Garden Railroading: Electrical Banana

Electrical Banana

Mark graciously sent along these 45 images with all captions included in his own "write".

To continue with the song that Mike so expertly crafted into his blog post about the colour of the week: “Electrical Banana is Gonna be a Sudden Craze”...

This Denver & Rio Grande Western Bachmann Annie is a very special locomotive as it is a gift from my parents, who found it at the Picton Train Show a few years ago. Thank you mom and dad! I have just converted it to battery R/C. So in that sense it is a true “electrical banana”.

I’m just mad about Fourteen (boy, that’s a long train Paul, maybe there are 14 cars…?)

Fourteen’s mad about me.

Born high forever to fly

Wind velocity nil (thankfully, or else all those lovely passengers might get blown out of their observation car!)

They call me Mellow Yellow! Two of them in fact: steam and diesel.

Mike’s just mad about saffron...

Saffron’s mad about me...

Mike railfanning the Electrical Banana

Oh, Electrical Banana is definitely bound to be the very next phase. Gorgeous!

Here she is rounding the bend at Spruce.

A close up view. Very mellow indeed.

Marcel’s mellow yellow Union Pacific starts its run for the day past Mt. St. Helen’s.

Bernie rushes over to see what the commotion is all about. He must have caught the saffron craze.

Mike railfanning again along the “I think I can… I think I can… I think I can” hill. Can mellow yellow make it up the grade?

Quite rightly.

Rounding the bend.

Up to Nelson Yard.

And down again.

Whoever can spot the mellow yellow star gets 10 points!

Heading over to Bell, where we are about to avert a serious crisis (two in fact). Read on…

Mellow Yellow (or is it Electrical Banana?) was about to head on over to to Fir Grove to switch around for the return trip when the eagle-eyed engineer spotted Paul’s train off in the distance. Can you see it? This is not looking good.

The electrical banana backed up into Bell to allow Paul’s train to pass. Collision averted!

Two Annies, each puling a passenger train. What a lovely sight!

We are ready to stop again, with Paul’s train having passed us safely in the distance.

Here is what the passengers see...

in their lovely view from the rear… too bad they can’t see the danger lurking up ahead.

Oh goodness, I hope the switchman isn’t asleep at the switch. Marcel’s UP ore train is bearing down fast! A meeting of the yellows - hopefully it is a mellow one...

Indeed, this is what a crisis narrowly-averted looks like.

Wow, that’s a super long ore train! Luckily it is running empty, so no danger of a load falling onto the passengers.

Over at Nelson Yard, today’s theme of “unit trains” is brought in full view. We just saw Marcel’s ore train, and here is Mike’s lovely tank car train! I’m not counting, but remember that line, “I’m just mad about Fourteen?” I don’t know if there are 14 cars, but I’m just mad about this train! I love it!

A meeting of the two special “unit trains”, with plenty of railfanning opportunities.

This is my favourite picture from the session - it may not be so yellow, but boy is it ever mellow.

Mike agrees. Here I am admiring the fine detail of the weathering on his RS3 as well as the gorgeous sound system custom installed (too bad you can’t hear it)

Mike and his tank car train!

Wow, well...after all of those distractions over in Nelson Yard, the electrical banana is ready for its very next phase. In particular, a trip down the RP&M!

The Playmobil figures look for their companions usually “stationed” (no pun intended) at Pratt’s Bottom, but alas, the flag stop is deserted...

Did you know this shot almost didn’t happen? My loco had trouble pulling up the curved grade and stalled half-way, wheels spinning. So we backed up and ran up the grade at full speed - just barely made it this time.