Thanks for the kind comments, chaps.
Here are a couple more with last night’s project - a delivery wagon - and one from a different angle.(apologies for handheld wobble)
Jon
That’s some outstanding work gents. The eroded plateau is awesome, and Jon I really admire what you’re doing. Almost like being there would be. No shots from me this week - I’m stuck at work inventorying parts we picked up Thursday (5 pages worth single spaced). Sneaking on line between stints of sorting is keeping me sane today. Thanks, J.R.
The daily run to Adobe Flat leaves town as the local crew finishes some switching.
Tom
That’s a good looking Shay.
Aaaaaaahhh! [:P][:D]
There is a lot of passenger train action on the layout today. Hope you enjoy the pictures, Michael
Union Pacific City of Los Angeles
Santa Fe Super Chief
Nice! I like your 2 Super Cheif sets the most! Are they Athearn, PCM, or Broadway Limited?
Thank you. The train on the right is the Super Chief - Athearn Genesis ABBBA and prototypical 12 car train. I should post pics of the cars later, all have painted/detailed interiors with Rapido light kits. The train on the right is a mail train. Glad you liked it, Michael
Great work everyone! This is one of the best weekends in quite a while.
I had a small operating session today. A friend that is both a fellow music teacher (a few years back) and a model railroader brought over a family that is into both model railroads and RC Planes. His boys have built almost 50 planes themselves. Turns out I remember the Father and his oldest son from a Boy Scout Camporee that was on aviation a few years back… He is in a local RC Plane club. I recalled speaking with him at that time. Anyway he is into O Scale and his sons are building an HO layout so they wanted to see my setup. After a short tour, I got the throttles out and what I thought would be a few minutes ended up being a 2 hour session with two trains going. It gave me a chance to see where the bottlenecks will be when I really start operations on the layout. His youngest (10 or 11 years old?) got the coal drag pulled by the USRA Mallet 2-6-6-2 and the UT4 throttle. He had never used DCC before. I showed him how it worked, let him pull up the loco and he was off like a pro. All 3 of them seemed to like the DCC. Here is the youngest at the throttle of the Mallet:
My buddy Andy was the switchman for the train (I set them up as a two man crew):
Enough of the plywood central, here is Andy following the train on the sceniced section (actually he is completly ignoring his train and watching the other guys train… Hey is the turnout thrown? Hey! Hey Andy?):
Father and other son as the crew of the Reefer Train pulled by a little Russian Decapod:
[IMG]http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h259/slow_rr/SLOW_RR/Op_3_1_0805w.jpg[/
jon****grant - Love your scenes; lots of flavor. Great job, English.
Wow! Some great stuff this weekend.
Art–If I’m ever in the area, can I bring one of my Yellowstones over and run it around your mountain? PLEEEEEZ? [:P] That’s just spectacular!
Jon–what GREAT urban shots–makes me wish I could somehow fit a city on my MR. Love those old vehicles–so glad manufacturers are beginning to realize that not everyone needs contemporary vehicles. Beautiful work.
Just getting back into it again, so here’s a file shot of a future project–going to improve the rockwork on Yuba Pass–those cliffs look WAY too smooth for the elvation (6800’) that I’m modeling.
Tom
My weekend has been spent on finishing my only scratch built engine.
This engine is the first custom paint job in the Cedar Branch & Western’s yellow and black paint scheme. It is a Spectrum shell. The motor gave out and went in the trash several years back. Over the last several weeks I’ve cobbled together parts and pieces to return it to service. The chassis is from an Athearn GP 30 with a can motor and Ernst slow speed gearing. The decoder is a LokSound. It has a couple of minor cosmetic points to mend, but it’s in service!
This engine has a very low starting speed as can be seen in the two following videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ra5zdVkMlg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQfk_VVAvw4
One of these days I’ll get back to doing scenery. In the mean time, I have two more engines about to be converted to DCC.
Jon- Great work! I have always been fasinated by your layout!
twhite-[bow]. Post more pics on weekend photo fun! We all enjoy seeing them!
dragenrider- Nice loco! It just needs a little weathering to get rid of the bright yellow!
Good job on the engine rebuild Randy. That sounds about the same as my old Bachmann GP40. A 30+ year-old BAchmann chassis, Athearn type trucks from the early 80’s, truck sideframes from I don’t remember where, a cobbled together shaft drive, a 2 year old Bachmann body and a PPW can motor. Point is, it works.
Thanks, Jeffrey. It’s indeed parts and pieces. For instance, the drive shaft on one side is a horned ball and the other side is a notched sliding shaft. One flywheel is shiny brass, the other is old and tarnished. Neither are the same size.
And I agree with comment that weathering would help on that shiny yellow! [8D]
I made some progress on my layout this weekend. I’ve been staring at this empty space in my benchwork for just over a year trying to decide what it should look like. It is in my mind, supposed to be a ravine created over many years by flowing water. Here’s the before:
I started wadding up paper and stacking it, then started dipping plaster cloth to cover the paper. Here’s the after shot:
Now it’s time for some wet plaster rock casting to finalize the creation.
Don Z.
Over the past week the Spock’s Wingnut plant got a loading dock and a foundation. The dock nees a little stain and I’ll lightly weather the building. After I do the scenery I’ll fasten it down to the foundation. The Blackwater terminal is getting a turntable. I made the pit this week out of MDF using a circle cutting setup with a router. The pit wall is retained by a railroad tie wall (prototype is in Ashland, Oregon). The ring rail is code 55 spiked to wood ties. I made a jig to keep the rail circular and on center while I spiked it.
Felling pretty good about this week’s work.
Good work, everyone. A lot of very nice pics this weekend.