Weekend Update 6/19/22

[davefoxx]

Continuing on with my Seaboard System F7 project, I masked and applied the black paint below the sill, and I began decaling:



More on The Carolina Sandhills Lines thread in the Layout Engineering Forum.

DFF

[thbguy]

Looking good Michael.  I suspect those were custom-made decals.
Nice to see another hobby being represented.  I also dabble in model automobiles/trucks/bikes/airplanes.

Yup, @hegstad1 and I have the ALPS printer limping along again. It was great to flex some old muscles, and fun to do totally scratch design, but these decals were really a bear to apply. I ended up double layering silver metallic as a base for the yellow and magenta as it totally disappeared otherwise. Very odd.

Thanks for noticing.

[bnsfdash8]

A little progress on my crane this weekend. I made some small tweaks to the frame as well as giving it a little more detailing.

I also went ahead and drew a new body to resemble a crane that NS uses in my area. It needs a little more work but I'm happy with how it's turning out.

I'll probably spend the coming week working on the mechanism and making sure all the DCC and other bits fit inside and operate well.

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[sd45elect2000]

Balancing that crane isn't a problem.  Notice the rail clamps on the front corners?  There's another pair on the other end.  As long as the weight is within the crane's rating, it won't tip, unless the track itself turns over.

I've seen them turn over with the rail clamps on. These cranes have outriggers on each end and in the center. Without the outriggers the crane will tip with the rail clamps on.
The ones I’ve seen are much larger in the 150-250 ton version.

[Jim Starbuck]

A little progress on my crane this weekend. I made some small tweaks to the frame as well as giving it a little more detailing.

I also went ahead and drew a new body to resemble a crane that NS uses in my area. It needs a little more work but I'm happy with how it's turning out.

I'll probably spend the coming week working on the mechanism and making sure all the DCC and other bits fit inside and operate well.

Looking great!

[daniel_leavitt2000]

A little progress on my crane this weekend. I made some small tweaks to the frame as well as giving it a little more detailing.

I also went ahead and drew a new body to resemble a crane that NS uses in my area. It needs a little more work but I'm happy with how it's turning out.

I'll probably spend the coming week working on the mechanism and making sure all the DCC and other bits fit inside and operate well.

(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Nice!

Did you ever make any progress on the C32-8?

[nkalanaga]

sd45elect2000:  Yes, the larger cranes almost have to use outriggers, or they'll turn over, clamps or no clamps, and probably take the rails with them.  On them, the clamps are mostly used when lifting something in line with the track, as the outriggers usually won't help there.  The clamps help keep the rear wheels from lifting.

I doubt that the one in the header picture will lift more than a few tons, as it appears to be hand-cranked, so the clamps should be enough for it.

[peteski]

Yup, @hegstad1 and I have the ALPS printer limping along again. It was great to flex some old muscles, and fun to do totally scratch design, but these decals were really a bear to apply. I ended up double layering silver metallic as a base for the yellow and magenta as it totally disappeared otherwise. Very odd.

Thanks for noticing.

The decals came out looking good. I'm really surprised you ran into problems.  I usually have no problems with opacity when printing colors over white ink undercoat.  And in my experience metallic silver is totally opaque (even one layer).   Just with single white undercoat layer, if applied over dark color the decal colors will not be really vivid, but they should still be quite visible.

[TiogaTracks]

More progress on “benchwork,” surveying, whichever you choose.  I have a rough count of the number of cinder blocks needed for this garden wall, so the project can move forward!

This will be a 100’ long 0% grade tangent, just mocked up for now.  The loop needs some revision to add custom bent curve transitions.

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Ansonia Junction got adjusted and the plan is finalized.  Can’t wait to switch some interchange traffic!

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I marked lines for where to dig to level the ground for the raised bed garden that will host the other loop, and where to pour material for the fill to meet it.  Again, this entire Penn Central line will be flat and straight.  I feel some irony there!

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Hopefully construction begins in earnest this week!

-Steven

[packers#1]

I managed to find some time over the week to start working on my trackside transfer kit. Got the 4 main walls painted up and glued together. The lines in the white are my attempt at modeling an older white painted brick building where the paint is coming off; it was…less than successful. I think I can work around it to make it passable though.

[nkalanaga]

-Steven:  The current track looks appropriate for the Penn Central!  Any railroad that could literally lose not only freight cars, but entire tracks, because they were overgrown, can be modeled without clearing the grass.

There was a report a few years back, in the national news, of a loaded boxcar found on an abandoned spur.  It had been there long enough that trees had grown through the track, Conrail had assumed the spur was empty and removed the switch, and the industry, whatever it had been, was long gone.  The car was found by some curious bushwhackers, just poking around, to see what was in the "jungle".

[randgust]

Yeah, exactly.   I was at Ansonia in the summer of 1974, driving around as a teenager and had heard about the WAG.  I figured there had to be something at Ansonia so I sought it out.

The only thing there was a PC signboard and grass through the rails.   Lots and lots of grass, hard to tell where the WAG even was, and PC wasn't much better.

I remember having a 'Pocket List of Railway Officials' with me, and thinking that the guy as was listed as the Track Supervisor should be embarrassed.   I remember driving over the main at a crossing and there was no rail visible anywhere except in the pavement!

When you put sound in one of the F-units, put the sound of snoring in one of the cabs, because I found a shop working asleep in the cab at Galeton, snoring quite loudly in mid-day.

More marooned cars out there than you would think; a couple NS 50' boxcars permanently stranded in Cattaraugus, NY after a washout, and a couple insulated boxcars permanently stranded along the Clarion County Rail Trail after the Knox & Kane was embargoed - still there today at Lucinda.  But the ultimate abandoned train was in Mt. Union, PA, where the cut of EBT coal hoppers sat so long with open hopper doors that trees grew up from the rails with seeds falling in the slope sheets, and a full mature Locust forest was there by the mid-90's from the 1956 abandonment, growing right through and above the hoppers.   Those cars finally got cut up not long ago.

[samusi01]

a loaded boxcar found on an abandoned spur.

Years ago - a decade or so - we were setting up a transload on an old Rock Island facility and found the same thing: a tank car, loaded with... something... pushed back to the very end of the spur and a car length or two of track removed between it and the rest of the system. It'd been there ten years or more. When we put in our track the railroad drug it away, as well as the old RI RPO that was also stashed away where we were to put track. At least the RPO found a home, no clue what happened to the tank car.

[Chris333]

About a mile away is a stranded tankcar inside the second floor of a water treatment plant. Right where the truck is backed up on the second floor that opening was once on a trestle. There is a tankcar stuck up there. Not only is the trestle gone, but the rail line to it is now a bike trail
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1550635,-80.7747339,77a,35y,270h,39.43t/data=!3m1!1e3

[TiogaTracks]

I’m enjoying the anecdotes about the, uhh, “flavor” of rural 1970s railroading!  The ability to use that as cover for my many inevitable mistakes is what gave me the confidence to return to this hobby.  But form has to follow function, and I need to get this railroad working before I can make it look like it’s survived well past its expiration date.  So there’s a lot of weeds that have to go!

I’m currently digging up the sod where the block wall will go, in hopes that a delivery of gravel will let me get the site level enough to build on.  The pattern of blocks is awkward, but it does closely fit the curve diameter of the track, and I think it will make a nice gray wall with a brick-red cap layer.

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So… how many of the resident ‘s think I should paint the blocks PC Green? 

-Steven