Weekend Update 2/26/12

[rochsub]

Mark,

First of all, excellent work.  Mind blowing!

I do have one question though.  Are you using different lighting for the lower level?  I like the upper level lighting better.  The lower level looks washed out a bit.  Just wondering.

md

[chuck geiger]

Boy, we're off to a fast start this weekend!  I love the dark and stormy night Pudd. 

My brother-in-law lives about 5 km from the Kootenay River scene that Mark is working on, so I can vouch for the fact that he's nailing it.  Great to hear you got the Osprey nest included!  Now you need to do Taghum Beach on your swing gate, complete with dogs and pot smokers.      [Sorry Tom ]

My 'modeling' these days is nothing but carpentry (but still fun!):  I built and installed about half of the remaining upper level benchwork for Tehachapi BC: (the two shelf legs sticking up are temporary, and the roadbed is just resting in place)






Summit crosses the doorway at an elevation of 66" above the floor (upper right) making for a relatively painless nod-under entrance.  From there the line descends the east slope, passing the site of the Monolith cement plant (far wall), then turning the corner to descend the east slope in what will be a very simple, and hopefully somewhat expansive, desert scene.  Here's a shot of a pair of ACe's switching the cement plant-to-be.



-gfh

http://scalewestrails.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-tehachapi-pics.html

[mark dance]

Mark,  Are you using different lighting for the lower level?  I like the upper level lighting better.  The lower level looks washed out a bit.  Just wondering.

thank you for the compliment Daryl!  As you know your Mississippi River bridge model is in my head as I work on this scene.

The lighting of both decks is CFLs, however there are a couple more bulbs in the upper deck.   Thx for the prompting...I will have to find a way to work either bigger or more CFLs into the lower deck.

md

[chuck geiger]

[GaryHinshaw]

http://scalewestrails.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-tehachapi-pics.html

Thanks for posting those Chuck.  If you have any more shots of the four tunnels near the summit, like this one:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5jPDOeWHQMQ/T0krfPuJapI/AAAAAAAAB10/G4qlhzdvmjA/s1600/Picture+079.jpg

I'd love to see them - I'm going to try and copy the portals somewhat carefully.  I dig your new backdrop - I have something very similar in mind for the desert shelf I just posted.

-gfh

[BCR 570]

I do have one question though.  Are you using different lighting for the lower level?  I like the upper level lighting better.  The lower level looks washed out a bit.  Just wondering.

Daryl and Mark:

If the layout room lights were on, they would illuminate the lower deck to a greater extent because it extends out from underneath the upper deck, and if the photograph was exposed for the lighting level on the upper deck, then the lower deck will be somewhat overexposed.  Not a big deal for casual web photos; if I remember correctly we turned the layout room lights off for the MRP shoot.

The river scene is coming along very nicely!


Gary:

Great progress.


Tim

[SecretWeapon]

[Puddington]

Last night I was watching a couple of railway video's of the Pacific Northwest in the 60's and 70's; specifically about the Milwaukee Road, Great Northern and Canadian Pacific and in each video I saw boxcars from the Evergreen Freight Car Corporation. I really didn't know anything about Evergreen; I knew I had one of the MT cars in my possession somewhere but that's all I knew about them.

Upon some research I learned that Evergreen was a Espee owned firm that worked the Pacific Northwest with a fleet of cars dedicated to plywood and wood products movement.... sounded like something I needed.

I also realized I had gotten a pack of MS Evergreen decals in a lot I bought some years ago and with those in hand I decided to see what we could do.

The Evergreen cars in question were built in 1966 by PC&F and were similar, but not a match for the MT 50' plug door cars. The ends were wrong (and I can live with that) but the bottom sill was really off; the PC&F cars had a lower sill that extended almost to the end of the car.

I decided to use an undec MT car and extend the sill; once proving that would work I would modify the decorated MT car and have a pair of Evergreen cars for my many wood products industies....

Here's the undec car, now modified, painted and decorated for Evergreen....



I left the ladder full height, even though the running boards are gone as I saw some earlier pics with the ladders full and some later pics with the ladders cropped....I thought that removing the ladders on the decorated car would be a bit of a paint nightmare....

I'm now ready to modify the sill of the MT car and change the road number to match the 1966 build; that will give me two Evergreen cars to service my lumber and specialty wood industries.

[eric220]

Got a little more than Photoshop done this week.  I hosted the Gandy Dancers twice this week.  First, we managed to get the upper level benchwork all the way around to the edge of what will be the helix.  That followed on the second day with cookie-cutter and electrical work.  The cookie cutter has nearly reached Idaho Springs, and all of the installed track is powered.

[milw156]

When I first designed & built the Techny /A-20 modules for the Mini Modutrak layout, I overestimated the depth of the sub bridge of the Northwestern's Whipple truss . for the first few years, a modified Walther's bridge served as a stand in until I could figure out how to build it. Finally got the bridge built last year, but the resulting grade separation was way too much:

the real bridge had about a 25 foot difference from railtop to railtop:

After watching a video of a Southbound commuter cab car ride down the line, I decided to lower the Northwestern line, which, unfortunately, had been built on 1/4" masonite spline for sturdiness (read:overkill)
Was able to cut a slice out of the spline and get it all back together, flat & straight. Today, 3 weeks after the first saw cuts, I put down ballast & "sod" on the gutted portions.
After:

Still needs static grass, some trees, bushes & weeds, but am much happier with the "proportions" with the revision.

[cv_acr]

Got a few switches almost polished off this week on my HO switching layout.

Here's the two I did on Friday night:



Still needs throwbars and guardrails opposite the frog, actually soldering the frog together as a unit yet and wiring it all up, but at least there's something that looks like a switch now! These are switch number 3 and 4 that I've handlaid, and I'm finally getting the hang of aligning the frog and point rails properly. The frog on #2 was a little bumpy and needed some finessing. #s 3 and 4 are pretty smooth.

My Saturday was spent processing freight car pics:
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/updates/february2012.html

[Sokramiketes]

Finally had some decals printed to number my stack of unnumbered MILW hoppers:



Trying to vary the fleet a bit with weathering, subtle scheme changes, chalk marks, etc.  Body mounting couplers and FVM wheelsets as I go.

[rogergperkins]

[bbussey]

No hands-on work this week, just trying to get through "setting the field" digitally for the spring, summer and autumn.

[delamaize]

Got the engineer side of the A-5 done today, Minus the archer rivets. Still gotta finish the tender before moving on to the other side.

So after looking at the picture, I realise that I am missing the cab hand rails, and I was going to put some bands on it also, and of course the archer rivets, if they ever get here. Guess I am not done after all.

Also, I decided I needed a way to run my Bachmann trolley without overhead wires, so I fabed up a generator car kinda like this one: http://homepage.mac.com/cearl/trolley/

I literally threw it together in probably 30 mins. I'm ok with how it looks though, it does the job. once I go to decoder it, I'll probably rebuild it.