Gidday All, after my rather acrimonious parting of the ways with the local club I wasn’t expecting to go back any time soon but the new Club Captain said I should drop in on their open day last weekend, which I did. I’m pleased to see the new executive has made progress and actually got the HO modular layout expanded beyond the 4 corner modules that I was involved with. Several of the members also thanked me for putting my foot down and insisting on the 32” minimum radius as now they can run their larger locos reliably and without looking too ridiculous.
Looking forward to the really Good Stuff, Have a Great One ffolkes,[:D]
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
EDIT, Boy oh boy, have I had problems with Photobucket tonight.[:(!]
Looks great and it’s always good to have someone willing to bury the hatchet and reach out. On the other hand, I’ve had my quota of politics already this week…
It’s good to know you can always spend an hour or so down at the yard watching trains when the world’s problems seem insouble.
In addition to the 30’ flats, this week I built a couple of longer flats:
Yep, it’s exactly what it looks like, a piggy-flat.[;)]
While there have been the occassional ad hoc trailer carrying, this is the first time this Rio Grande has scheduled TOFC service to Silverton and beyond on the narrowgauge. Here’s the Silverton ramp.
I spent some quality time with several brass locos this week, tuning for best performance and adding a couple ounces of lead to each. I finally managed to get things right to haul a 5-car San Juan uphill to Silverton with steam.[:D] Here it is crossing the Rio de las Animas.
And I scraped together enough bucks to install a couple more LED light strips. The Sunnyside is basking in the light. It’s brilliant!
Good morning Bear and Mike, nice start to the weekend as usual.
Thanks for all the kind comments on my models the last few weeks, it is really appreciated.
Now for this weeks finished work!
As I mentioned previously the N&W after they took over the Wabash sold the Panel Side Hoppers that “The Andersons” used to ship grain between their elevators in Maumee, OH to the export elevators in Toledo, OH. After the sale “The Andersons” added an extension on top of the car and a canvas cover to protect the grain from the elements. The extension allowed the car to haul it’s maximum weight versus the cubic capacity. Although the instructions called for silver paint, I remember these cars passing behind my house in Toledo and they were definately green. I used Model Master Aluminum Enamel paint with a few drops of MM Green to just tint the Aluminum Paint; car was lettered with the Tichy (F&C) Decals that came with the Tichy Kit. (Just 9 more of these puppies to build now.)
I originally purchased these decals years ago for the the Walther’s PS 4427CF car, but I applied them to the ExactRail kit that I built, even though ER brought these out in RTR. Car built per instructions, painted with Scalecoat II MofW Gray and lettered with Oddballs Decals.
Bear, glad to hear you’ve patched things up with the club. It’s always annoying when the pollitics gets to a point that we forget why we’re there, to run trains. The layout looks great.
Mike, awesome stuff as always. I definitly love the Colorado narrow guage.
Rick, another great crop of rolling stock.
With having to study for an Algebra test this week, I didn’t have much time for the layout. I did however manage to start planning out the inside of Horseshoe Curve.
A bit of selective compression will be needed. Kittanning Run will simply drain into the lake rather than run paralell to the road and the lake.
Great stuff posted so far everyone! Inspirational and highly motivating. Well this week I was able to begin adding scenery to the opposite side of the bay on my layouts lake. The ballast was the most time consuming as I am still trying to get the hang of it:
This weekend I plan on filling the scenery in with more trees, low lying shrubs, tall grasses and a little more early fall colors. I also need to start working on my figures and animals to keep my lonely canoests company…but in N Scale they are crazy tiny!!! I also need to work up the courage to ballast around my turnout switch.
Happy weekend, all. Here in New Braunfels TX it’s “Wurstfest” kickoff, featuring oom-pah music, sausage and other low cal treats, and a bit of beer.
I’m enjoying all the fine examples as always. Fine work is featured by all above.
I can show here the 3rd and 4th structure lighting efforts. The industry office was actually done first (with two Christmas light LEDs). It has a bit of furniture and two people inside discussing why the floor was built too low to see out the windows.
The gas plant was addressed most recently. It’s lit with five 3-LED segments, and has added two compressors (on a fabricated deck) and some small tanks. The two folks inside are discussing the vibration effects of passing trains. It’s tough to see the details, but the overall effect of lighting and interior items looks much better than the former large, dark empty space.
Today’s mail arrived with an eagerly awaited box from Shapeways containing an HOn30 short boxcab shell. This small locomotive will be running on the Boothbay Railway Village narrow gauge line. Shown here with the N scale Bachmann 70 Tonner that will donate its mechanism, and an HO scale GP-7 just to give some idea of the size.
I have a couple of other projects to finish before I can start on this
[:P] [:P] [:P].
A night shot of my small flour mill on a 15ft industrial section of the layout. Most all the details and figures, are missing, because I’m working on the whole length of it.
I’ve spent some time working on my weathering skills. Hopefully I will learn when to say when as many past attempts got carried away. Here is my most recent effort:
Hopefully it’s obvious that the car on the left has received some attention. I used oils to fade the paint, pan pastels to suggest rust breaking through the paint on the door, and decals for the conspicuity stripes and graffiti. Coupled it up to an as-built kit for comparison.
