Weekend Update 9/2/12

[up1950s]

 
UP 819 progress
 

 

[JSL]

That kicks a$$hat Richie!

[superturbine]

Hey Richie...looks great.  I forgot are you painting black or grey hound?  Just a thought...  It may be challenging to install the handrails and painting with smoke lifters installed. 

[BCRail_FSJ]

Change of pace this week.  Flew up to Fort Nelson for a few days which included some railfanning...

Lots of pictures here:
http://s1048.photobucket.com/albums/s377/Andy_BCR/Fort%20Nelson%20Trip%20-%20August%202012/

Hopefully a more on-topic modelling post by the end of the long weekend.

[spookshow]

Still plugging away on my AB6 -



Cheers,
-Mark

[bc6]

This labor day weekend I'll be working on digitizing my Kato RDC and adding strobe lights on both ends. To get you you started below are a couple of pics, please visit in depth pictorial how to here if you're interested.

[up1950s]

Hey Richie...looks great.  I forgot are you painting black or grey hound?  Just a thought...  It may be challenging to install the handrails and painting with smoke lifters installed.

Black , the lifters lift off the hoops because they are ACCed , in fact they are off now . After painting I will Goo them on .

[wazzou]

An old model but taken with a new lens.

[James Costello]

^ Hawt.

[eric220]

Careful with that header image there, Richie.  You risk upsetting a major can of worms there.  As for me, I'm just glad to see another image of her in one piece.

Before my dad left, we got a little more work done.  We laid the Idaho Springs siding.



And we installed the River City freight yard.



The west ladder still has to be installed, but it just leads to an as-yet-unbuilt engine terminal, so we didn't bother.

I've been playing around with operating two trains at once.  I've discovered that there are several items that need to be tweaked, such as the coupler pins on much of my rolling stock.  Even with the wrinkles to iron out, I got to try something that I've been looking forward to for a long time.  I managed to have a passenger train pass a slower freight by running wrong-way with neither train slowing for the passing maneuver.  This should be a fun railroad to operate on when it's all done.

Oh, and one more thing.  With my wife's permission, I expanded my brass collection by one locomotive.

[Ike the BN Freak]

An old model but taken with a new lens.

Who made this car? Interesting car

[NARmike]

Those bridge photos and video brought back some old memories, Andy. I first crossed it in the late 80's when it was the only way to access the "Sierra" oil field east of Fort Nelson. Do they still have the signal lights running that would tell you if the train was near before you crossed? Kinda made a guy wonder "what if these lights aren't working?"

Oh... Congratulations should go out to Andy too. I just finished reading his article in N Scale Mag. about how to remove the retroreflective striping from rolling stock. Well done, my friend! Another A$$HAT published... is this going to be a monthly thing?

On my end... I'm just about finished my Heart River bridge deck. Thanks to "The Wire" for motivating me!
All that's missing is the railings on the walkway (bought some scale lumber yesterday) and it's ready for paint. Once it's painted the rails and guardrails will be installed.



I couldn't resist doing a mock-up with the rails in place!



Pretty soon it's going to be time to start on the scenery... Speaking of scenery...

So, I'm in Red Deer yesterday and figured I'd stop in at the local hobby shop. I asked my wife to check on-line just in case there was another shop in town that I didn't know about. "Yes there is." she says, "Extreme Hobbies, RC specialists and model railraod.".

"Hmmmm" I say, "RC specialists... doesn't sound very promising." but I figure I'll check it out anyway. You never know.

I got in to the shop and, sure enough, nothing railroady in sight, so I asked the clerk if he had any model railroad items, as we had seen when we looked it up. "No" he says "We are getting out of the RR business. We just have a couple items left... and a bunch of Woodland Scenics stuff we are selling as a lot"

Woodland Scenics? That got my attention. I'm just about ready for that stage, so I asked him for details. He printed me a list... $4000 worth, retail... asking $500. 

Long story short.... I paid $425 for $4000 worth of senery materials 

Ballast, Static grass, flocking, trees, armatures, ground foam, heat guns...everything! I can't believe this guy was even stocking this much stuff! So here's a few pics of the haul. The picture of the stuff on the table is about half of the loose stuff I got... I still have to go through it all to see what I can use and what I can sell but I think I'll be able to use about 70% of the stuff!!!!!!





JACKPOT!!!!!!!



Mike Maisonneuve
Modeling the Northern Alberta Railways' Peace River subdivision in N scale
http://nscalenar.blogspot.ca/

[chuck geiger]

Mike I had that happen, not on your scale, but in Dallas in the early 90's, the
Michael s MJD Design was clearing out Woodland Scenics. 60% off most if it. I
had most of the that up until I sold everything to move to Alaska.

[BCRail_FSJ]

Those bridge photos and video brought back some old memories, Andy. I first crossed it in the late 80's when it was the only way to access the "Sierra" oil field east of Fort Nelson. Do they still have the signal lights running that would tell you if the train was near before you crossed? Kinda made a guy wonder "what if these lights aren't working?"

Mike..  yes they have overhead flashing lights that go off but no bells.   You can see the light masts at the beginning of this video I shot a few years ago while driving over the bridge

 The train stops before proceeding across the bridge and the crew lean on the horn enthusiastically.  You would have to be seriously tuned out not to notice it was there. There is a new route into the Sierra oil field now so this road doesn't see much traffic now.  In the old days there apparently could be quite a back up of trucks on both sides of the bridge after the train went over.  We used some incredibly dodgy swampy back roads to race the train to Elleh siding.. and barely made it. 

Heart creek bridge looks great.  Are those Peace River bridge spans in the background?  Good find on the scenic materials.  I know where to come when I run out now.

I will keep writing articles if people are willing to listen to my BC Rail-centric ramblings.

[ednadolski]

Ballast, Static grass, flocking, trees, armatures, ground foam, heat guns...everything!

Wow Mike that's quite the score!   Now ya gotta build something with all that -- or else open your own LHS! 

BTW the bridge is looking mighty fine too, nice work!

Ed