Weekend Update - 6/14/2009

[Puddington]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR HARD CORE GREAT NORTHERN FANS.... THOSE DEDICATED ROCKY-ITES MAY WISH TO ABORT THIS THREAD NOW... VIEWER DISCRESSION IS ADVISED.....

The GN "International" contained one of two unique cars to the Great Northern Railway; The "City"; later renamed the "Port" cars; The "Port of Spokane" and the "Port of Vancouver"...

The Port Cars were rounded tail observation cars with a lounge and a custom's official office. The U.S and Canadian Customs clearence was done on route, speeding up the trip due to no border delays.

The cars have never been modeled commercially and I had no intent of filling windows but felt that by modifying the tail to include the large end light and by removing the skirts of a Kato car I could have a "close enough for Puddy" version.....did I mention it would be painted Big Sky Blue.....



PUDDY........GET REAL; THOSE CARS NEVER WERE PAINTED BSB.... NO OBSERVATION CAR EVER WAS !!!!!! NOT FOR THE INTERNATIONAL; NOT FOR THE WESTERN STAR; NOT FOR THE EMPIRE BUILDER... NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Snicker".......... see, I told you this could be bad for the true GN hard core..............

Resplendant in Big Sky Blue the "Port of Vancouver" visits the Samuel Ridge station as part of the "famous" (ok; famous on my layout) GN special " The Stampeder".... direct service from Seatlle to Calgary daily during the Calgary Stampede, via the Puddington Valley....

The car even carries the unique "Stampeder" drumhead.....



The car has my usual details, painted and detailed interior; GN style window blinds; wire grabs and interior passengers....The marker lights on the car are UP style so I'm still fussin with them.... oh well....

The "Port of Vancouver" is a self confessed foobie - wrong windows (close) wrong livery (not close..LOL) and wrong time frame - she'd have been retired or sold by 1973, and was BN, but those are mear details.......and in creating the car I now see one issue - the "Great Northern" logo on the lead end of the car is an issue if it has to go on the leading end on both sides; you have to change the orientation of the words. On this side of the car it is correct; on the opposite side the "T" in Great and the "R" in Northern are pagenated together as opposed to the first letters.... "logo infraction...." Even "Rocky" as to face a different direction on the other side..... "serious logo infraction"...... Oh well............maybe that's why the GN never did it !

I don't care if she's a "flight of fun and frolic"; I think she adds a touch of class to my "Stampeder".....Here's the foobie poster....



If you're going to "foobie", then "foobie to the max" !!!!!!!!!!!

[atsf_arizona]

Great pictures, everybody. Just keeps getting better and better.

Here's a couple from me this week.





For those of you who are going to be Portland for the National N Scale Convention...
take a lot of pictures and post them real-time for us to see!!!

Have a good week, all. 

[jsoflo]

Here are a couple from me, a pair of CP Subsidiary STLH SD40-2's :

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B790ozJ7sIv2nmiA6XAMLw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLbQgO3Pi6rrCA&feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ZF9GT7Xam27RFHdFTRogLQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCLbQgO3Pi6rrCA&feat=directlink

my best,
Jan

[Zox]

First results from running the camera car at John's house yesterday:

[up1950s]

Zox , that camera car points just perfectly . John , just how big is that super sized layout ? Seeing some very believable scenes .

[John]

Zox , that camera car points just perfectly . John , just how big is that super sized layout ? Seeing some very believable scenes .

I'm not really sure ... what you saw was the lower level .. looks like around 9-10 minutes to get around it at scale .. lots of work to do yet ..

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Here's what I did today:
http://thecrhs.org/?q=news/Ride-the-Rails-for-Cancer-with-the-CRHS-a-Rousing-Success

[wm3798]

A couple more from John's layout Saturday...








Had a great time... Thanks again, John!

Lee

[AlkemScaleModels]

First results from running the camera car at John's house yesterday:

Great video - much better than Pickle Surprise.  That is quite a layout. Did I see a steel mill near the end of the run?

The nose mounted camera really gives an interesting perspective. As I was watching a thought occurred that now we'll have to design layouts for onboard cameras as well as all the other parameters. There were many places on this video where the scenery or track geometry limited the view of the aisle. So extend that thinking to try to make that work for the rest of the layout.  

[up1950s]

First results from running the camera car at John's house yesterday:

Great video - much better than Pickle Surprise.  That is quite a layout. I did I see a steel mill near the end of the run?

The nose mounted camera really gives an interesting perspective. As I was watching a thought occurred that now we'll have to design layouts for onboard cameras as well as all the other parameters. There were many places on this video where the scenery or track geometry limited the view of the aisle. So extend that thinking to try to make that work for the rest of the layout.  

Thats not a basic noise camera setup . Sir Zox has that camera auto pointable so the camera starts to turn earlier than a standard setup . Thats why it looks more natural .
 
See his setup in the link below
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,17026.0.html

[AlkemScaleModels]

I am just about finished with the blast furnace demonstration model for my book. Here is a look as of Sunday night.

[John]

I did I see a steel mill near the end of the run?

You did .. I am actually building the entire set of Walthers kits .. some of it was inspired by your modules, and some of it from your MRP article .. unfortunately my furnace looks no where as good as the one you posted  :'(  ..  I am still playing around with the general arrangement .. the pic you posted does give me an idea for the high line though

[Zox]

See his setup in the link below
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,17026.0.html

I've got a fairly detailed description of how I arrived at the design here:
    http://lordzox.com/mrr/camcar.html

Of course, that web page is all with the original camera. Here are cameras #2 and 3:

• #1: 900 MHz analog-tuned unit, big wire antenna that sticks out.
• #2: 2.4 MHz multi-channel unit, stubby little antenna.
• #3: 900 MHz multi-channel unit, big wire antenna that fits inside the battery compartment.

And here's #3 on the car, basically the rig I ran this weekend:



Now that everything seems to be working smoothly, I need to get some paint on the camera sled, and maybe add a few DoD markings...

[wm3798]

Here's what Zox left on the cutting room floor...

Lee

[John]

thats pretty good .. I think Lee was running that train