Weekend Update 4/9/23

[mu26aeh]

Never say never.  I have turnouts that will be on their 3rd layout that have been ballasted, some of them twice.  It just depends your method of ballasting and cleaning.  Yeah, I've lost a couple but its not the end for all of them.

Continued work on the truck loadout.  More on the CSX Hanover Sub engineering thread

[pdx1955]

A JFRTM moment: SP's 1st class freight, the Pacific Coast Expediter, heads north towards Portland...

[craigolio1]

More Scenery Work







Still have more blending to do, a road, a bridge and a river   

That looks really good!!

Would mind sharing your paint (colouring?) process from bare plaster? I’m struggling with this and have stalled.

Craig.

[nickelplate759]

A little progress on my SP 6001 Golden State power - number boards!

[TrainCat2]

I never got a chance last week to post so you guys have a double whamy. First up is I finished the pier building last week. I added my SS walkways to the tackle beams and then got it painted and weathered the beams & walkways.







I also finished the module construction and got two of them inside. I have to get rid of a couch I no longer need before I can put all three in place. In the meantime, I began transferring the design to the cork and checking the layout of the buildings I have so far.





Lastly, I made my first complicated piece of Fast Tracks using #5 turnouts. This will go right in front of the warehouses.

[altohorn25]

Working on the Skytop parlor car for my 1953 Morning Hiawatha.  This will be lettered as "Dell Rapids" when finished.

Jim Stillman resin shell mounted on a Kato chassis. 

Cleaned up, primed, and ready for paint.

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[MichaelWinicki]

My neck of the woods.

To the left-rear of the photographer (Who's on a bridge-PA Rt 346) was something unusual when it came to railroading...

There were 2 narrow gauge lines–Kendall & Eldred RR, Rew City & Eldred RR, that connected to the line you see in the image.  In order to reach the line seen in the image, the two narrow gauge lines ran parallel for about 3 miles.  And when I say parallel, I mean right next to each other.

[sd45elect2000]

Working on the Skytop parlor car for my 1953 Morning Hiawatha.  This will be lettered as "Dell Creek" when finished.

Jim Stillman resin shell mounted on a Kato chassis. 

Cleaned up, primed, and ready for paint.

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You meant Dell Rapids of course.

Randy

[dnhouston]

That looks really good!!

Would mind sharing your paint (colouring?) process from bare plaster? I’m struggling with this and have stalled.

Craig.

@craigolio1 - It is basically four (4) colors, done as washes (the paints are thinned 50/50 with water):
1) India Ink and Alcohol - Let this dry completely
2) Vallejo 71.291  US Earth Yellow - spot applied by airbrush
3) Vallejo 71.140  US Desert Sand - spot applied by airbrush
4) Vallejo 71.122  US Desert Armour - lightly sprayed over everything to tone it down and blend it together
5) After the paint dries, I apply several more coats of the India Ink & Alcohol wash to tone bring in the grays and shadows - letting it dry completely between each coat - each coat makes it a little more grayish until I get the tone I'm after

[Dayliner]

Well, it's done! Today I finished painting and installing the fascia at Lake Cowichan.  There are a few finishing touches still to come (primarily Lamicoid panels showing track schematic and turnout routings), but this first major rebuild on my layout is now essentially complete.

The first picture shows the fascia at the west end of Lake Cowichan, framing Wellcox yard below.  This is a much lower angle than one would normally view this area, but even at this low angle, none of the wiring or turnout control apparatus under Lake Cowichan is visible.  Wellcox yard is now well lit, but I haven't yet installed the new backdrop there, which will hide the brackets supporting Lake Cowichan.  I'll install the backdrop once the scene (Nanaimo harbour) is painted on the skyboard.


This is the west end of Lake Cowichan; the large structure in the foreground is the Chemainus mill lumber shed (under construction), which hides the entrance to Wellcox yard through the backdrop.  The station name sign designates Lake Cowichan at the point where the CN Cowichan sub diverges from the E&N Lake Cowichan sub.  This would have been mile 17.7, 0.3 mi east of the actual station location.


There's not much to see after all that work, but I guess that's the point!

[altohorn25]

You meant Dell Rapids of course.

Randy

Yes......was looking at a photo of the skytop sleepers when I was typing......nice catch

Dell Rapids is correct.

[altohorn25]

Progress on Dell Rapids

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[altohorn25]

Finished for this evening.

I still need to add window glass, more parlor chairs in the interior, and a very light weathering on the trucks.

The colors blend in a bit better with the Kato cars than the photos represent.

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[samusi01]

Most of my week's progress was 3d printing. Finally got this project far enough along to give a shot at printing it.

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Each M107X needs eleven wheels, and each smaller HEMTT needs nine. Throw in four massive LeTourneau wheels and my word... that's a lot. of. wheels.

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The earlier (A2 variant) HEMTTs turned out relatively good, and the later ones need better support as some of the filters didn't print correctly. I also didn't support the E-CHU (the black part in front of the red container) correctly and one arm failed to print correctly. The LeTourneau turned out relatively good for being a rescaled model (original files in HO scale), with only a few parts being too small to be workable. Most of the radiator fan blades printed and the holes in the exhaust pipes show up.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Having lunch with my friend Bill who I haven't seen in years today. Gonna drag him back to see the layout so I spent some time getting it ready for a visitor.

It all looks like such a disaster zone still, but this is somehow an improvement, lol.

The good news is that we can JFRTM, and THAT's what matters!

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Speaking of, here's BAPI ready to go after making its pickup at Windsor St.
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And HERE's part of the reason for a lack of progress. This is the new and improved Shep Squad, featuring our boy Damian (in his "sometimes I need a hand down stairs" vest), Darcy (who knows what you did), and young Sadie, who just wants to say hi to everyone. Sadie is a recent 4mo old addition. She's our first foster fail with the Mid Atlantic German Shepherd Rescue (https://magsr.org/).

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