Weekend Update 6/25/17

[Scottl]

More progress on Skoonka.  MOW had a run through to see if things were OK in the tunnels.

[Rich_S]

Train "99" the Daylight:



Thanks,
Wolf

Hi Wolf, As hard as it is for my Pennsy heart to say this, the Espee Daylight is an extremely attractive train, especially with that semi-streamlined GS4 Northern up front. Very nice 

[SP-Wolf]

Hi Wolf, As hard as it is for my Pennsy heart to say this, the Espee Daylight is an extremely attractive train, especially with that semi-streamlined GS4 Northern up front. Very nice 

Thank you, Rich!!

Much appreciated,
Wolf

[Mike Madonna]

Hi Wolf, As hard as it is for my Pennsy heart to say this, the Espee Daylight is an extremely attractive train, especially with that semi-streamlined GS4 Northern up front. Very nice 

[Mike Madonna]

Train "99" the Daylight:



Thanks,
Wolf

One word.... Sweet!

[Mike Madonna]

Working on another S.P. AC-9

Good to hear! If you posted a photo, I did not see... yet 

[nkalanaga]

The wheels on that HIPPO look like something NASA would use on a Mars rover.  Considering how long those last, with no maintenance, it should work well on Earth.

[John]

Nothing much for me .. I've been building a couple of supertrees each night for the last week, and planting them on the layout in place of some puffballs.  I also replaced the strainer on the home made fly swatter grassinator with one that has a more widely spaced mesh to get better control over the process.

[SP-Wolf]

One word.... Sweet!

Thanks Mike!!

Wolf

[davefoxx]

I completed the conversion of a few more freight cars to Sergent Engineering couplers, so the total now stands at one locomotive, seven freight cars, and one caboose.



DFF

[C855B]

Further progress on the C855 project reported last week:

... Tamiya fine filler over the paint ...

I had a bit of good luck modifying the U50 drawbar and pilots for MTL True Scale Couplers, running a 30-car test train back and forth up a 2% slope with no issues. Now that I have dimensions for all the fillers and extensions to make a conversion that's far less clunky than the original, I am committing the measurements to CAD and hope to send the artwork off to Shapeways in a couple of days. That sure beats hand-fabricating six pilots for the C855s, not to mention having base artwork to convert several U50s later on. It looks like the conversion can also be used with modified 1015 coupler boxes; in either case I'll post them for public consumption at cost.

The Tamiya fine filler seems to do the trick leveling-out the more egregious waffling on the FXD shell. There was a bit of sanding in a couple of spots where the process "shadows" weren't covered, but not a whole bunch of work. I am, however, having to follow-up each coat with an XActo knife to keep the filler from bridging the gap between hood doors.

Minor problem discovered was that the spliced frame is not level, causing the shell to rock a little. I needed to pull it apart anyway to re-shim the motor, so breaking the splices and re-gluing should amount to very little extra effort... knock on wood.

Objective is to have at least the C855B done in time for the UPHS convention the last week of July. We'll see.

[chuck geiger]

Watching ZOOMCO and FOS videos. Great stuff

[dougnelson]

Pittsburgh.  Looking down from the Monongahela Incline.  Station Square and the NSE convention hotel are in the foreground.

[ryan_wilkerson]

Watching ZOOMCO and FOS videos. Great stuff

New zoomco videos? Have a link?

[davidgray1974]

Been a while but I've been busy slowly making progress on the layout addressing signal issues and tidying up wiring.  The last few weeks I've been working on a new coal mine.  Wanted to play with weathering and adding lighting to this structure to add interest.  Still have to add paint and weathering to the roof and add catwalks and steps to the exterior as well as the doors to lower section. 

I also decided to turn my Kato plated girder bridges to an open deck since they did not make them in the length I needed.  Here they are painted and weathered.


As always thanks for looking.

David