Gidday All, Weekend Photo Fun and Model Railroading is Fun, a fine idea and sentiment aren’t they?
While helping run a layout at train shows, two questions frequently asked that I hate answering, are how much does this cost and, as the subject of tonight’s waffle from the Bear, how long did it take to build?
My natural inclination is to say “how long is a piece of string”, but as an ambassador for the hobby I generally end up prevaricating and usually give a less than satisfactory, but Politically Correct answer, often due to time or operational constraints.[:S]
Yet it is unfair to dismiss the general public for their lack of understanding when those of us who should know better upon viewing model railroading photos with the “WOW” factor can marvel at, and wish we had, the skills to attain that level, but still somehow manage to overlook the amount of work that required a gritting of the teeth followed by patience and perseverance to achieve elements in that shot.
So I could say that Model Railroading is Patience and to that end here’s the 188 stanchions that I require for my ferries r
JaBear:
188? Is that all? And they are pre-formed to boot (or did you make them?) - whatcha whining about?[swg][(-D][(-D]
Seriously, you have a bit of a task ahead of you but it will go quickly once you get started, and it will look fantastic. Remember to take a break or two.
Not wishing to out do you, but my caboose fleet required 224 grab irons, almost all of which I had to form by hand. I bought a pack of Tichy curved grabs for the sides of the cabooses but in most cases they didn’t fit properly.[:(!]
Then came the task of painting the wee beasties. I tried to make some masks from recipe cards but they didn’t work well at all, so it was all done freehand. I used Humbrol enamel and I found that with the right amount of paint on the brush I could get good coverage with just one application, and a bit of touch up of course:
The caboose was temporarily assembled for the picture so the ladders are missing as well as the left side end platform grab. Those will go on after the window glazing (I’m not doing full interiors) has been completed and all the wiring for the marker lights and the conductor’s desk lamp has been done.
Dave
Just experimenting on a road to rail/ rail to road transfer facility.
it fits on 8.5 x 11 but I’m gonna have to do some rearranging, and there’s hopefully be a concrete dock on the other side of the ware house building.
Gary:
Looks good.
If I may suggest, why not chop out the two windows between the existing freight doors and put in two more freight doors? To me, that would suggest that twice as much activity is happening at the transfer station.
[2c]
Dave
I could, on the backside of this building there are two doors which are actually for the big rigs and trailers, I could turn the building around. the problem I face is that my trailers aren’t tall enough so I’d have to shim it or something. I could make the receiving/shipping door lanes going down at an incline like the warehouse I work at.
Are they preformed??? (the Bear coughs and splutters into his beard) I certainly wouldn’t be having a whine with my cheese if they were.[(-D][(-D][(-D] No, I did them in three batches with the TV on as a slight distraction. Not too bad as I was in the mood.[zzz] [swg]
You win!! [bow] [;)]
I hope you’re going to have a “show and tell” on the subject.
Looks OK to me, Gary.
Cheers, the Bear.[:D]
[quote user=“”]
hon30critter
188? Is that all? And they are pre-formed to boot (or did you make them?) - whatcha whining about?
Are they preformed??? (the Bear coughs and splutters into his beard) I certainly wouldn’t be having a whine with my cheese if they were. No, I did them in three batches with the TV on as a slight distraction. Not too bad as I was in the mood.
hon30critter
but my caboose fleet required 224 grab irons, almost all of which I had to form by hand.
You win!!
hon30critter
and all the wiring for the marker lights and the conductor’s desk lamp has been done.
Gary,
If you’re considering a site plan revision, I’ll offer a slightly different one. The building looks to only have a spot for one car, even with the original long way turned parallel to the tracks. Is it possible, instead of turning it 180, to turn it only 90 degrees so it T’s into the track at the narrow end, presuming a door can be cut into it to serve the rail siding, if not already present?
Then you would have 4 doors for trailers, maybe six if you added more in between the existing doors on each side.
So long as you stick with older trailers, they are short enough you should have the space needed with the changed orientation, which would see trailers back up to both sides of the building. If you need 40, 45 or 53 foot trailers, what you have laid out would be too short, I suspect, but don’t know if you need to confine yourself to this small a footprint or could add another inch to its width.
I’ll mock up up a modified plan based on your guy’s input and a combo of what I had planned. This however I can make a module from for the club layout.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that planned layout in N scale but Z scale is looking like a better option now that I have a Z scale BN GP38-2 on it’s way.
Finished the major work on my adobe farmstead this week.
