I Just Bought A Miniature Railroad: Moving Equipment 

That's the idea!

@@MillBrookRailroad Do it

It's going to be interesting watching you dig 9 feet down all around that shaft!

​Yes, I have one in our old shop in MS. Been thinking about digging it up and selling it.

@jimbruneau6769 You're right about that! I already have had someone with a backhoe volunteer to help. It's also going to take a fair amount of shoveling.

Thanks!

It is going to be an adventure, for sure!

Here's an update on the status of that. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8fyYhmlrh5E.html

Indeed, it would be wonderful to have the OCR rolling stock still in OCR lettering on the MLBK. And that one Reading gondola.

I have no plans to change it at the moment.

Thanks!

Nothing will be wasted. Anything that can be used will be used on the MLBK. The longest steaming bay is too large for the space at the Mill Brook, so it might become a deck bridge across our swamp.

Definitely!

Thanks for watching!

I might need a bigger locomotive or maybe more little end cab switchers. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Thanks!

Go big or go home, Oh wait... he is at home.

You know those "pop-up" car ports? One of those but smaller with doors on each side. Can be put up in winter and taken down in summer.

The railway comes with a storage building.

It was good timing. ...but the 70 falling out of the Jeep had nothing to do with the lift. It had everything to do with someone not following instructions. The engine house will be dismantled and moved, just like the train shed from Richmond Mountain Railroad.

Thanks! There are many small railway museums and clubs across the country that could use your help.

That is the plan. That's why I'm fundraising. Moving it all is going to be expensive.

The previous owners family really couldn't keep it. They live in Alaska. The railroad would have fallen into further disrepair and might have eventually been lost to vandals. A friend of his from Danvers, MA thanked me for saving it and keeping it in New England.

@@MillBrookRailroad From Alaska to New England is quiet the haul, Hope your Tetris packing skills are up to making that fit a few more pieces per load, to save on the number of trips. That turntable and its shaft will be a job in itself to get out of the ground. Sad to think the original owner didn't have grand kids,great grand kids , local neighbors and/or their kids around that would work on it just to keep it there in their community. It must have cost a lot to kept all that up into Alaska, when it was new. Hopefully you get too many hassles getting through Canada.

You're probably right.

@@MillBrookRailroad and speaking of derailments.........a few years ago, i was a crew driver for a major class 1 railroad. While this didnt happen on my shift, a fairly new crew was going along, and failed to set a derail so they could cross another roads main in a major city. Needless to say, they put 3 locomotives and about a half dozen loaded coal hoppers on the ground, and fortunately they all remained upright............so your derailments are very minor, compared to that mess!

Glad you enjoyed it

I need to build some for maple sap. Those need to be food grade.

Very useful, indeed.

That's possible. The previous owner used to work for a company that made water tank heating elements.

@@MillBrookRailroad That’s pretty apropos. (And those old tanks have so many uses later in life.)

There are small gauge railroads like this in Illinois. I built a locomotive for one of them.

@MillBrookRailroad I've seen some here and there a few times now... I was in to model railroad myself a short few years ago, but a bit smaller lol " HO ". Went for a ride on one about your size a few years back, Little Toots Railway, Charlie Brown Park in Flora, Illinois. I'm more in the Quad City Area, though Aledo, Illinois

The turntable lift is an old single cylinder air hydraulic garage lift. I think those lifts were outlawed for repair garages in the 1970's or early 1980's, due to no safety mechanism to keep mechanics from getting crushed should a hydraulic or air line fail. These trains are far below their limit, and nobody is expected to be under a turntable. Even if they were, though, it doesn't go all the way to the ground. Glad you liked the camera angles! Thanks for watching.

Thank you 🤗

That's a good idea! Thanks for the suggestion.

I have to take it all. Lift included.

I have a trailer with two tracks, but until this week, there was no hitch on the Jeep (my old tow vehicle died of rust four years ago). I've started selling off Mill Brook Railroad equipment to make this move happen.

Indeed, they would. I'm going to try to get a trailer hitch on my Jeep this week to tow my small trailer. That's at least a step in the right direction.

Personally, I'd look into getting a single-axle box trailer. Done right, the trailer can double as storage.

Only after it is safe to do so. This one has a serious boiler problem. It can be fixed, but it won't be easy.

They would probably work quite well.

As far as the Shady Pines goes, that's all Tony's project. He's the owner and he built it.

I have to move the whole railroad. That includes everything. The turntable lift included.

There are other railroads like it, just not a huge amount of them. I have to take everything. The roundhouse, everything inside it, the track, the coal, the turntable and the electrical conduit going to the engine house.

I have a board with rails on it in the Jeep, made specifically for hauling trains. The loading plate is lacking, but these have been lighter cars instead of heavy locomotives.

That is an old school cabinet, for sure.

You're right. Basically, all of it can and will be reused.

Usually, that's done ahead of time, by hand. Even on the big railroads. Anything big enough to derail a train gets cut out of the way by the track maintainer.

My thoughts tend towards a dedicated leaf blower wagon. The modern equivalent of a snow plow. With a bit of artistic license, it could be made to look prototypical(ish). As the lead wagon and the blast directed forward, down, and (controllable) left or right, it could prove useful? 🤓😳🖖

It'll more than double the size of my home railway, which is open to the public.

