Trackside Model Railroading

Does anyone have any layout photos or modeling projects to share? We'd love to see your photos!

https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/magazine/current-free-edition/

Current free edition from Trackside Model Railroading Features in the December 2023 Free Edition Washington State Short Line Through the Years Come tour the Bremerton Northern Model Railroad Club's Kitsap Western Railroad in HO scale. You'll enjoy a variety of different railroads running on this modular layout based in a freelanced Washington State. Yo...

Click the link to see this month's Free Edition. Read about Amtrak and watch Mike McGinley describe his work history and how he models Amtrak on his Southwestern Pacific Railroad.

https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/magazine/current-free-edition/

October's Free Edition is out to read!

Current free edition from Trackside Model Railroading Features in the October 2023 Free Edition Stoney Creek Branch of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad in On30 Anybody who is interested in On30 will love Lee Bishop's bedroom-sized On30 railroad, the Stoney Creek Branch of the ET&WNC. Lee models the WWII era with customized vehicles....

We're looking for layout photos to share in upcoming issues of the magazine. Please post some pictures of your layout or modeling projects in the comments! -Jenny

That sounds about right.

https://youtu.be/SvqfUhCaQEE

Tour one of the best garage sized model railroads ever built 2 of 5 To read and see more about this model railroad layout:https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/magazine/mike-mcginley-santa-fe-1992-layout/Come join us as w...

https://youtu.be/fDVV4Z4S4mI
Southern Pacific GP40M-2 leads a local on Mike McGinley’s awesome HO scale model railroad layout.

Southern Pacific GP40M-2 leads a local on Mike McGinley’s awesome HO scale model railroad layout. Mike McGinley’s freelanced railroad runs several different railroads and operates in a changing timeframe from 1951 to 2006. Our tour of the layout occurs in...

This is the Oregon Valley Railroad by Jerry Green. The railroad is a large N scale pike based on the Portland & Western.

This is 1 of 3 rooms that houses Bob Bjerke’s Union Pacific Overland Route in N Scale

One of our favorite 360 scenes of Dave Clune's Cascade County Narrow Gauge in On3

Montana Rail Link's modern operations over Mullan Pass on KirkThompson's HO scale

This is Dave Clune's Cascade County Narrow Gauge in On3

This is Brian Elchlepp's BN Woodinville Sub in HO Scale.

Featured this month, Russ Segner's Coal Creek Lumber Company Railroad in Sn3

😁

Does anyone have any layout photos to share? We're looking for submissions for our Along the Rails (reader photos) section in the ezine. Please let us know a little about your layout in your post.

Love UP and N Scale Railroading? This might just be for you. 🙂

Union Pacific N Scale Railfanning on 2 layouts: February 2023 Trackside Model Railroading Feature. Modeling the Union Pacific on Two N Scale Layouts.You'll love railfanning the Union Pacific Railroad on these two layouts by Bob Bjerke and Bill Arseneau. Bo...

Has this ever happened to you?

photo courtesy of David Olson - 🤣

It is with a very heavy heart that we report Dirt, our Boss Shop Cat, passed away yesterday. He was 15 years old, and beloved by everyone here at the railroad and around the world.

Here’s Dirt’s story. In the spring of 2008, a little kitten of orange and white fur was found in the engine house by himself. The mother and any other kittens were long gone. The crew at the time would sit for hours each day with cans of tuna and soft cat food, to get the little fur ball to trust them.

When he finally came around to trusting them, Al, the railroad’s Master Mechanic, took him to the vet for a checkup, shots, and eventually he was neutered. It was live and let live. The shop guys did their thing, and the little kitten did his thing. The warmest place in the shop is in the cab of a coal-fired steam locomotive. There is coal dust everywhere. Over time, our little ball of fur started picking up some of the black coal dust, and he was named Dirtbag. As our visitors started discovering the shop’s cat, it was decided to shorten his name to Dirt.

The engine house and machine shop are very dirty, noisy environments. In addition to the locomotives and railroad cars being moved in and out. Repair work goes on all the time. Dirt got very wise, very fast, quickly figuring out where not to be when locomotives and cars were moving, or work was being performed.

He grew into a large rough-and-tough tom cat that ruled the shop and surrounding neighborhood. We saw him playing fetch with gophers and bats. Don't ask us how he got them, he just did. He hated being cleaned up, but loved being a railroader. It was not uncommon to find him rolling around in the dust outside the shop.

The shop knew he was special, and did what they could to protect him. When Angie, our superintendent, went to work in the mechanical department she became one of his caretakers. She became his nemesis, since she took him for his vet visits. She cleaned him as much as she could, which Dirt did NOT like at all. To make amends, she would sneak him turkey dinners on the holidays.

