Weekend Update 1/27/19

[mark dance]

I joined Gary at La Mesa this weekend (with friends Riley Triggs and Brian Stokes) checking off bucket list items...



The last train I ran took 6 (real!) hours to make it the 25+ scale miles from Bakersfield, climbing the west slope to Tehachapi, and then into Mojave and beyond.  The train was 63 cars and my 4 f units had help from a cab forward 2/3rds back piloted by ex-SP engineer Mike Smith.  Wow.  Very impressive.  The longest train I was involved with topped 75 cars and had two mid train ACs where I was conductor and a helper engineer.  It was the fourth of five or six sections if I remember correctly.  Then the light engine extras to get the pushers back down would take another 2-3 hours.

Surprisingly they don't use radio and wifi was not reliable so finding plug in jacks was always exciting!







On the C&W side, other  than decompressing from the shop build, we ran our first op session in 6 months.  We implemented a loco hostler role partnered with the Nelson east swither and this was cool.  Regular operator Rene Gourley took this on and had many good suggestions.  Gary and Tim were also in the crew.  I am aiming for another session in March.













Finally, I finished a few CPR portable structures and a couple of Geoff G's two-holers.  Now to plant them.





md

[Blazeman]

I got to operate Saturday on Joe Desmond's Central Jersey Conrail in N Scale on Saturday.

Phil

Is that Mario in one of the photos?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wait, does this mean Mark and Gary were on the same flight? I thought the Railwire's insurance prohibited that.

[GaryHinshaw]

LOL.  Only on the return flight, after the air traffic controllers were back on paid status.

[GhengisKong]

Being a curmudgeon, I feel I need to let this off my chest:  This show doesn't have a good solid name which flows off your tongue.  Some people call it "Springfield show", others call it "Amherst show", yet others call it "Big-E show".  Neither is really correct. The actual name is "Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show", which is way too long to use. Even just "Railroad Hobby Show" is too long to use and too generic.  It needs a less ambiguous, simpler, and more memorable name. Maybe we all should just call it ARSRHS? Neah, that's too long, and difficult to pronounce or remember. Or maybe RHS?  That would work I guess. Or maybe just ARS Show?  Sort of sounds like "arse". Something unambiguous, and easily remembered.    

How about the ARS(prounounced arse) Show?

[peteski]

How about the ARS(prounounced arse) Show?

Exactly! 

[Cajonpassfan]

I joined Gary at La Mesa this weekend (with friends Riley Triggs and Brian Stokes) checking off bucket list items...


md

Engineers should keep their eyes on the road, instead of hamming it up!
Nice shot though, and what a layout!
Otto K.

[x600]

Wow, missed you guys by 1 day. I too was filling in a bucket list item and a few of my wife's. The wife and I spent 2 days in SD and exploring Balboa park.
I watched those SF Fs pull a train through the loop on Thursday. What a great layout, cool that you guys got to operate on it. It was great to see really long trains in that scale. They didn't seem so Horribly Oversized in that environment! 
 Funny thing is we left SD and actually drove up to Tehachapi to visit family. I didn't get to see any trains on the actual loop, but there was a welded rail in the siding east of town. I would have liked to see that go around the loop. I did get to visit the museum in the station for a little while.


Greg O

[arbomambo]

added some weathering and rigged the boom...I would usually use MT Tru-Scale couplers on this, but I intended it as a T-TRAK runner so I'll have to use MT trucks with couplers...
a little clear matte coat, some oil streaking, and I'm going to call this one 'done'...

[CRL]

added some weathering and rigged the boom...I would usually use MT Tru-Scale couplers on this, but I intended it as a T-TRAK runner so I'll have to use MT trucks with couplers...
a little clear matte coat, some oil streaking, and I'm going to call this one 'done'...

Looks good.

Years ago, I was trying to make thread look more like cable, and I was running out of options. As a last resort, I tried coating the thread with some black Kiwi shoe polish. It tamed the fuzzy look of the thread and looked like the asphalt like material used to coat new galvanized cable. I also tried brown polish, but didn’t care for the look. Might want to try it in a sample of thread and see what you think. It was a long time ago, so it might not be as good as I remember.

[peteski]

Looks good.

Years ago, I was trying to make thread look more like cable, and I was running out of options. As a last resort, I tried coating the thread with some black Kiwi shoe polish. It tamed the fuzzy look of the thread and looked like the asphalt like material used to coat new galvanized cable. I also tried brown polish, but didn’t care for the look. Might want to try it in a sample of thread and see what you think. It was a long time ago, so it might not be as good as I remember.

Ship modelers pull the rigging string through beeswax (candle would also work), to control the "fuzzies".

[CRL]

I was just a kid and didn’t have any beeswax, so it was a choice of messing with Mama’s candles, or Dad’s shoe polish.

You didn’t mess with Mama, sooooo...

[jagged ben]

I joined Gary at La Mesa this weekend (with friends Riley Triggs and Brian Stokes) checking off bucket list items...



...

So what kind of connections do you need to get to do that?   

[up1950s]

Not a Wabash bridge -- that was the old Monon/L&N/CSX line.

I just mentioned Wabash as a Indiana word that sounds like rubbish in the comment made . Twas a poor hehehe .

[mark dance]

So what kind of connections do you need to get to do that?   

Only the best! 

I am not sure of the conventional process...I think you just contact them through the web page.

I am fortunate that the C&W has played host to Don Mitchell a number of times as part of VanRail and Don is senior in the club...and a great guy!  He forwarded our request along and I can't help but think that helped get the 4 of us invited to this quarterly invitational session. 

However I *was* left with the impression they are short crew for their monthly sessions.

md