self explainatory.
Promotion Hong Kong means those are special or promotional items that were made in Hong Kong (thus gave one a perspective of its production dates).

PS.  You will also notice that I collect mostly BNSF (In Bachmann N scale, that means Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, CB & Q, Great Northern, and Frisco)..well, I live in New Mexico, what can I say!  The only UP car, a boxcar, that I have I use it as a spare part...although Buzz one day did manage to rip the car apart: took the box part off the chassis, rip the trucks out, etc.
He must have really hated UP! 



Enjoy

[Paul M.]

Tell Buzz that UP isn't as bad as they were... they gave up on the liscensing program. Thank goodness!

[conradin]

The webpage is completed.  You can now see the layout: It consists of overpasses with one inner and outer loops.  The yards are for decoration only.  There are actually four tunnels.  I only keep one of them so that I can show the layout.  The other one is actually the night stand, as the track actually goes underneath the bed (hence what you see in the picture only accounts for 2/3s of the layout, the other 1/3 is underneath the bed), which is very convenient for Buzz to attack or monitor the trains. 

The layout actually has four power zones.  The inner loop is one zone, the outer another.  The two yards have their own individual power packs. 
The turnout in front of the nightstand is actually where I put the trains together..you can see the red rerailer.

I usually can run two consists, one running the outer, the other the inner loops.  But Buzz does not like it.  Too hard to track down and he would lose interest.  He likes it best when there is only a single train, running on low speed, so that he knows he can attack the cars or the mice whenever he likes it, without the need to chase.
You can see Buzz takes his job seriously.  Those mice on the flat cars are eternal captives!

[SteamGene]

If you are looking for fallen flags for the BNSF, don't forget the Katy, Northern Pacific, and a host of others.  I hope you aren't running any craftsman cars.
Gene

[conradin]

What is Katy?

[Hunt]

What is Katy?

If you are asking about the railroad... Katy Lines be the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad.

[conradin]

Oh...but MKT is a fallen flag under UP, not BNSF.

The other fallen flags (post WWII) under BNSF are Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.  But Bachmann does not make any trains for them, in N scale.

[SteamGene]

You are right.  UP, not Santa Fe,  swallowed Katy.
Subjunctive mood, Hunt?
Gene

[conradin]

I accidentally deleted all the pictures, so I have to retake the pictures again.  Originally I was just going to take the pictures of the layout and the train cases, because Buzz is sleeping so I do not want to disturb him next room.
Then September shows up and proceeds to walk over the place as if she is saying "Everything that belongs to me is mine, and everything that belongs to my brother is also mine!"

http://www.cygoth.com/~buzz/index2.html

[SteamGene]

The F7 and the stock cars at least are not "modern." 
Gene

[conradin]

I don't know that..how do you define modern?
Those stock cars look like the ones that I grew up seeing back in the 70s.

[SteamGene]

Modern woul be, at the oldest, after roof walks were removed.  Stock cars you might have seen in the '70s were on their last legs. 
Now my personal definition of "modern" is anything after 31 Oct, 1957, but most would disagree on that.  In any event, first generation diesels are not modern except in the sense that the C&O J-3 was a modern steam locomotive.
Gene

[conradin]

What is significant about that date (31 Oct 1957)?

[SteamGene]

There is nothing significant about 31 Oct '57 to anybody but me.  However, my model railroad is set in Sept-Oct 1957.
Gene

[Summertrainz]

can i be the first one to say...

i see your a cat AND train person 
sounds a little crazy but do what you want
sounds fun