Finding Nemo

I'm guessing only a handful of people on these forums know about Nemo. No, not the clownfish with repeatedly bad luck. I'm talking about a long-disappeared town about 30 miles west of Oak Ridge, TN. I know long-time member Jerry Sullivan (landnrailroader) is certainly acquainted with it... This week, I was able to take advantage of our hybrid work policy which affords "work from anywhere" on occasion. Today, that meant setting up shop at the table in our RV, which is currently parked at some pro...

Pretty much everyone in the railfan community who's been around me for any length of time knows that I grew up along the Chicago North Western's Harvard Subdivision. Up until the 1980's, this was still the secondary mainline between Chicago and the Twin Cities via Madison and other exciting points like Evansville and Wyeville. One person or another in my immediate and extended family has lived at almost every station stop between the Chicago City Limits and Harvard, Illinois. If you ever wonde...

My father celebrated his 90th birthday a couple weeks back. What does that have to do with railroads and simulation?.... Everything, as it turns out. My earliest railroad memories as a kid come from time spent at my grandparent's place in Crivitz, Wisconsin (about an hour north of Green Bay). Around age 3 or 4 getting a ride around the wye on a Milwaukee Road switcher after my dad apparently talked the crew into it. I'm also pretty certain he wanted the ride more than I did. From there, I w...

Earlier this week, my wife asked if I could pick up my granddaughter from a friend's birthday sleepover she'd been at. She's been on Spring Break this week, and as they only live one town over, she's been spending a lot of time at our place while their parents are at work. On the way back to our house, I saw an approaching train on the tracks that parallel the highway between our two towns. This is a pretty rare thing at 11:00 am, given the commuter trains that run on weekdays. Being the train nerd tha...

Do You Want to Become a Train Driver? Here are Some Quick Tips As kids, most of us dreamed of becoming a doctor, pilot, soldier, or a train driver. Unfortunately, only a few people were able to pursue their life-long dream of driving these marvelous engines. According to an article published on UK's National Career Service web site, there are almost 159,000 people employed in the rail industry to date. The industry is also receiving over 300 applications per available position and qua...

Waushakum Live Steamers Open House By Nels Anderson (28 August 2004) During the weekend of August 27 through 29, 2004, the Waushakum Live Steamers of Holliston, Massachusetts held their 34th Annual Meet Weekend where live steam and model diesel operators from a wide area meet at the WLS site to operate on one of their large sets of track. The club operates two sets of track, the "high line" supporting two smaller gauges where the operate rides sideways behind the locomotives pl...

Your Hand On The Throttle By Nels Anderson (30 March 2003) Photos And Video By Gene Balinski Train-simming is great...as far as it goes. But I suspect that I'm not alone amoung train-simmers in wanting more--a chance to drive a real train, not just a moving image on a video screen. The same thing hit me some ten years ago early in my flightsimming career. Flightsimmers have more options though, as it's perfectly possible to become a licensed pilot (as I ultimately did) and even for tho...

Your Hand On The Throttle--Photo Gallery By Nels Anderson (30 March 2003) Here are some additional photos around the Valley Railroad that are worth viewing but were just too much for the main article. These photos show more of the interior of the engine house, where the Mikado is being worked on. Also in the engine house is the dining car "Meridan" which is having some air conditioning work done. Outside are more photos of Consolidation #97 as well as other equipment around the...

A  B i g g e r  Picture Creating a better out-of-window view for Microsoft's Train Simulator Elden Slick Several flight simulation fans enjoy the hobby of building recreations of aircraft cockpits to provide themselves with an additional amount of immersion and realism with flight simulation. The efforts range from simple,...