Weekend Update 10/20/19

[BCR 570]

Today fellow RW member Michael Batten and I took in the Chilliwack Train Show, which has been hosted for the last 21 years by the Mt. Cheam Lions Club.  This year is their last show.  We met up with Tim Anderson (Ngineering) and Dave Mackinnon (Details N Scale), and also had a nice visit with friends at the Mt. Rainer modular layout.

This was also a big day for my Motive Power Department, with some engines returning to duty, some reaching structural completion, and others joining the fleet after receiving their digital installations.

ALCO C-425 812 is back in service after a strange malfunction whereby the sound of the prime mover would throttle up and down, but the motor would not turn. I am wondering if F9 Drive Hold somehow became latched (although it did not display as such on my LH100 throttle).  It seems a lot happier now:




M-630s 710 and 717 also returned home after some adjustments including additional capacitance, changes to cab lighting colour, and reduction in volume to 70%.  717 has never run well at all and received new Dofasco truck assemblies which appear to have helped significantly:




After a few final adjustments, my last two big "ALCOs" are now complete and on their way south for the digital work.  They are M-630 722 and M-630W 729:




And my long-awaited new RS-3 models are finally home after receiving their decoders, speakers, capacitance and lighting.  PGE 567, BCR 570 and BCR 574:






Their arrival at Chetwynd was the first appearance of RS-3s on my layout as my two older models were never converted to DCC:




Tied up at night on the shop tracks:




Tim

[Caleb Austin]

I use Evergreen V Groove siding with some .010 x .020 strip glued in the grooves.

Thanks! I'll check that out.

@Caleb Austin What do you use for your base layer of scenery? It all looks so natural!

Thank you. I start off with really dirt, followed by various static grasses and ground foam.I go into more detail here:https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=39769.45

Caleb.

[DKS]

Anyone have a good recommendation for N scale standing seam roofing?

Many modelers use Evergreen board-and-batten siding, but the ribs are too large and square. While it's quite difficult to get those sharp raised ribs in N Scale, I've found a technique that comes close.

Scribe some plain sheet styrene with a knife to create parallel marks at the desired spacing. Take some magnet wire, wrap it tightly around the styrene sheet, and bond it into the scribe lines with CA. Trim off the excess wire, and lightly coat the sheet with spray-on adhesive. Then take aluminum foil (dull side up) and apply it to the styrene, using a wad of paper towel to firmly burnish the foil onto and around the wire "ribs."

[BCR751]

I figured out how to cut a coupler pocket a little wider and file down the shank on the couplers to get a ScaleTrains bulkhead flatcar to negotiate the curves on my layout without dragging the adjacent cars onto the ground.  This picture shows the before and after of the work on the coupler shank.  Success!





More on the Seaboard Central 3.0 thread in the Layout Engineering Forum.

DFF

That sure looks like an HO coupler to me.  What's it doing in the N and Z Scales section?

Doug

[C855B]

That sure looks like an HO coupler to me.  What's it doing in the N and Z Scales section?

"Weekend Update" is a headliner in our headliner forum, and we agreed quite a while ago to include everybody's modeling activity updates for the week for all scales.

[mu26aeh]

Have you somehow missed all of the years' worth of updates from @davefoxx @Dave V and others working in HO, not to mention contributions in Z and T Scales? WUD has been pan-scale since its inception.

And placed in the N scale section because its the most visited section

[BCR751]

"Weekend Update" is a headliner in our headliner forum, and we agreed quite a while ago to include everybody's modeling activity updates for the week for all scales.

I see. 

Doug

[BCR751]

Have you somehow missed all of the years' worth of updates from @davefoxx @Dave V and others working in HO, not to mention contributions in Z and T Scales? WUD has been pan-scale since its inception.

Okie Dokie.  I sit corrected.  Although, if it is actually for 'all scales', why don't we see stuff from O, S, G, TT, 1"etc?  Oh, never mind.

Doug

[bnsfdash8]

With the dynamic brakes draw, I think the GP59 demonstrator shell is finished. Now to complete the physical model.

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[peteski]

Okie Dokie.  I sit corrected.  Although, if it is actually for 'all scales', why don't we see stuff from O, S, G, TT, 1"etc?  Oh, never mind.

Doug

If you keep pointing things like this out Doug, you might get pounced on by some guy who likes to miscount rivets.  Just a warning - the riveting hammer might just drop without a warning. 

[hegstad1]

Working on the Milwaukee Road E35.

[thomasjmdavis]

Okie Dokie.  I sit corrected.  Although, if it is actually for 'all scales', why don't we see stuff from O, S, G, TT, 1"etc?  Oh, never mind.

Doug

Well, this is the "N and Z Scales" section.  Nothing to prevent opening a similar thread (if there isn't one already) in the "HO and Larger Scales" or even "Crew Lounge".  We could open one in "Prototype Railroads" where Warren Buffet and other folks who own full sized railroads could talk about what they did over the weekend....

[wazzou]

Thanks! I'll check that out.

Caleb.

@Caleb Austin
Here is the result of what I was referring to.
I was working at changing this AMB Elevator from wood siding to corrugated metal siding.  I've got it all cut and scribed, I just need to attach it, eventually.
You can see an example of this at the end of the uppermost level.

[Missaberoad]

Working on the Milwaukee Road E35.

Very nice, constantly fighting the Rocky mountain division temptation...

[SD452XR]

Working on the Milwaukee Road E35.

Wow! What are you using for the power?