Hello once again to all my fellow forum members, and welcome to our weekly photographic model railroad celebration.
This week I receved a wonderful and thoughtful gift from our friend Track Fiddler in Minnesota. He knew I liked wagon top freight cars, and found an undecorated round top boxcar for me.
I was surprised and quite happy when I opened the box
Thanks for starting up the first WPF of April, Kevin! What a neat surprise to find in the mail from Mr. TF! Great Stuff!
This week seems to have found me dabbling in electronics. I continued on the signal bridge shown last week and decided to add another mast for the eastbound main.
Signal_LED by Edmund, on Flickr
I started off by making a wood jig to hold the LEDs in the same alignment as the Oregon signal heads. I decided to use an NKP-style three-color target.
Signal_3-color-2-arm by Edmund, on Flickr
Here it is temporarily set in place before final fixing to the bridge. Soon I’ll have to connect eighteen wires to the appropriate Logic Rail signal Animators. What Fun!
Inspired by one of Larry Puckett’s videos where he demonstrated route control using stationary decoders I decided to take that route. This shows the temporary test setup that was formerly a toggle control of fiive track yard.
Digitrax_ds64_tryout by Edmund, on Flickr
Once I get the route programming figured out I’ll simply press any one of the five buttons on what was once the old panel and the tuurnouts will align as needed to set that route.
There was a time that I believed I would never use DCC turnout control but I’m about to eat my hat on that one. Once you get used to it there are some great advantages to it.
On to more
Kevin: nice find there for sure.
Ed: nice project. Thankfully(mercifully?) My railroad operates in Dark territory, so no signals for me.
Here’s what I’ve been working on:
Due to the cost of Peco switches, and the NMRA AP program, Ive started trying to build switches from raw material. This is my first, and I’ve taken notes for the next one. Among them is, improve my soldering skills!
Good morning from partly cloudy and cold Northeast Ohio, after the snow yesterday it will warm up a little today with much better temperatures by Sunday.
Kevin, thanks for starting us out, nice gift from TF.
Ed, glad you are doing that, I really don’t want to do that kind of work.
Jimmy, nice job on that turnout, our club in Anchorage had all hand laid turnouts, once you get the frog soldered together it is really quite simple to lay the turnout.
Got a couple of cars completed this week.
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Athearn FMC 5347CF Boxcar Kit, painted with a combination of Scalecoat II Reefer Orange and ATSF Red Paint, White, Silver, and Grimy Black also, then lettered with Herald King Decals. Another of the IPD Boxcar of the late 70’s era.
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IMRC Canadian Grain hopper kit, painted with a Mixture of Scalecoat IIReefer Yellow and Boxcar Red, with a Black Underframe Paints then lettered with Herald King Decals. Government paid for covered hoppers to replace worn out 40’ boxcars for grain traffic brought about by the Crows Nest aggreement with rates that did not cover the cost of shipping grain and the railroads buying new cars.
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B end of the hopper car with all the grabs and other detail parts applied.
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A end of the hopper car with all the grabs applied, now on to the underframe.
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Last week I t
Great looking projects everyone. I should have some benchwork progress to share by the end of the weekend. Tonight I have a layout tour video premiering at 7:45 Eastern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77qeGID_xX8
I’d love to see you there!
Nice work so far, everybody.
Kevin … Thanks for starting Photo Fun. Have fun with the boxcar.
Ed … Your work with signals and electronics is remarkable.
Jimmy … Your soldering looks great to me. Keep up the good work.
Rick … Your freight cars this week look outstanding. You are very precise with details and your painting and lettering look perfect. The NH passenger train with FL9’s looks very nice.
Harrison. … That sounds like an interesting video.
Here are some older photos.
FT ABBA with a freight train. These were undecorated Stewart Models which I painted and lettered :
E7 AA with a passenger train. These are BLI models.
Kevin - Thanks for the start to WPF. Nice gift.
Ed - Quite a project. Way beyond me.!
Jimmy - the turnout looks good.
Rick - Good looking pair of cars, as usual. I enjoyed the photo of the NH passenger train.
Harrison - Looking forward to the video.
Garry - Loved the Burlington trains.
I have been working on one of the cars for my George Bush funeral train. Most of the cars I have collected are Riverossi ‘smooth sided’ models, which present a problem for installing interiors. For me at least.
I first installed new 36" scale metal wheels and rigged up electrical pickup with copper wire wound around the axles. I soldered thin wire threaded through the chassis to the copper wires.
There are just three subassemblies. The car top and bottom, the car interior and the lighting. I chose to use white LEDs but painted the face of them with Testors yellow to reduce the glare. I spaced LEDs with wire connectors to even out the light.