I’ve been documenting this project here http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/240237.aspx
A pic of the household water tank. The “water” is a disc of .010" styrene, painted with Krylon Hunter Green, then topcoated with acrylic gloss.
I’ll post a bunch more pics of the build of the barn in the next day or so.
A couple of more pics. Out of hours, a crew member walks over to Hesperus station to wait for the crew bus.
I also added some cold storage space at Webber’s as well as extended the dock
Before
After
Mike:
The adobe structure looks really good with the scenery details around it, and the water tank is excellent.
The cold storage addition looks good too, but I don’t see any cooling systems! How are you going to keep it cold? [swg]
Dave
JaBear:
Congratulations on having the patience to form 188 of those stantions!
Dave
Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving!
Bear, your bridge is looking good so far. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
Dave, Your caboose is looking good.
Gary, Your transloading facility is off to a good start.
After working on Kittanning Point last week, I focused my attention back on Horseshoe Curve. I’m modeling it as it existed in the 1950s despite my penchant for running Conrail and NS equipment as well as Pennsy.
Bear, I sort of know what you mean with those stanchions, I have sat there with my NWSL Chopper making up pieces to scratchbuild Superior Doors for some of my 60’ Auto Parts cars.
GP-9 Man, thanks for the nice comments last week, but the scenery is on the club layout that I really had nothing to do with as I just joined a couple of years ago, but I did do some structure and scenery work on a club I was in back in Anchorage, AK. (I will see if I can find the pictures and scan them at some point). By the way your horseshoe curve looks great to me.
Gary nice start on your facility, any scenery work is good work.
Mike, your ongoing work is always outstanding.
Well for me the new car pipeline is still leaking but a lot of progress has been made on some cars, like the Athearn Airslide I am putting together where all you get is a drawing with part numbers ( and the part numbers on the drawing do not match the part numbers on the sprues). Also some resin kits that take a lot of time, and waiting for my next order of Plano Roofwalks. So here a a few more pictures of the club layout.
DT&I GP38 and SD38 passing the campground on the other side of the river.
PC SD40 & SD45 on siding near the town of Thurd!
NKP GP30’s with a mixed freight!
Thanks for looking!
Rick J
Hi JaBear nice work and really waiting to see the finished ferry.
With an enjoying two evening works this week I have scratchbuild thes turnouts in Nscale code 55 using fastrack jigs
There is three #6 and one #8 curved, they will take place in the exit track from my ongoing project of a working high lift coal dumper.
May be you will notice in this picture a special turnout
This is a #6 whith full gardrails everywhere
I need this special turnout to include it in the exit track of the hoppers coming from the coal dumper.
When empty, the car is pushed out of the dumper and roll on a small ramp to take speed only by his own weight and gravity; he rolls through this turnout go on a elevated ramp, stop, and come back through the turnout on the diverging road to reach a nearby small yard; he rolls again only by his weight and gravity.
Here is a high lift coal dumper, the same I am scratchbuilding.
Here is a plan of the ramp wher the cars roll empty
Bear, Thanks for the WPF lift-off. Ah, been looking forward to seeing your wheelhouse/deck construction. 188 stanchions! makes 29 fence posts seem quite paltry.
Thanks to all and regards, Peter
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone.[:)]
Beautiful trackwork, Marc, looking foward to seeing more of that massive project.
I updated the farmstead build with the barn construction sequence: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/240237.aspx
GP-9_Man11786:
Thanks for your compliment regarding my ‘caboose’. In fact there are eight of them all in the same process. Next step is to Dullcote them, and then install the windows when they arrive.
I painted the ladders tonight - all 16 of them! Got my shorts in a knot because I didn’t clean them properly before painting. They had been primed a few days ago and I didn’t notice the bits of dust that had settled on them since then. My bad![banghead][(-D]
Dave
Marc_Magnus:
You are scratchbuilding the coal dumper, plus all your switches!
Boggles my wee brain!
Congratulations on being such a great modeller! Please show us pictures as you progress.
I notice that your cutting mat has had a lot of use, as has mine. I discovered that they can be sanded down with medium grit sandpaper and the surface comes out almost as good as new. The lines are lost of course, but that isn’t any big deal.
Dave
the tests of patience are impressive.
busy holiday weekend with company coming tomorrow railroad time is abbreviated. i was however able to paint/install a few sets of wheelstops (insurance) and had fun taking this photo:
you guys continue to set the bar high. Thanks
T e d