Washington Northern Logo

Washington Northern Logo

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Friday, February 21, 2020

"New" Power to the WN

One of my favorite things with railroading is patched units. Seeing something old, with heritage, continuing to be used by another railroad is something I have always enjoyed to see. One of my favorite units was the old Soo Line Bandits. They were so unique. I also enjoyed other patched out unites the the BC Rail Sd 40-2s that were once owned by Oneida & Western.

Recently I have picked up some units for the WN that will be patched out. The WN has a few units that are patched already, one of them being a GP-38 from BNSF.

There are a few projects that are making their way to the shops:

1) SD40-2 shell from Athearn. This is in FURX scheme and I plane on taking off the FURX and renumbering it with a different font. That unit will look similar to the FURX units in service by Wheeling and Lake Erie.

2) SD 40-2 from Scale Trains in the BNSF patch. I will be taking off the BNSF patch and lettering it for the WN.



3) GP-50. BN unit with "tiger stripe". I plan on maing this unit a "bandit" but for the WN.



4) SD 40-2 from scale trains. Ex Milwaukee Road, ex EMD bandit unit. Plan on removing the EMD logos and patching it out for WN.

5) GP 38-2. Former GATX unit. Will be transformed into our own "SMURF" scheme like BNSF.


I have some other project down on paper and look to get those rolling in the future. As always still working on getting the track work laid out and hope to get an update on that soon.

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Monday, December 9, 2019

Trackwork Continues

Well I am about as far as I can go right now in terms of trackwork. I ran our of rail joiners so the work crews are at a standstill to more supplies arrive.

Facebook Page

In an effort to get some more views of the layout, and easy of use. I have created a Facebook page for the layout. Please check it out and hit the like Button!

https://www.facebook.com/washingtonnorthernaberdeen/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

A LONG awaited update

As I look back, I see it has been a LONG time since I updated this blog. A job change, work on the new house and life has gotten in the way of model railroading. I am happy to say that now work is going to be more normal with set days off and this should help with getting the model railroading a little more frequent.

Plans include the following:

1) Finish laying track: The design has changed a bit and this will be a "U" shaped layout with a connection in the middle for continuous running. (There just something about the trains running around). Track is down on about 35% of the layout. Hoping to get some more track down after the Thanksgiving holiday.

2) SW10 Rebuild: Working on gathering parts and pieces to do a SW10 rebuild for my railroad. Picked up a shell but the concern I have is the NW2 locomotive that will be the donor for this. There is a large amount of weight material that will need to be drilled/milled for a decoder it fit. This project is a little bit lower on the list.

3) SD-50 Project: I recently purchased an Athearn SD-50. It's the CSX Y3 scheme. I plan on patching it up for the railroad. The inspiration I had was Reading Blue Mountain and Northern's recent purchase of CSX SD-50s. I plan on doing a post about it once it arrives.

4) Wiring: Once the track work is down, I'm hoping I can get the feeder wires and bus lines installed. My goal is to have trains running by Christmas (hopefully before)

5) Industry building: I have a few kits that came in that I have been working on. Will have a post about those in the near future. Some of them are just built stock, but I have one, Blue Star Cement, that I added a kitbashed/scratch unloading shed and modified the kit a bit to accommodate the shed.

6) Locomotive finishing: I have 2 SD 40-2s that need to be finished being decaled. I also have a GP7 that needs a repaint, and I have another SD40-2 that is in the stages of being details and hopefully that will be ready for paint. The is also a GP40-2 that needs to be painted, and Two GP-40s that are patch jobs but will be repainted to WN colors.

Lots of projects which present lots of material for posts....

Stay tuned for more!   

Friday, April 19, 2019

New Beginings

Time sure flys! So my wife and I are getting settled in our new house. We had some surprises along the way and the hobby room was functioning more as a storage area for alot of things. I was able to start getting those things organized and slowly chipping away at making space for the railroad. I'm still up in the air on the design, but I am hoping to include a rail yard, even if it is just a small one.

I hope to do a better job of updating this year as that has been lacking these past couple months.