Mike Calchera, our grizzled track guy, got to scratch Dirt’s ears and would make sure he had clean warm beds, it was Al who was his favorite. Al was our master mechanic at the time, had a soft spot for Dirt. Dirt could do no wrong and was given the run of the shop and the engine house.

The arrangement of Dirt doing his thing, while the shop guys did theirs, would have stayed that way, had it not been for the keen eye of photographer extraordinaire, Steve Crise. It was during the 2018 winter photo shoot; Steve was walking through the machine shop. He happened to notice Dirt, sitting regally, in front of locomotive 40. He laid down on the machine shop floor with his camera, and grabbed the shot with Dirt posing the whole time.
It was a great photo, but there are thousands of great photos out there. What Dirt needed was a publicist, enter Eric Mencis, who was our Guest Services Manager at the time. Eric posted Steve’s photo on our page and the rest, they say, is history!

Who knew that a semi-feral cat, living at a National Historic Landmark Railroad, in the middle of the “Big Empty” of Nevada, would become so famous? We sure didn’t, but boy howdy did Dirt become famous! Google “Dirt the Nevada Northern Cat,” and stories, videos and articles pop up. Dirt has been featured in the Washington Post, Trains Magazine, and newspapers in Europe, not to mention the thousands of individual posts of our visitors that got to take his picture.

All this publicity brought people to Ely to see him, many traveling hundreds, if not thousands of miles. This stunned the staff and volunteers. After all, Dirt was just Dirt, right? Nope! Dirt was a media and social media sensation, and Dirt knew it!

As part of the experience at the Nevada Northern Railway, we offer scheduled guided tours of the machine shop and engine house. Dirt knew the schedule. He would hide away all morning long, but let the 2:30 pm tour come into the machine shop, and Dirt was there to greet them. When the tour was over, Dirt would wander off to one of his many hidey-holes until the next tour.

Dirt has fans that love him from all over the world. But we few at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum are the lucky ones. We got to love him in person. As he aged, we found a vet that loved him as much as we did. Dirt also received more care takers including Jasmine, who would be his last. He never missed a meal, or a head scratch. As he aged and slowed down, he learned to love watching shows on our phones while he was sitting in our laps. After the show, he would leave streaks of dirt on the pants of his visitors, or drool on their boots.

Dirt was one-of-kind. He was the Boss Shop Cat at the Nevada Northern Railway. Con, our Trainmaster, selected a spot on the grounds in between the Depot, and the Freight Depot in the shade of a pine to serve as his final resting place. His burial site is opposite where all our excursion trains’ locomotives sit prior to departure, and it gives a view of the yard, that in addition to the shop, was Dirt’s domain.

But be forewarned, if you’re visiting the Nevada Northern Railway Museum and you’re admiring one of our steam locomotives just prior to departure, don’t be surprised, if, out of the corner of your eye, you see a lanky old guy, holding an orange and gray cat, looking over the locomotive. The old guy will be cursing a blue streak at the crew, while the cat just looks on knowingly. If you turn to confront them, they will have disappeared. But don’t fret, that was just Al and Dirt checking out the locomotive, making sure that everything is running smoothly. After all, they don’t call us the Ghost Train of Old Ely for nothing.

We are all saddened with the passing of Dirt. He will be missed. The machine shop and engine house won’t feel the same without him. His last days were spent with the crew that loved him best. Gathering around, our crew laid him to rest while a Nevada snowstorm blew through. They shared their memories and thanked him for his service. Knowing that they were laying to rest one of their own, a part of the Nevada Northern Railway family. They will all tell you, this was one of the hardest things they have done here.

To commemorate Dirt, we will be having two life size bronzes cast of Dirt. One will serve as his gravestone, the other will be placed in the machine shop, so Dirt can continue watching over the shop. As details become available on the bronzes, we’ll keep you posted.

And don’t forget, Dirt was teaching his protégé DJ, Dirt Junior, the ins and outs of being the Boss Shop Cat. We knew this day was coming, DJ now has big paws to fill.

We will be posting stories on Dirt, and his time at the railroad in the coming days and weeks. Please feel free to post your stories in the comments for all to read.

Sincerely,
The Nevada Northern Railway Crew

Mark, Joan, Angie, Charish, John Henry, Lennox, Josh, Nick, Carlos, Mike Hughes, Con, Mike Hejny, Kurt, Gary, Ron, Bill, Kelvin, Kemper, Ellie, Jasmine, Kat, Jim, Roger, Will, Brian, Zech, Derek, and Michael Green.

We have an amazing layout featured in Trackside Model Railroading's January 2023 issue, which comes out tomorrow. Can anybody guess what scale it is?