Weekend Update 7/22/12

[Scottl]

It has been a long time since I did any modelling, but I managed to finish a few projects and start some track laying.

I decalled my 40' well cars and installed Gold Medal etches on the Walthers well cars.  My TTX yellow is a bit bright, but I'll tone that down with some fading and weathering of both.



With the last turnouts in hand, I started to figure out the track plan for the pulp mill yard.  I'm trying to envision this before committing.  The pink foam block is the location of what will become the steam and power cogeneration plant, and the white foam piece is the location of a tank unloading station.  I don't have room to model the logs or sawdust coming in, I think.



Of course, I cleaned the LHS out of the last of Atlas code 55 flex track and I'm three pieces short.  A trip to the big city is probably the solution in a week or so.

While I was at it, I took an oblique photo over the Hornepayne yard.  It is starting to take shape!



Cheers,
Scott

[fifer]

Here is finally a method I came up with to make N Scale (or HO) yuccas.
 I will try to do a how to and post it on our site soon.
 It only requires Tan, white and grey craft paint, woodland yellow grass turf, woodland white flowers and silflor summer tufts and thick ACC.
 
Here are the results on the work bench.



Mike

[PAL_Houston]

Made some progress ballasting on the Mt. Morris branch....


and the sidings at Oregon....


I also ran some trains 

[SAH]

I did some scenery work today.  Details in the layout section.


Also ran the Mason Creek Shifter on the CSX Shenandoah Division on Saturday.  Good fun.

Steve

[Dave V]

Nice work at all; Dave's modeling makes me more and more interested in modeling Penn Central/Conrail in the 1970s/80s, very nice

Thanks!  It was both an exciting and a sad era.  So many flags falling, yet so much variety remained.  And while railroading in the Northeast appeared to be in its death spiral, amongst the patch-jobs and predecessor roads took root the seeds of a whole new age of profitable railroading.  Like many Gen Xers, this is what I saw as a young child.  With the 40' and 50' boxcars proudly bearing the names of dozens of Class I owners and cabooses on the end of every train, this was still railroading in the traditional sense.

And yet someday my kids will tell of how they miss the black Dash-9s whisking double-stacks along the Juniata, or ask who remembers when Amtrak still operated intercity passenger service...   

[chuck geiger]

Seward, Alaska for a Salmon fishing weekend and some rail action: http://alaskarail.blogspot.com/

[MichaelWinicki]

Just an outstanding scene Steve!

The track-plan in that area flows very nicely.

The varying ballast colors take the scene to the next level.

And putting the trees in front of the backdrop comes off very well.

The only minor thing I think you could do is paint the railjoiners a dark color so they "disappear" but other than that it's pretty much a perfect scene.

[eric220]

Haven't gotten much modeling done this weekend (although my weekend extends through Wednesday this week, so there's still time), but I did get some administrative work done.  Apple recently shut down MobileMe, which I was using to host my photos and blog for my website.  I spent some time today recreating my photo galleries and blog on my new hosting service.  It was an interesting experience, in that I realized just how long it has been since I updated both my photos and blog.  (As a minor action, feels shame.)  Regardless, the whole website is now updated and functional again, and I invite everyone to take a gander.

http://www.pennsylvania-railroad.com

Edit: Of particular interest for this group, I finally made good on a year+ old promise to write Conrail back into my alternate history.  That opens the door to a project that I've had on the bench since last year's RailBQ.  Now I just need to hit the LTS for some paint...

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Lots of nice stuff.
SAH, that photo dosen't show much but I had to do a dubble take to make sure it wasn't real. I love the tall shrubs working their way onto the line. It reminds me of older BAR trackage outside of Bangor.

Dave, those telegraph wires along the bridge really make the scene pop.

BR_Rail:
That is a major hack job. Why use the RS11 over the RS10/18 from TLT?

[wm3798]

Dropped a decoder into an old lead-blob BL-2.  Clearing the surgery table for a particularly interesting project...

Lee

[conrail98]

Nothing for me as I'm still on vacation, now in Willmar, Mn, where you can here BNSF all night long. Got the photo of my daughter at Wisconsin Dells and even got to see a CP manifest roll through while doing it,

Phil

[sizemore]

Made the final push into the "new" (for me) home this weekend. ACME Labs is almost ready to resume work on the LRV #1805/#1806, the Skunkwerks is ready to begin on Super-Berk Numero Dos.

The S.

[ednadolski]

Finished up on this weathered boxcar, details and more pics posted at: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=26740.msg272335#msg272335

Ed

[SAH]

Just an outstanding scene Steve!

The track-plan in that area flows very nicely.

The varying ballast colors take the scene to the next level.

And putting the trees in front of the backdrop comes off very well.

The only minor thing I think you could do is paint the railjoiners a dark color so they "disappear" but other than that it's pretty much a perfect scene.

Thanks Daniel and Michael.  "Perfect" is a word that certainly does not come to mind when I consider my efforts.  It helps to have a cool prototype to copy though.   

[Guilford Guy]

Lots of nice stuff being shown this week!
Last weekend I tore out the trackage and scenery from the 4x8 and started roughing in the new trackplan. I'm now waiting on a box of cork to arrive so I can get started on tracklaying 2.0! I still need to hunt down a half dozen c55 turnouts, though they're not essential at this stage.