This is the topic where we can show work completed the last week, work in progress or old pictures that we would like to share with the fellow forum members.
One of my favorite pictures!
Pennsy N1sa 2-10-2, with a coal drag going up the hill. The Pennsy used these monsters to haul ore from the docks on Lake Erie to the steel mills in Piitsburgh, Wheeling and Youngstown. On the return trip they hauled coal from the mines in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Southern Ohio to the docks on Lake Erie where the coal was sent to power plants and factories on the upper Great Lakes. These were the first engines to be gotten rid of when dieselazation started in earnest.
Well earlier this week I decided to do a redo on my first scratch built structure, a 30s Sears kit house, a Bungalow. Since I installed several Arduino Random Lighting Controllers I’m going to redo several older houses for random lighting.
Here I have added 5 new bulbs and a couple of partitions to form more rooms. It originally had 4 bulbs, one on each porch, the dining room and one on the second floor (always on). I’m going to partition the basement and add four bulbs there. The controller has 14 outputs so I’m going to add a light over the side stairs.
This is what it looks like with the roof on.
I was able to repair the damage from opening it up. I over glued everything I guess
I’m afraid that Peters City scenes just invite a comment.
While based on the opposite side of the Pacific, the Uncle Dans Pizza scene took me immediately back to the first Italian run pizza joint I went into, when I was in Sydney, Oz, in the late 70s. Salami’s hanging from the ceiling, (I didn’t know that there were so many different types), different cheeses, jars of mysterious items, (which I later found out were olives, sun dried tomatoes, anchovies etc), and above all the deliciously enticing smell. It was far cry from what the large Pizza franchise that was just starting to invade New Zealand around that time, offered!
Thanks Peter for sharing a scene that has triggered such a pleasant memory. The Alfa parked outside is the “icing on the cake”.
Cheers, the Happy Bear.[dinner]
Somehow a bridge got dropped on JaBear Construction Co. property overnight and we can’t find the night watchman either. His car is even gone along with a lot of equipment, including the antique truck…Aliens…???
Frank, Every time I see your lift bridge I’m reminded of a twenty-million dollar rebuild that they did on one of the (roadway) lift bridges here in Cleveland back in 2006. They used a barge to float it off site, made the repairs then floated it back between the towers.
When they were ready to re-connect the counter weights they discovered that the cables were THREE FEET too short! [banghead]
Now, the Cuyahoga River is blocked, the road still can’t be used and it took another two MONTHS to get all new cables (64 of 'em!). Turns out the contractor was using blue-prints they found that were never updated after an earlier rebuild and I guess they put bigger sheaves in. It never occurred to them to actually measure one of the cables they took out.[:$]
I spent much of my time this week re-working four of the older “Continental Line” Rapido coaches that have never really been track-worthy. I glued the sides to the floor, replaced the trucks and trimmed some of the underpinnings from around the truck-swing area. Not really photo-worthy since they pretty much look the same after-as-before.
One little project I tackled was to place a safety slogan onto the sides of the turntable bridge. I have been wanting to get to this for a l-o-n-g time [:S]
Really like all the pics. I wish this site allowed you to like a post or image. Most places have a Like feature. Lets people know you appreciate their efforts.
Looking good guys! Some great things to look at here. Nothing too spectacular at my end, just a little fiddling around yesterday.
I buy junk cars sometimes at the railroad shows for a couple dollars. I really like the old Western Pacific cars. Unlike the new ones they are chalky brown in color and the yellow writing already looks faded and weathered. This one was missing its stirrups. I took an old Southern Pacific car that had crooked writing on it. I cut off its stirrups and put them on the Western Pacific car. I also replaced the stirrups on this red white and blue car.
Then replace the rapido trucks with micro train trucks and you no longer have junk cars.
Nice-looking cement plant George. I can see you worked hard on that.
One of the guys at my Railroad Club shared something with me. Even with micro train trucks on ore cars in N-Scale, do not look completely prototypical. I’ve heard of some guys putting Z scale body mount couplers on N-Scale cars, apparently it looks amazing. I’m not going to get that crazy. I’ve already spent a boatload of money on new MTL trucks.
This is what was shared at my train club. Prototypical ore cars have drawbars. You take a rapido coupler and cut the end off. Then you remove the cap, coupler and spring on the other end. Then the cars clip together.
Of course you want to replace the old junk rapido trucks with micro trains rapido trucks if you don’t want your cars falling off the tracks everywhere. I don’t suppose you would want to do this if you’re prone to switching cars. But if you have a long ore train you store in your staging area, this really looks good.
Bear, My pleasure, and thanks for sharing your pizza related memory. Countless times my memory has been pleasantly jogged by forum photos and links, reminds me of Bob Hope’s old signature tune, “Thanks for the memory.”
Pizza