The interior floor was constructed with .030 styrene and seats from Palace Car Company. Because of the clearances necessary for the Riverossi window glazing the seats are too c
The Dunfudgeon Furniture Factory was scratchbuilt.
It roughly duplicates an old factory not far from where I live. Not an exact duplicate, just something to capture the feel of the old building. The original is long gone now.
I started building the Granite Line shortly after my wife and I moved into our townhouse/condo in 1992. The basement is mine, my shop is in one half, the railroad takes up the other half of the basement. I made up the name Granite Line many, many years ago and used it in a couple of layouts in a few different homes. I live near Boston, and the name Granite Line could be easily plopped down anywhere in New England because there is so much granite in the ground everywhere. I had custom decals made up many years ago.
The GL represents a mythical fully owned subdivision of the Boston & Maine at the time the B&M owned the Maine Central. As such, B&M and MEC first generation diesels are seen on it all the time. Obviously the era is the early 1950s, when steam was transitioning to the early diesels. No modern cars anywhere on the Granite Line, most of the rolling stock is 40’ long. I do allow myself a little leeway in steam locomotives, many of mine would never have been seen around here.
The railroad was designed with 2D AutoCAD back in the 1990s. I built up ‘blocks’ that represented switches, so they could be plopped in anywhere on the layout. Blocks for cars and locomotives too, so track capacities could be calculated. I don’t have AutoCad anymore, nor do I have any of the CAD files so I cannot update the layout with modern CAD. I only have some hard copies. As can be seen, last updated in 1999.
Construction started with the section along the wall near the door to the other side of the basement. All the benchwork had been completed and track layed within a couple of years
Kevin, Thanks for opening the WPF, happy to see your gifted vintage kit, what a fine gesture.
Thanks to all the contributors and viewers, have a good Good Friday and a Happy Easter, regards, Peter
Great pic’s,everyone!
Planning a move in the near future,so…
480 makes a final stop at Little Dry Creek:
487 and caboose head out to gather up cars:
and the layout is coming down:
Have a good weekend,and a Happy Easter,all.
Mike
Good evening
I’m a little late getting here but Thanks for opening WPF Kevin.
I just happened to stumble upon that kit looking through the N scale section on eBay. It was posted in the wrong scale category. No other undecorated kits existed in those and I know how you like personalizing your Stratton Gillette cars[:)]
Wow, The electronic stuff you’re doing on your signals is beyond me Ed. Sweet!
Great job you’re doing on the scratch built turnout Jimmy. I’ve heard those are quite the challenge but after the first one, the second one goes like clockwork.
Love the cars Rick. I have a few of the red and black Canadian hoppers similar to that one. I like the New Haven’s at the club as well[Y]
I’ll be checking out the MacKeller’s Santa Fe layout Tour Harrison.
I always love the Burlington’s Garry, … and the layout of course. I was tempted to buy a couple of those E7’s but they wanted too much of a pretty penny for them.
The passenger car lighting you’re doing sure looks interesting Allan[Y]
Nice job on the scratch built Furniture Factory Doug. Really like your layout design and how it’s coming along.
Perfect Peter! The bunny in the Box[(-D]
Great looking layout Mike. I especially like the night scene. Looks like you’re being careful taking it apart and good luck with your move.
Nothing currently for me to show right now but it’s always fun to see what you guys are working on[;)]
TF
Peter … That is excellent, but I think a hopper would be more appropriate than a boxcar. … LOL [:-^]
Everybody else… Keep on posting great photos.
That was a good one Garry[(-D]
TF
Great photos guys! This is always such a great thread.
Alvie
Another great set of photos everyone. Peter, love the bunny!!!
Ed, just saw what you posted. Got to get one of those for the layout.
My contribution this week is Train 9 on its way east.
Scott Sonntag
Mike, your layout looks terrific. Too bad you have to tear it down. I hope you are going to rebuild in your new location.
Hey Everyone! Did a little work this weekend on a project I’ve been working on in my spare time this semester while on my college campus - An N Scale Kaslo Shops SD50F! I may not model the CN or any of it’s routes, but I’ve always loved Cowl units, and the B&CCS is a proto-freelanced railroad, so the rules are my own, and I say an order of 10 SD50F’s to the B&CCS!!! It’s been a lot of fun since this is really my first full kit build for rolling stock, so its been great to work through the construction, the creation of a paint scheme, and so on. The project is nearly done, just some detail paint, an orange pinstripe separating the blue and maroon segments of the cowl, then installation of the windows and frames! There is a little bit of wiring work that needs to be done on the chassis, (it is what it is, eBay gets you a great price, but there are drawbacks like missing pickup wipers), and I may do some work at a later date to get the lights correc with fiber optics or something, but I’m nearly done with the base project. Everyone else’s projects are coming along nicely as well! Hope you all have a great Easter!
