All Aboard For The Legacies On The Rails Art Show And Local Rail Action!

I’ve been needing to update this for some time. But now that I am, let me kick this off by inviting you to the Legacies On The Rails Railroad Art Show. this will be a month-long event and it “heads down the rails” on that journey with a reception on Saturday, August 1st, 2015 6pm-8pm CT at the Cathy Kline Art Gallery located at 8701 NW Riverpark Dr in Parkville, Missouri which is, you may recall from my February 11th posting, a former CB&Q Depot that also houses the Parkville Area Chamber Of Commerce.

If you are an artist interested in having your work displayed for sale during the show, you must contact Cathy Kline on Facebook under her name or Cathy Kline Art Gallery or cathyklineartgallery@gmail.com and have your work submitted no later than July 30th. The best part is, 10% of sales for August will benefit the Model Rail Experience at Kansas City Union Station-which I am waaaay behind on making an appearance at. Will do that this coming week. Looking forward to seeing a good donation made to them and hopeful that this can become at least a yearly event, if not more frequent-we’ll have to see. But I am so incredibly humbled that my friend Cathy is hosting this event, and naming it after the LOTR blog and Podcast, and I hope you will seriously plan to come and be a part of it!

Since my trips to Branson and Columbia, (almost forgot to share this), I have been to my yearly Losh/Worley Family Reunion (our 41st annual) in Willow Springs, Missouri. That was over the 4th of July weekend. Along the way,I made stops at the Jefferson Avenue Foot Bridge in Springfield, Missouri, that overlooks the rail yard there in Downtown Springfield and got lots of pics and video, as well as getting pics and video at the crossing that is just down the road from the Lion’s Club Hall where we have the reunion, in Willow Springs, and getting pics and video in Cabool, and Diggins, Missouri on my drive back to Kansas City. As technical difficulties have reared their ugly head today, just going to share the videos that I know you will still enjoy.

But, getting back to local stuff, I have been down to the gallery several times lately, delivering items to help bring more permanent railroad atmosphere, including HO Scale train cars, a brake service valve for standard railroad freight cars that comes courtesy of New York Air Brake, which you will also recall from a previous LOTR POSTING, and as I have been into getting some of my train photos enlarged lately, in addition to several 8×10’s I am now displaying with my rail collection at home, I had a couple 11×14’s made (all from the Gladstone, Missouri Wal-Mart’s Photo Center) that are from outside the Art Gallery, as well as in neighboring Riverside, Missouri, in hopes that they can be displayed there-although my skill as  a photographer may or may not be suitable for them to be displayed there but if not, I will simply bring them home and display them. Of course, anytime I go down there, I make time to watch and listen for trains, and have caught a few.

Was going to share photos too, but the aforementioned technical difficulties as far as time’s sake (and my nerves) goes, is making that impractical right now.

In addition to that, I got a really good tip from former school classmate and now buddy from New Life Baptist Church, Todd Hawes that the BNSF Yard off Metropolitan Ave behind the Walmart in Kansas City, Kansas was a hopping place, and he wasn’t kidding. Got these pics and video, by standing on a huge mound of gravel on an open piece of land next to Walmart. Thanks, Todd! I will return often. I also caught a WAMX Switcher working some “Oil Cans” off 22nd/Kansas Ave and got some UP Engines off SB 7th St Trafficway. KCK is a major rail hub that I encourage any railfan to check out! Again, just going to share the videos this time. Enjoy.

In addition, I took my daughter Cara out rail-fanning one day, (the first of hopefully many) in hopes that she can score some photos worthy of display at the Cathy Kline Art Gallery. We hit some spots in Liberty, Missouri, the Chouteau Grain Elevator off Birmingham Rd just southwest of N Brighton Ave/210 Hwy, and caught the train the freight cars we shot belonged to, led by Santa Fe Blue Bonnet #3174 over by the former Sam’s Town Casino.

Then, while I went to NKC Hospital to visit my mother-in-law who unfortunately is there for her nearly 15th time in the past year, and like some of the other times, has been stuck there for over a month now, I found a great vantage point on a hill on the  Armour Rd side of the hospital and shot trains leaving EB from the Norfolk Southern yard and got several pictures and a video. Glad I can share both this time.

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A couple days later, I even got a pic of my very first railroad Heritage Locomotive, in the Norfolk Southern Veteran’s Unit #6920 when I looked out of my Mother-In-Law’s hospital room on Sunday afternoon (that overlooks the NS Yard) and saw it sitting there. Unfortunately, it was blocked in so much that the best I could do was a long-distance shot from the roof of the hospital’s Pavilion parking garage. But I’ll take that!

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As always, want to give a shout out to all my fellow rail-fans, whose pictures and videos I continue to share daily on my Facebook page, like Jim Matuska, Justin Spencer,Dave Mcdowell, Shane Mason, Railfan Jason, George Li, Tim White. My friend Alan Dewey, who was a recent guest on the LOTR Podcast and this past weekend, was riding the Amtrak Missouri River Runner from Kansas City to St Louis, and I hope to be able to share his story either here, or on the Podcast soon. So many more to say Hey to. Also my thanks  to those who do railroad podcasts like Tim and Craig on the Model Railcast Show, the Model Railway Show, Tom Conboy’s Terminal Talk in both Podcast and video, the Let’s Talk Trains Show, The Scotty Mason Show, Tom Barbalet and company on Model Rail Radio, and The Rip Track Podcast. Your shows continue to help make my work-days go by much smoother, and also continue to inspire me to keep leave Legacies…….On The Rails!

Here again is Roy Acuff with the now signature tune of Legacies On The Rails, Wabash Cannonball. I’m John Losh, and I’ll see you down the line!

Anniversary/Rail-Fan Trip Was Well Worth It

I am a few weeks behind on posting this but sometimes life happens. Last time on Legacies On The Rails, I detailed some of what my wife Denise Losh and I would be doing in celebrating our 25th anniversary railfan style, and we did just that. But we learned quickly that the last half of our first full day would end up being the best part of the entire trip aside from the fact of having the week together, and getting to see our son in Columbia, Missouri at both ends of the trip. On Saturday 4/25/15, we started out at the day with a re-visit to the Museum Of Transportation in St Louis, Missouri. If you read my very first blog on this site from June, 2014, you will see some pics from our family visit there in March of 2008. Here are pics from this time through.

The same day, we were in Jackson, Missouri to experience Murder….On The Petulant Express with the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway. Knowing as they did that an anniversary couple was on board, they made this a very special experience, including seating us alone, putting a large vase of flowers on our table and providing a bottle of sparkling grape juice in a table-top ice bucket (that we saved for our actual anniversary date-4/28/15), as well as making an actual public announcement about our anniversary.  We really appreciated everything they did for us. The dinner and entertainment were great as well. I was however mistaken in thinking that the passengers were to be among the “suspect list” and I didn’t realize that until we were well under way. I had even created a short monologue in which I told some fellow passengers and some of the actors before we boarded that “If ya’ wonder who killed Peter Petulant, I did see? #1 He was hittin’ on my girl. #2 He was a rat and a snitch, see? Threatened to go to the Feds and expose my whole operation. So, I ‘punched his ticket’….had him fitted for a pair of cement overshoes, and had him tossed off the railroad bridge for fish-food. Get in my way, and I’ll do the same to you, see….?” Can you tell I’ve done community theater in the past? But in the end, the guilty party was a young baseball player named “Kid Root” that had played for Petulant before he was traded to Chicago at a substantial pay-cut. Here are some pics and video I took before and during the excursion.

During part of our couple days’ stay in Perryville, Missouri, thanks to a good eye by my wife, we caught this BNSF coal-drag.

Later in our trip, we visited Downtown Paducah, Kentucky and while walking along their river-walk, saw their display of an Illinois Central steam locomotive, mail-car and caboose and met a gentleman who had just found out the previous day that his father had been a fireman on the very same rig. And we found this really cool business, the Main Street Station General Store/Restaurant that had lots of railroad decor.

Later, In Illinois I caught these along the road.

Our next stop was the Historic Railpark & Train Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky where volunteer and former military man Bob Barnes took us on the tour. This facility features the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Unfortunately, I took video of the whole tour but none of it survived after I mistakenly thought I had uploaded the first half to You-Tube twice, and deleted it, after it had also been deleted from my phone in trying to cleear up space. Then as I had mistakenly recorded the second half vertically and could not fix that, I chose not to upload it. I did pick up an L&N pin for my hat and a railroad crossing change purse while we were there.

Our final railfan stop was the Tennessee Central Railway Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. It was also a guided tour like the museum in Bowling Green. Picked up a post-card, a t-shirt and an L&N HO Scale box car while we were there.

I did pick up a few rail related items at antique stores during our trip, and one at a local church’s garage sale since then.

I also started a list of rail road numbers that I hope to eventually find models of (if it’s possible) of trains I have ridden with, or taken pics or video of, or bear the years myself and several family members were born, and the year my paternal grandfather passed.

Upon my return to Kansas City, there has been very little time for railfan activity due to #1 helping my lifelong friend and brother in Christ Russ Steel who just recently moved back to Kansas City with his family start New Life Baptist Chuch, whose first service is Sunday 5/24/15 at 10am at 5959 NE Antioch Rd in Gladstone, Mo and #2 helping my daughter Cara Losh, who was chosen during our time out of town as a State Finalist for the National American Miss Pageant in Columbia, Missouri in late June find sponsors. National Train Day on 5/9/15 was a bust for me, as I stayed up in my area, where I found nothing going on. I should have gone to Union Station or the Great Northern Railroad but I’ll know better when National Tran Day 2016 rolls back down the tracks.But it has been getting better time-wise, so here are some pics that I took on National Train Day and some pics and video since then.

National Train Day May 9th, 2015

I have more and shot Legacies On The Rails Fan Video # 83 today but have not uploaded it to You Tube yet and the additional pics I am saving to make another picture video with before putting them on Facebook (which is where I then download them from so I can share them on here.

I have also been listening to quite a few model railroad pod-casts while I am at work doing data entry, including continuing to  http://www.modelrailradio.com/, as well as starting to listen to The Model Railcast Show https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/modelrailcast-show-model-railcast/id267135824?mt=2-I was sad to hear that its creator Ryan Anderson tragically passed recently and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family, but I’m sure his legacy will carry on through those who were his co-hosts. I have been listening to the The Model Railroad Hobbyist Pod-Cast http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/podcast/episodes, and The Model Railway Show http://www.themodelrailwayshow.com/  and took in some of The Scotty Mason Show http://podbay.fm/show/407848070 to name a few . There are a few that just don’t seem to be compatible with our computers at work like The Roundhouse Pod-Cast which I am listening to from home as I post this.

I’d like to again remind you about the Legacies On The Rails Art Show at the Cathy Kline Art Gallery in the former CB&Q Depot in Parkville, Missouri Saturday August 1st 6pm-8pm CT 8701 NW River Park Dr. 10% of sales benefit the Model Rail Experience at KC’s Union Station-that I plan to return to volunteering at next week. Hope you will make plans to attend!

Let’s finish up with some railroad music as always. Here’s Rod Stewart-a well known model railroader himself, with Downtown Train.

I’m John Losh, saluting all those who continue to leave Legacies……..On The Rails!