Well, after a couple of years of waiting, my railroad signal is up, although I admit I didn't have much to do with it. A friend who arranged for me to get the Ex-SP/UP Valley Line signal (he got three) and his son had already put their three up that morning and with the trackhoe operator had erecting them to a science by the time they got to mine. My best course was to stay out of the way... and I ended up with this: 

I picked up my three Genesis GP39-2 locomotives decorated for the Portland & Western last Friday - and promptly hauled them on a weekend vacation to Leavenworth, WA for a get together with some people I'd served with in Southern Germany in the early 90s.

Tonight, I got to take some photos.... sorry if the exposure is a little sketchy in some, I'm still working out this whole flash thing, after having decided to try that instead of continuous lighting.

Pelsea's "Supersize" topic got me thinking that I needed to commit a plan that has been circling my brain lately to paper, or more properly, electrons.  

I am considering a fairly major change to what I consider to be the "backstage" area of my layout. Perversely, it is the first area you see when entering the room (garage) from the house or the back door. 

So, I'm playing around with Google Photos.... and I found that Google has a lot more of my photos than I realized. Which is creepy, but ultimately a good thing. 

Back in 2003/04 (Google says Sept 2003, but... I know better) my father-in-law and I went aerial railfanning. At the time he owned a Cessna 172, which is a nice little bird for stooging around the sky at low altitude and low speed in. 

So, while going back through all those posts from 2008, I have realized that I had referenced my photo galleries on my personal web server a lot back then. 

I've still got the photos, but the server is long crashed and gone. And frankly, I'm not that enthusiastic about hosting the now unsupported Gallery software again, as it's not the first time I've had a server die from out under me. 

So, what photo hosting solutions does everyone else use or suggest? 

I do have a couple of requirements:

I'm going to be unspamming a block of the messages that were marked as spam yesterday. Since the perpetrator started with some of the very oldest blogs, July 2008, we're going to see some posts that haven't been seen in a long time - or ever, by many of our newer members. 

Thank you for your patience as I clog up the Recent Posts list with this activity... 

Day 2 of The Railroad Hobby Show found me at the show about an hour early, walking my tired feet around all the layouts here at the show....

This could take awhile - I'm hotspotting off my phone right now, and once I fly tonight, who knows what my wifi options will be.

Yep, it's my turn to travel to the Big E in West Springfield, MA for the Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show.
The weather is excellent, cold but clear, so the crowds were pretty large today - there were times it was definitely difficult to get around through all the bodies. If you are coming out to the show, MRH is in the Better Life Center (BLC) #62.

I spent today looking for new product announcements, or items that hadn't been shown publicly yet.

More info in the comments....

This photo by MRH Assistant Editor Don Hanley shows the line of people waiting to enter the National Train Show Saturday morning, just prior to opening at 10am:

North American Railcar is displaying their new National Steel Car Potash Service 4275 cu. ft. 3 Bay Covered Hopper models at the National Train Show in Portland, Oregon.

Available in HO and N scale in 7 different car styles and paint schemes, the prototype Canpotex car, CNPX 150042, is rolling around the nation with with the 2015 National Convention logo on it. North American Railcar is taking orders for their version of this car.

Prototype car: