The Randall Museum in San Francisco hosts a large HO-scale model model railroad. Created by the Golden Gate Model Railroad Club starting in 1961, the layout was donated to the Museum in 2015. Since then I have started automatizing trains running on the layout. I am also the model railroad maintainer. This blog describes various updates on the Randall project and I maintain a separate blog for all my electronics not directly related to Randall.
2023-12-07 - The Polar Express on Automation… Again
Category RandallTis’ the season for the Polar Express cars on the automated line:
I reinstalled the Polar Express for the season barely two weeks ago, and almost immediately the BLI Hudson 4-6-4 #5278 lead engine failed while being used by the Saturday Operators. I plan to try to fix the Paragon 2 decoder later, yet that will take some time.
Instead, I got a new engine, a Bachmann Berkshire 2-8-4 to lead the train, but not just any of them -- specifically Pere Marquette #1225, which is allegedly the actual inspiration for the engine in the Polar Express book -- speaking of which, if you have not read the Polar Express book, I encourage you to go find it at your local library -- it’s a fairly short story yet it is very well written and the painted illustrations are simply delightful. The animated movie was interesting, yet the book is in my opinion the best medium for this story that you can read as a kid or an adult. It’s a timeless piece about hope and dreams.