Tolga's Railroad Repository

WOW. This is why I strongly recommend railfanning at a safe distance. Apparently Andrew and his brother were out trainwatching at Boca Raton, when out of the blue, (no pun intended), the CITX leader's cylinders burst. It is presumed to be an engine failure, but quite drastic for EMD. I would expect that as bad as it was, they could fix this with a new prime mover. More on the 141 later.

Update on the Element Skyscraper Element has been a construction project for almost as long as the real thing, in Tampa, FL. It's my modern, SoBe-ish entry into the GFLUG Downtown Display. Only problem is, this Summer I ran into a shortage of white parts for the tower and couldn't find a way. Now, I have an out with a surplus of bley plate. The building has been on an unfortunate hiatus since and collected dust as well as stored PAB cups of LUGBULK on the pool deck... A solution that would speed construction was reached. Every time I'd pass it in Tampa, the white would not stand out strongly. So I figured, the ample load of Medium Stone Grey plates that I do have now could be used to frame the windows for a chunk of the mid-section to simulate the effect of cloud cover. Since high noon has the sun tracking from the south, the north side will be 100 % grey window frame. In order to compensate the color difference, the corresponding part of the concrete wall may be d...

LADY PICK A BRICK , a photo by brickbuilder711 on Flickr. Another mini-golden era has set in at LEGO PAB. Aventura Mall in Miami received a huge cut of girl parts, and when pastel pink, lavender, and the more masculine olive green is in the picture, it's truly an epic selection. Well, real men wear, and buy pink and I did no different. 1,249 tiles in the cup to the top alone, btw. WOW. Expect to see these parts used generously throughout my layout, and the 1x4 I got last year to complement it. Other key parts to look out for in US stores include: Gold Grillz bley mortars, 1x2s, 2x2 tiles, and round tile 1x1s (already covered for me by LUGBULK in the case of the latter) Dk Pink 1x4 (Aventura had it, I didn't want it) TrLtBlue 1x2 tile (I want it) White round 2x2 with grill and more...

HOT OFF THE PRESS! My thoughts favor the Great Vehix. It's nice to see things like a logging truck, a tow truck, etc. The auto transporter leaves a nostalgic memory in me, as my first city set ever was the 6432 Highway Haulers. However, from what I've seen, sets from the police line are a bit flat (they're not in the video). Nonetheless you could expect a few early reviews especially since I have a bit more money that can be invested into these sets this year.  LEGO is hitting very well with the Great Vehicles line once again; now I can't wait to see what's in store for the summer!

LEGO Store Aventura had these on the wall and also Dark Pink 1x4, which I neglected. No regrets, both missing out on that and getting these three cups.

Yesterday, yes on my birthday, I stood around for a two hour meeting regarding the pretty well hyped UniversityCity project that FIU is a part of. It sounds great and progressive for the city of Sweetwater. I was happy to be there nonetheless especially as a part of the Honors College. Now to clear things up for people who have vaguely heard of the project, it is not a transformation for the city but somewhat a catalyst for it. It will include beefing up transport options to and from the campus and a beautification project on 109th Ave to make it a true city street. It's a "Main Street" project in disguise. Two truly conspicuous improvements include a Pedestrian bridge over Calle Ocho and FIU's new garage, PG6. The mayor and people involved with this spoke and took questions. I asked about the Sweetwater Trolley and how sporadic it is and they said a schedule/ETA app for the circulator will be developed as part of the technology branch of this funding grant. I t...

One of the reasons I chose to reshape this blog is because of the dynamically changing transportation scene, which is indeed my cup of tea. Florida East Coast Railway is building a container transfer yard at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. It's old news and I saw the site myself when my mom and I were there on business. However, Local 10 has just had a story on it . video platform video management video solutions video player To hear that this project is finally inching towards completion is great news. It is a big economic plus for FEC as well as Port Everglades and South Florida. It will probably lead to the reinstatement of trains 117-218 as more capacity means more trains. Already, it will mean fewer trucks and less congested roadways. This project was something that should have been done years ago but the port lead in Everglades has been deteriorating. Now, it's being rebuilt and reshaped. Just earlier this year, ethanol made its debut at Motiva Enterprises ...

Before I start: Sometimes I feel pretty unstable with blogs, and change the way I post time to time on Blogger. In the first place, I had a previous account until I standardized everything under "TolgaCSXRailfan" in 2011 so some of the topics may seem redundant. In 2011, I created just about four to five blogs but I feel that it is too dilute right now. Statistically, the most popular blog is my Trainz Simulator 12 blog, and I am very satisfied about that. Nonetheless, I want to bring attention to the other topics that I deal with on YouTube and web media but I will still focus on Trainz. I still might keep that blog independent but all of the other topics are being fused to this one. The reason is simple; not because of lack of traffic but because 1. everything is relative and 2. there are being so many changes that you cannot imagine to the infrastructure (rail, sea, air, etc.) that I want to document and cover both by video and text (sometimes, text only when I feel it ap...