Winter Railroading. Not from this weekends storm, but back in November and an early winter snowfall. A CPKC Train works east through Cobourg Ontario.

Early in 2025 I was motivated to get going with painting the roads of Liberty Village. When I paved them, I used my chosen solution of thick hole drywall compound, tinted grey with acrylic artist paint. This technique has its pros and cons, and looking back, there are areas I am really happy with, and others where I didn't do my best work.

Late night TTC Service. Waiting on a train home after seeing a movie in December, instead of a subway, a service car heading out to get ready for overnight maintenance work. At least a regular train followed it!

Layouts work best when they are run. I know I don't run Liberty Village nearly enough myself, partly as while I enjoy running trains, there is something lacking doing it myself (nice to have a crew to talk to instead of talking to myself!). One of the downsides of this, is things that I may overlook or just not notice, get caught by others coming over to run trains.

If you know us, you would know we are a huge Lord of the Rings house. I have written twice before about "That's No Train" diversions for LOTR themed models (Khazad-Dum & Riddles in the Dark), and could have on a much bigger scale project, the conversion of the den in our house, that had become a bit of a depository of junk between 2020 and 2023 into the "Hobbits Hole", a cozy room made up to look like the inside of a Hobbits hole with Lord of the Rings art, Lego, toys, and antique/nick-nacks we've found that would feel at home in a fictional Hobbit's home.

Its 2026, so what did I finally see? A 1960 vintage CN SW1200RM (rebuilt SW1200RS) 7304 working the CN Parkdale Metals Yard in Hamilton. 7304 is an interesting unit. Officially Retired and struck from CN's roster in 2013, she is on a lease arrangement effectively to itself to work the CN Metal Transfer facility in Hamilton. Seen here from a GO Train on the way back to Toronto from Niagara Falls.

Back in November I should have finished these two cars, but I ran into an airbrush issue that set me back (here and here). By the Christmas I was confident that I was over the hump and could in fact spray clear coats to allow me to apply decals. And I have to say, I was right. I don't think I am past my recent airbrush challenges, but I am going in a good direction.

Through the holiday season I was actually able to get some work done on layout projects. One thing I've wanted to do for a while was to improve the appearance of the CN Staging Yard, a representation of Strachan Yard. The scenic cover I applied was very very basic, paint and sifted dirt cover and some grass fleck material. It didn't really look like anything.

New Year, New Transit. My first shot of the TTC Line 6 "Finch West LRT", seen here departing Humber College at the west end of the line. It seems they are only using a single platform at the terminus stations at the moment. I took the bus up on Friday last week while I was off work just to go get a ride in while it was quiet.

Carrying on from 2025's last project, 2026's First Project is 3D printed tube ends and clamps for a long styrene holder. I don't buy a lot of the 2' long Evergreen Styrene, only a few select large blocks for building framing, but storing them has been a pain. I realized that I could use a heavy cardboard tube from Christmas wrapping paper and with a few minutes work in CAD, draw up a closed bottom and open top protector for the tube.

I didn't get to a year in review post for 2025. I did a lot of stuff, and advanced Liberty Village, but as the year coasted to its finish, the motivation to do a summary as I have most years passed me by. What didn't pass me by was a desire to tackle something that had been annoying me for a long time, the "Office" end of my workbench.

Done another year of keeping tabs on my reading, this is year four of this, see 2022, 2023 and 2024. This was a year where I bought a lot more books, largely on my two trips to the UK buying railway books that are unlikely to be sold here or appear in the Toronto Public Library. My first bonus book of the year is the last of the books I've bought, so its back to the Library to finish 2025 with Bonus Book 2!

VIA Train 73 approaches CN Halton Subdivision Mile 30 while diverting around Metrolinx construction on a snowy December 21st, 2025. Venture Cab Car 2326 is seen leading with Charger locomotive 2226 pushing from the rear. Despite the various issues with "Loss of Shunt" or them not properly triggering CN's level crossing system in normal people speak, the Venture/Chargers are all now fully delivered and older equipment is being retired from the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, reducing the opportunities to see P42's and F40's as locomotive power and LRC or HEP stainless steel coaches between them.

Earlier this year I finally got to see and ride on a steam locomotive that I had a small part in helping get built, Great Western Railway/British Railways 6880 "Betton Grange". I make no illusions that my annual contribution of £120 over the past 15 years materially moved the needle on getting Betton Grange built, but it was what I could afford and its meaningful to me to make contributions, even if small to support things I care about.

CN Train P276 rests at Aldershot yard on Sunday December 21, 2025 waiting to continue on to the VIA Rail Toronto Maintenance Centre. Talk about burying the lede? P276 is hauled by Union Pacific 8577 at the far end of the above photo, the cargo, is the first of three new Ontario Northland Siemens Charger-Venture sets for the return of the Northlander, the Toronto to Cochrane train cancelled in 2012 (See…

For no reason in particular since our honeymoon in 2014 I have slowly been assembling a full train model of The Jacobite that operates from Fort William to Mallaig in Scotland, aside from modelling the train with the LNER K1 2-6-0 62005 instead of an LMS Black 5 for haulage as we had. First up was a full on coach kit build (see…

Last Sunday I had friends over for an end of year/Christmas operating session at Liberty Village. I in full honesty have not run a lot of trains on my own this year, so I was decidedly curious to see how it worked under the control of others and to see what happened. I did run some trains through the week in advance to make sure things were plausibly working before torturing others!

Through the S curve at Moonlight. CPKC Train 105 (2nd) rolls west through the S curve at Moonlight in Sudbury.

Another small layout room project recently completed. A new longer HO/OO gauge test track that doubles as a nicer display track for a longer set of equipment. It is 59" long, just under 5' to fit the space on top of my workbench in front of the similar board project for my 7mm GWR models behind it. I bought a simple clear white pine board, cut to size, sanded, stained, clear varnished, and laid a length of Code 83 track on it.

Back in June my two brass steam locomotives returned from being painted and having DCC added. Since then they've been puttering about the layout when I've been running trains, but in an incomplete state. Both had empty coal bunkers in the tenders, and looked wrong as a result. I have friends coming on Sunday for a Christmas Ops Session and get together, so after work this week I got my act together and made coal loads for both.