Weekend Update 1/29/12

[up1950s]

[rickb773]

Following my father's recent passing, a cousin-in-law thought he would cheer me up by dropping off a boatload of his unused trains. The package included several poorly running engines, mostly steam. After trying to get them to work I figured I would pull out several of my seldom used steam engines to see if they still worked well or needed maintenance.
Sorry Lee, no room in the picture for the Pepsi Trailer! 

[Scottl]

Weather made the drive to Springfield look dodgy, so we stayed at home.  The positive is the money I would have spent on gas, meals and hotel will now go to new CN coal gondolas!

Lots of little details on the fleet.  Handrails, painted the underframe of the C44-9WL, but they are mostly done now:



I have a SD50W ready to paint, and still have a C44-9 with the two-window cab to start.  You are looking at my whole fleet!

[Andrew Hutchinson]

Scott, Nice work on the fleet. I believe I have a selection of pictures of 5512  as it works the local transfers with either a pair of sibblings or an SD40. Most of the locals seem to be cowled units, usually GM 60 series. The GEs are most often seen on the main or at Thornton ticking over but I have seen them switching up  the valley in Chilliwack on occassion.  Good vis eh!

Andrew Hutchinson
Surrey BC Canada

[Scottl]

Thanks Andrew.  I used to see them all a lot when I lived in Edmonton in the 90s.  I have roster shots of most of the western power, and it was dominated by the cowl units in those days.

On the Kingston sub, we see a lot of these units still, but most are now SD70M-2 and ES44DC units.

Modelling CN diesels are a chore, but thankfully Kaslo parts are out there.

[Ntrainz1]

DPM building, still have to add windows



Bob.

[chuck geiger]

nice job and roof detail...

[mark dance]

Beautiful CN units Scott!  Fantastic.

Not much to show this week.  I spent the available hobby time preparing the Kootenay and Slocan river beds (fill, sand, prime, sand, fill again, sand, etc.) but now they are very smooth with no sign of plywood grain, joints or screw holes at all.  I also cast a whole mess of rocks for along the Kootenay river. 

Tim Horton (BCR 570)  spent a number of hours here in the morning shooting photos.  I snapped the one below while "scouting" the layout for photo potential.  Plow Extra 8608 leaving the wye at Farron to plow downgrade to Shields and return.



md

[Puddington]

Thanks Andrew.  I used to see them all a lot when I lived in Edmonton in the 90s.  I have roster shots of most of the western power, and it was dominated by the cowl units in those days.

On the Kingston sub, we see a lot of these units still, but most are now SD70M-2 and ES44DC units.

Modelling CN diesels are a chore, but thankfully Kaslo parts are out there.

.... and "Crash Naturally" units have rarely looked better............well done !

[jsoflo]

Scott- your fleet looks fantastic, very impressive stuff.

Mark- as always- spectacular.

As for me, still working on the yard throat module, cut the backdrop board, laid down some locust trees and brush, snow is next,

My best,
Jan

[BCR 570]

As Mark has already mentioned, much of my time lately has been devoted to photography on other people's layouts for an upcoming magazine article, but I have made additional progress with the roadbed and tracklaying campaign. I have completed the realignment of the Pine River bridge in order to facilitate adherence to the desired minimum 18" radius curvature coming off either end of the bridge. I have also extended the roadbed from the west end of the bridge around the corner to the east switch for Sundance siding, and assembled the Code 40 track for same:






The new section of track is actually operable as it is receiving power from the bridge via the rail joiners. This made it possible to operate the first train beyond the west end of the bridge and to the end of steel. Here is Work Extra 812 on the new trackage:




Next up is the mainline and siding trackage at Sundance, for which the turnouts have already been built.


Tim

[BCR 570]

Scott:

The locomotives look terrific - well done.  No disrespect intended toward the CP modellers, but it is nice to see some CN as well.  The NARC rotary gondolas will look great behind them!

Tim

[BCRail_FSJ]

Spent this week painting clouds on the upper deck backdrop.. lots of clouds!

[ArtinCA]

Some cheap and dirty lumber loads this week.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Took the "Alameda-Belt-in-the-Box" layout down to the Bay Area LDSIG / OPSIG conference http://www.pcrnmra.org/sigs/ for show & tell:







Groovy talks on making your own waybills & car cards based on prototype paperwork by Tony Thompson (similar to his article http://www.opsig.org/doff/DOpages/Freight%20Car%20Handling%20new.pdf), all the new bells & whistles of the latest JMRI (we are in Silicone Valley, yo), and layout guru Byron Henderson discussion his own three layouts (2 N & an On30) in the making (the shoemaker will might get shoes).

Found myself talking to Steve Williams (again) of the Silicon Valley Free-moN group: seems like every time I go to a train meet I find myself at the Free-moN layout.
http://sv-free-mon.org/
So maybe my next layout will be a Free-moN module.
Those dudes are an hour away by car, but would be nice to have a Free-moN module to participate with.
The "Alameda-Belt-in-a-Box" layout is almost done: just need the kabillion little details all over it
And the Mt. Coffin & Columbia River is getter near done (just need to rip out & replace the track in back, build a mine, blah blah blah), so time to start thinking about the next project!
Hmm.....