Tolga's Railroad Repository

It is Thanksgiving morning in 2018 (Fall vibes!)... and Nelson Acosta and I are venturing about the area railfanning our way up to the US Sugar Fields meeting a railfan, Laurence, who visited from the UK. The first catch is in my wheelhouse - CSX Y322. Miami Iron and Metal and Ferrous Processing and Trading can only put out up to about a combined 10 loads of scrap metal due to size, and push this arbitrary limit with the graveyard shift job in addition to there being a cut of empties from Sungas and Family & Son. This leads to making heavy work of CSXT 2051, a GP38-3. The acoustics become one for the books as the engineer throttles the 2000hp locomotive out of the spur proper onto the RTA mainline, sparing no minute to get the job done swiftly.  CSX's GP38-3 is a railroad unique rebuild analogous to the SD40-3 and GP40-3, using new electronics and a Wabtec cab, affectionately nicknamed the "LEGO Cab". Aside from the frontal rebuild, the rear receives a new ratchet bra...

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...