Weekend Update 12/1/13

[up1950s]

[John]

I'm thinking Hawaii

[mark dance]

OK, I guess I am the first to progress modeling work for the week.

Work continues on the two steel bridges…this week it was the cut stone piers and abutments.  I cut, filed and ground them from various Chooch cast resin pieces.



Here they are glued in place.  Both bridges are just resting on their stone foundations right now as I need to remove them to scenic around the piers.  When I put in the roadbed oh-those-many-years-ago (7?) I luckily cut precise profile boards from 3/4" plywood below the line that each bridge would take.  These profile boards have greatly simplified installation of all the piers as they have given me a known level relative to the track height and something to glue the piers to.







And here is an overview of the aisle where the two bridges are located.  The location of the final bridge I need to build is just around the corner between the two.



I also assembled a nice little Osborn Beaver kit for something different to do and made 30 or so Super trees.  The trees will be installed around the bases of the bridge piers next week to finish off the scenes.





Have a great weekend and a happy Thanksgiving to all TRW members in the States.


md

[wcfn100]

Quartered my first steam locomotive driver.

My son's Lionel O Scale  Polar Express bound up to where it wouldn't run.  Something went awry when they pressed the driver on the shaft.  There was a bunch of debris on the end of the shaft and the driver had worked itself loose (this was the geared driver with traction tires).

Got some red Loctite from Home Depot and eyeballed the quartering and pressed it on with my adjustable pliers.

Steam's easy. 

Jason

[C855B]

Won a Pettibone-Milliken switchstand on eBay:



Two purposes - first is as a mailbox post for the layout building, second is having a reference prototype for the P-M switchstands the UP commonly used that I can hopefully model. (However, not with that ugly plastic flag/reflector!)  I already have a set of red/green Scotchlited metal flags in a more "traditional" configuration that will go on the post instead. I don't dare put a lantern on it - you just know it would vanish.

[Sokramiketes]

Won a Pettibone-Milliken switchstand on eBay:



Two purposes - first is as a mailbox post for the layout building, second is having a reference prototype for the P-M switchstands the UP commonly used that I can hopefully model. (However, not with that ugly plastic flag/reflector!)  I already have a set of red/green Scotchlited metal flags in a more "traditional" configuration that will go on the post instead. I don't dare put a lantern on it - you just know it would vanish.

I saw that up there and was trying to verify it's CGW roots.  Are there any markings on that interesting reflector that is on it?

[wcfn100]

I saw that up there and was trying to verify it's CGW roots.  Are there any markings on that interesting reflector that is on it?

That popped up in my normal searches as well.

I don't think there's any way those reflectors we're CGW.   But could easily be CNW.

If the stand is originally CGW, I would love the dimensions so I could draw it.  I need a bunch.

Jason

[chuck geiger]

Moving to Cheyenne WY for new job this Sunday, wife coming out end of month. In
a hotel for a month and lookie here gonna hit Caboose Hobbies and/or Boulder
Train Show in Longmont on Dec 14-15th - I believe I am getting the band back
together. Small shelf layout to start. Saw some nice used stuff at N Scale Supply
too. Don't know what region, line or topography yet. I sold everything when we
moved to Alaska and starting all over again. I will be posting in TRADING POST
looking for specific items you might want to part with, all small detail items and
some scenic stuff.

 https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRkc2npZMbPyKFA9v-8AWjLxBYL1jzmVHChHmFZ8xwmvghtMft5

[bnsfdash8]

Started weathering NS 5273:

[eja]

OK, I guess I am the first to progress modeling work for the week.



 

Have a great weekend and a happy Thanksgiving to all TRW members in the States.


md

 Mark,

If you plan on running a passenger train over that bridge, I don't think the paying customers willl be too comfortable with the closeness to the edge on that bridge section.

It does look great however ... Happy Holidays

eja

[up1950s]

Started weathering NS 5273:

Wow , especially the fade .

[C855B]

I don't think there's any way those reflectors we're CGW.   But could easily be CNW.

I agree. The reflector head design is from the '70s, the Stimsonite reflectors being invented in the late '60s. Also, where I'm picking it up from is (I think) quite near ex-CNW lines, not CGW. I'll better discern its heritage when I go get it next weekend.

After surfing around for CGW and CNW photos, the only pic I could find of this type of stand was CNW. The one photo of an older stand I found attributed to CGW was a funky cast base with a semaphore flag. It's the rightmost stand in this picture from Wikipedia:



Mike, if you honestly like that reflector head you may have an early Christmas present if I can get it off the post (rust-welded) without destroying it. I thought the things were ugly when they were new, and 40+ years hasn't softened that assessment.

[mark dance]

Mark,

If you plan on running a passenger train over that bridge, I don't think the paying customers willl be too comfortable with the closeness to the edge on that bridge section.

It does look great however ... Happy Holidays

eja

You are absolutley right. The 18" radius curve forced significant compromises. Luckily the viewing height and the location of the model limits the viewing angle and makes it more difficult to notice how close the rear track is to the edge of the bridge. This shot was taken with a camera looking nearly straight down from behind the lighting valence.

Md

[Scottl]

Those scenes are incredible Mark.

[Puddington]

Took a few minutes and did a bit of work on a Prairie Shadows CN Pointe St. Charles van. I weathered the van to emulate a picture found on the CN Photo website. These vans quickly turned a deeper orange and got sooty and fairy dirty.

I aso changed the end hand rails on one end to .012 stainless steel wire (the same type used on the free standing grabs on the model) When I (and some others) saw the piot shots of the models the one comment that came back was that the plastic hand rails used were too thick. I wanted to see what wire rails woud look like. Here's the results.....



As you can see the end rails nearest the camera are the wire rails and the leading edge rails are the plastic ones. There isn't a great difference; albeit the wire ones are a bit thinner. The amount of white paint build up on the plastic rais seemes to have been a bit heavy on some models - but as seen here the stock rails on this model are not too bad.

Anyway; sorry for the poor pic (cell grab) but you can see that a little weathering goes a long way with this neat CN van model.