Vince and I were chatting and I mentioned an interesting old book I bought over the summer: The Los Angeles Railway Through The Years by Steven L. Easklon, published in 1973. One of the things I particularly like about it is it's chock full of photos, and lots of them are L.A. street scenes of the 1930s and 1940s. Even so, this PCC photo attributed to William Bassler jumped out at me. Its caption reads: Above is P.C.C. #3010 at the east end of the "P" line sporting the famous Flying Tiger paint scheme during World War II advertising a need for streetcar motormen. That would make one impressive model, especially in TTC red.
Went to a model railroad swap meet this weekend. I'm very picky these days as I don't want to load up on stuff that I'm unlikely to use. One thing did catch my eye: this kit from the old AMT 1/43 scale Junior Collector Series. The note on the box says, Mar 31 /76 Woolworth, with 'Renfun' (?) underneath. I haven't seen one of these kits in a long time, so I snapped it up. It looks like all the parts are there along with the instructions, so, good times ahead.
Darrell Poole sent me a link to this first video of his HO scale Elizabeth Valley RR tribute layout of trains running on the upper loop. He's made excellent progress, and the layout and video are looking great! I'm looking forward to seeing how this railroad develops.
I was thumbing through some Railroad Model Craftsmans from the late '70s, and in the January '79 issue found this calendar insert still where it should be in the centre of the magazine. The excellent painting is by Mr. Ted Xaras. I also noted the calendar is the same as this year's. And according to the Internet, next year is 1974 all over again - I can hardly wait :-)
We're thinking about resurrecting our annual Christmas Spike Party, but I'm not sure if the layout can be put into reasonable shape in time - we usually would hold the get together around mid-December, a week or two or so before Christmas. I've decided to try a few minor repairs to see if I can get in the groove for the work ahead. Some street track inserts I installed in the spring using transfer tape to hold them in place popped free over the summer. I reinstalled one using white glue this time, using a piece of board and a couple of hammers to weigh down the insert while the glue dried. Hopefully it'll stay in place this time.
Not much happening in the streets of the Alta Vista TC these days other than some on-again-off-again construction of a Kibri 38222 apartment building. Assembly started in June a few weeks after the kit arrived from Germany. The walls were tilted up a couple of weeks ago, but there's still lots of work to go. It's a great kit and hopefully I'll do a full post when it's finished.
