Tolga's Railroad Repository

Time flies! I "eat" a McTolga's (friend-proclaimed) quarter pounder with cheese. As a YouTuber and LEGO hobbyist the Brand Ribbon was one of the highlights of my time with the site (even though the videos haven't gotten much exposure) Nine years ago on this day, August 7, 2007, I decided it was the day to finally begin networking on YouTube with fellow LEGO buffs. I had been following the site for a while, and was somewhat blown away by the just-released videos of National Model Railroader's Association National Train Show 2005 (Yes - two years late but I think it was when the Detroit show was abuzz, and those videos followed) here and here (the second video appears to have been deleted and reposted). Add to that fellow fans who were active on those videos. There was a full fledged discussion forum between fans of different ages.  brickbuilder711, a handle that I already reserved for the LEGO Message Boards, LEGO Factory, and Brickshelf, was final...

Holy cow, has it really been a year and a half since I last touched this blog? Time flies! I am happy to announce my triumphant return to the blogosphere. I feel this that this has always been the perfect forum to communicate my thoughts and the state of the railfanning and model railroading hobby, as I see fit. And lots more is to come as I continue to rebuild my network here and on my YouTube channel. I have done a lot of experimenting on Blogger over the years - separate Trainz and Model Train blogs, LEGO blogs, etc... but it is only appropriate that I return with a keen focus on ONE blog, and rightfully, I will choose the blog that is URLed to my online screen name, brickbuilder711. Personally, I've experienced a few changes since my last blog entry here, December 2014: New camcorder, new railroading interests, and a return to HO scale model railroading. I am back on the Trainz Simulator grind producing a renewed South Florida route and will be sharing lots of progress ...

The Flame Yellowish Orange conversion project I considered back in 2013 is in full swing with two CSX General Electric MOC locomotives converted and scaled down. Scaled down as in, they were too big to scale and built very juvenile-ish-y-however you put it... The GEVO is PF-ready, the C40-8 not quite so as something else will need to take in the IR Receiver for it. The latest plan is to make my widecab SD70MAC a dummy unit and either lash the two up elephant style, or make them both trailing units; so that the IR Receiver can fit in. Note that a Battery Box can't fit in an EMD engine under normal circumstances. Two non-train-nor-quite-town LEGO videos are in the works, one which will be posted immediately.One of them is a special pre-Valentines video and the other is a special ceramic model which symbolized my mom's earlier return from Turkey for serious family business... which went smoothly and everything is swell now. You can see both MOCs at the same time once I g...