@@MillBrookRailroad Hey Aaron, really enjoy your videos, I mostly am active in HO scale trains, but find railroads such as your's facinating! Many years ago, in my home town, we had a 12" guage train in a park, operated by the Kiwanis Club, the train was an EMD F unit with about 4 or 5 coaches. I loved that railroad, rode it countless times! Best of luck in your aquisition of the O.C.R. equipment, it all appears to be quite nice & certainly will make your Mill Brook Railroad even better, while preserving the O.C.R.! Have you considered doing a fund raiser at the current location of the O.C.R. , giving enthuisists a last chance to ride or run the line with their equipment? If that could be arranged with the property owner, I think it would help you raise your funding. Wish I lived close by, quite a trek to VT. from N.C.

@richardperry5743 The property owners are not allowing any public meets or any fundraising on the property due to insurance liability. I may be able to do a private meet, though.

@@MillBrookRailroad Thank you for your reply Aaron! A private function might be something that would be fun & a way to raise some funds for the equipment ect. Good idea, a great way for those who truly care, to enjoy the O.C.R. one last time at the original location. I sincerely hope you can make that happen! I wish you the very best of luck!

My basement is my shop. It was only a temporary arrangement, though. I have my shop back now.

Thanks for watching!

It is built from a whole car lift. They used to have only one piston.

They'll be lifted off the ground and onto a trailer soon.

Thank you!

They're complimentary. Like a continental breakfast.

A full 10% of North America is 7-1/4" gauge. It's an area that includes eastern Pennsylvania, all of New York, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Eastern Ontario, all of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Canadian maritimes. The rest of the US and Canada are 7-1/2" gauge. Except for one railroad in Michigan that predates the gauge split in the 1950's. It makes for a lot of confusion.

Is/are the rolling stock interchangeable???

It is a brushed 500W 24VDC motor. The motor controller is a Dimension Engineering SyRen 50 PWM motor controller.

@@MillBrookRailroad Thanks, that is very neat. I'm surprised at the power you get out of it for the size and batteries.

There's a train shed from another railroad that I have to move. I'm also moving the roundhouse to the MLBK. I'll probably put the roundhouse on a foundation with a 4 foot knee wall.

Caterpillar Yellow and safety yellow are very close. Either one will work.

I use a Dimension Engineering SyRen 50 motor controller. I have some videos on my channel about wiring these locomotives. Here are two of them: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kiR7inRGvwk.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Br_DImneqis.html

​@@MillBrookRailroad okay thanks.

Something I'll sort out when I get it installed at home.

Yes. They're part of the railroad.

Thr trucks under the Rittenburg hopper and the tank car, and the weird couplers on the locomotives are probably Miller Backyard products.

As I type this, the Mill Brook Railroad has 970 feet of mainline. The prepared roadbed is 1000 feet.

Having worked on a conversion or two, I think you might find that starting from scratch is easier.

There are no plans to repaint anything at the moment. Right now, I'm focused on moving everything. That's not just rolling stock. It's the entire railroad that I have to move.

@@MillBrookRailroad okay thanks

You can ride on it. You can also move heavy loads with it. I haul chicken manure, feed, wood pellet heating fuel, firewood, brush, building materials, and anything else that will fit on or in a train car. ...but it's also fun just to ride around sometimes like a go-kart.

Doing the cool things you swore you were going to as kid. Plus getting to enjoy that fun. Then you have many practical usages.

About 1200 feet of track. There are very few railroads of this size that are measured in miles.

@@MillBrookRailroad Thank You!! All the best.

I'll be doing a video about it soon, but here's the TLDR: The Ossipee Central Railway was built in 1970 by Dwight Winkley, who had been very active in railway preservation in New England. The OCR had one or two meets per year and Dwight would run a train for anyone who knocked on his door and asked for a ride. He got sick with cancer a few years ago and died from it in March of 2023. His family all live in Alaska and can't care for the railroad, so they offered it to anyone in the club that he belonged to. A few stepped up, but only one met the amount the family was looking for. He only wanted a couple pieces of equipment and challenged me to raise enough money online to pay him back for the rest of it. If it weren't for that challenge, this whole thing would have never happened.

I haven't had time to figure that out yet. I expect it'll be in the hundreds of man hours.

I need to get my old pickup running again.

@@MillBrookRailroad Yeah, I have seen everyone here in Molalla (SHADY DELL) off load their engines from pu beds. Seems to me it is better for all of us old people. //ji Oregon

There aren't as many ties because the guy who built it didn't put as many ties in. The rail is also much heavier than what I have on the MLBK.

The sides on the black gondola are separating from the rest of the car.

​@@MillBrookRailroad ah I see so when will the rest be leaving

I have a small one. I'm waiting for a hitch to be installed on my Jeep.

Not cheap, but worthwhile.

Si vrai

I don't have a pickup truck or a box truck available. It's either the Jeep or nothing.

I thought it went well.

@@MillBrookRailroad its almost as slow as watching a union crew do it. well at least no one lost a fingy

I could have, but I didn't want to pedal 165 miles.

How does it feel to always be right and never misstate things?