A quick video of WN Dash 8-40B #325 leading a short freight into Union Yard.  Totally new to this video game and this first experiment taught me a few things. More lighting, custom white balance, and although it was shot in HD the uploaded video to YouTube didn't end up HD.  I'll get it figured out.  

Very cool new site setup by BNSF called "Friends of BNSF". All kinds of goodies here. Great resource for railfans and modelers of BNSF and it's predecessors. Downloads, history, videos, photos.....check it out!

https://www.friendsofbnsf.com

Washington Northern MP15DC #5033 is an example of the last switcher-type locomotive purchased by the WN in 1979, when they ordered 4 of these units numbered 5030-5033. It is assigned to Discovery Yard in Port Andrews and frequently can be seen in the Tideflats District.

Atlas Gold Series with Quantum Sound in custom paint and decals. Weathered with artist oils and airbrushing.

I plan to have complete interior lighting on my Washington Northern layout. That includes my largest industry and structure on the layout, the Raven Pulp & Paper Mill. Since there are several large bay doors in the mill complex that have been modeled open, some sort of interior representation was needed. After a online search of paper mill machinery and interiors, I had a pretty good indication of the type of things that could be modeled, and of course, would need to be scratchbuilt. I have several large boxes of scrap parts that I have accumulated over the years.

It's finally happened........I went ahead and made an executive decision several weeks ago and decided on the arrangement of my buildings for the mean City Streets of Port Andrews. Here are the partially finished results. Still a lot of details to add, interior lightening to instal, etc. I also plan to model the full electrical system for the downtown area eventually.  Many more pictures and detailed descriptions of the area and modeling techniques on my website on the photos page. http://wnrr.net 

Any and all comments are welcome.

The newest addition to the Tideflats waterfront is Hall's Seafood Shack. This is a Bar Mills Waterfront Willy's/Trackside Jacks kit. The kit was built fairly close to instructions with a few touches and details added to better reflect a more modern business. This kit was really a fun little project. This was my first Bar Mills kit, and I would highly recommend them based on my experience here.

Here's something unusual to throw at your traincrews during your next ops session.

Here's the latest project to be installed on the Washington Northern. Ocean Harvest Seafoods got it's old billboard style signage on the rooftop. The sign was scratchbuilt using dimensional styrene, parts from the scrapbox, and some menu board letters purchased on Ebay. I attempted to weather the sign to represent it as having been in place for decades. Typically, these types of signs would have had illumnated letters, but I couldn't come up with a feasible way of accomplishing that. Curious if anybody has any ideas of how that might have been possible?

Spent some time digging through the Washington Northern historical archives this morning and found a couple of period ads preserved.  Quite the find!    (It was fun to put together)

First a travel poster from October of 1962.

Then we have a magazine print ad that featured GM Motors Electromotive Division as it appeared in magazines on the west coast in 1947.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMNwrOaxwh0