Just finished two weeks editing my dad Henry Anthony’s 16mm Christmas movies and posted them on Youtube for the world to see. Mostly shows our elaborate Lionel trains running all around the living room. Go to Youtube and search for title, “Christmas Trains 1950s at the Anthonys”. See the “Kenneth Anthony” channel for other movies.
Nicely done, Sir. Brings back many memories of the Lionel we had when I was a kid. Ours were discarded when Dad's employer moved us from Ohio to Minnesota in 1965. Dad was being a "good soldier" and minimizing the weight of "stuff" they had to pay to move. Oh well, that's why the stuff is worth so much now. Many discarded memories.
I do like that your local line had a magnolia element to its name! If you get a chance, I'd appreciate seeing the junction trackplan, where you show your house, on a still image. As a coincidence, it reminds me of this Scotland junction that I pass over weekly when travelling from the east coast to the west of Scotland https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/55°49'04.4"N+3°59'43.2"W/@55.8178872,-4.0128429,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en thanks for the movie. Donald
I grew up SURROUNDED by trains. I once designed an HO layout which my little brother built, a condensed version with an oval on a 4x8 table. One end had a dummy crossing on each corner representing crossing of GH&H and East Belt at one corner and East Belt and Magnolia Branch other corner. End turnback curve was disguised as the two curved connections between lines. Other end of layout was a simple turnback curve. Harrisburg Boulevard ran down the middle of the layout and the layout was called “Harrisburg Boulevard Tracks” to have same initials as real Houston Belt and Terminal. The layout had the lumber company and some business buildings from Harrisburg Blvd but no model of our home. I have also designed an N scale section as part of a big dream layout. The HB&T East Belt double track would be part of the main route around the layout, much of which would be an 18” to 24” shelf, but it would widen to four feet or so for crossing and dummy junctions with Magnolia Branch. Lumber company would have to be worked with spur coming off East Belt, not Magnolia Branch as prototype. The front of the wide section would end just about at 65th street but it could include my house and Dad’s sheet metal shop in back of the house and neighbor houses. The curved connection could be use to visibly stage a short train.
Thanks much - you certainly had a train line in every corner of life there! Were all those street crossings at grade? Donald Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
All street crossings shown on my little map were at grade. Been a couple years since I visited the (now vacant) home- the transit authority in Houston was building light rail line down Harrisburg Boulevard and had planned an underpass under the East Belt on Harrisburg in 2015 or 2016. Seemed so long in the future when I first heard about it. From as long as I was aware, maybe 1950 at earliest, there was an underpass under GH&H on Wayside, under GH&H on a minor street about 8 blocks east, and another underpass on 75th Street. I shot photos of all of them a few years back to do a study on what I think of as classic underpasses. An overpass was built on Navigation Boulevard over East Belt line, in 1960s I think. There was a study of Houston grade crossings on major streets made in middle 1950s, covering some 25 crossings in detail, with scale drawings and photos from motorists and engineer's point of view. Study on file in University of Houston library and Houston Metropolitan Research Center. I copied a dozen or more of the crossing study pictures for reference.
