Weekend Update 12/9/12

[Chris333]

So I built a small 2x4 layout about 3-4 years ago. I never even took a photo of it before... Well I've been running my small steamers in circles on it lately and decided to add turnout throws, then I painted the track. Maybe I'll do some more work on it 

[eric220]

I am just not use to railroads changing their names.

Me neither.



Besides, yours is just the MoPac in Uncle Pete's clothing. 

[Skeebo]

Progress continues on my 1974 Southern Pacific Kaiser Ore drag. I've assembled 72 of the 73 G100-6 cars I've cast so far, whose master I scratchbuild from styrene. My goal is the complete 100 car train. Ive just worn out my second set of molds and will spend the next week pouring another three sets. I miss my Rhodia V240 series of rubber with which I could cast dozens of shells. But I cannot find it in kits less than five gallons now so I've resorted to Smooth-Sil 950 of which I only get about eleven, even with mold release. But I still anticipate completing the train by the new year.

They're made to ride on the new BLMA ASF Ride control 100 ton trucks and have Microtrains 1025 couplers, of which I have all I need.



Earlier this year I completed casting the Kato quality U28C's and superdetailing the Atlas SD35's I'll need to pull them, ten total.

[superturbine]

Progress continues on my 1974 Southern Pacific Kaiser Ore drag. I've assembled 72 of the 73 G100-6 cars I've cast so far, whose master I scratchbuild from styrene. My goal is the complete 100 car train. Ive just worn out my second set of molds and will spend the next week pouring another three sets. I miss my Rhodia V240 series of rubber with which I could cast dozens of shells. But I cannot find it in kits less than five gallons now so I've resorted to Smooth-Sil 950 of which I only get about eleven, even with mold release. But I still anticipate completing the train by the new year.

They're made to ride on the new BLMA ASF Ride control 100 ton trucks and have Microtrains 1025 couplers, of which I have all I need.


Earlier this year I completed casting the Kato quality U28C's and superdetailing the Atlas SD35's I'll need to pull them, ten total.



Nice work...... sweet!!

[davefoxx]

I worked the last twelve days straight with no time off until today.  Spent time with the family, of course, (my daughter turned one year old yesterday ), but I also finally got back into the train room this evening.

I decided to jump into some electrical tasks and began dropping feeders.  I installed about a dozen, which finishes the Southern Pines side of my Seaboard Central HCD layout.

I still need to do more drops on the Aberdeen side in the yard, but I made good progress today.  The bus wire is installed on the Southern Pines side and the feeders are soldered into it.  All of the wiring is inside the HCD, so no wires hang underneath the layout where they could get snagged.  I even took the time to properly install a programming track with a DPDT switch to kill power to the rest of the layout (I used the Southern Ry. interchange, which is about 24" long).  No more removing all of the locomotives from the layout when I want to do some programming.  Woo hoo!

I used 22 gauge wire for the feeders, 20 gauge for some small runs to hook up the command station and the programming track, and 16 gauge for the bus wires.  I color-coded everything.  Red is the outer rail, and yellow is the inner rail.  I was able to find red and yellow wire (and electrical tape!) in these colors.

DFF

[Catt]

My almost but not quite finished Stony Smith/Shapeways Z scale bay window caboose.She needs reporting marks but today is show day so they will wait.

[sirenwerks]

Actually, for cool points, picture the above scheme on four or five AS416s on the head end of a westbound hotshot climbing the prevailing 1% grade out of Wilson.

Actually, it's too bad the new NS didn't adopt the old NS paint scheme from the gitgo, rather than all that black and the horsehead.  Whenever I get stuck at a crossing and see a NS loco go by, I think of the poetry-writing teenagers and the Godfather.

[Cajonpassfan]

Progress continues on my 1974 Southern Pacific Kaiser Ore drag. I've assembled 72 of the 73 G100-6 cars I've cast so far, whose master I scratchbuild from styrene. My goal is the complete 100 car train.

Skeebo, that is impressive! I had lived in Palm Springs for a number of years and remember the Kaiser ore trains battling it up through Whitewater and Banning. Can you please post a photo of one of these cars?
Thanks, Otto K.

[mark dance]

Weathering continues.  Another 40 cars and 2 locos - this time a BN GP30 and GP38 - were completed.  The end is in sight...and my mind is wandering off into other projects already...

C&W Operating sessions resume in a month after a 6 month hiatus.

md

[jereising]

It's the usual busy day at the Oakville engine facility - the smell of diesel hangs heavy.



The shot was kind of an experiment - every now and then I like to play around and get photos that are impossible to get any other way.  This one was taken through a mirror because the camera wouldn't fit any other way.  I also used Helicon Focus to get the depth.  Then flipped it in Photoshop, straightened it, and cropped it.  Simple, right?

[Bremner]

Progress continues on my 1974 Southern Pacific Kaiser Ore drag. I've assembled 72 of the 73 G100-6 cars I've cast so far, whose master I scratchbuild from styrene. My goal is the complete 100 car train. Ive just worn out my second set of molds and will spend the next week pouring another three sets. I miss my Rhodia V240 series of rubber with which I could cast dozens of shells. But I cannot find it in kits less than five gallons now so I've resorted to Smooth-Sil 950 of which I only get about eleven, even with mold release. But I still anticipate completing the train by the new year.

They're made to ride on the new BLMA ASF Ride control 100 ton trucks and have Microtrains 1025 couplers, of which I have all I need.



Earlier this year I completed casting the Kato quality U28C's and superdetailing the Atlas SD35's I'll need to pull them, ten total.

I am sooo drooling!
1. have you thought of selling these cars as kits?
2. did you cast your own lights and roof bell?

[mu26aeh]

It's the usual busy day at the Oakville engine facility - the smell of diesel hangs heavy.



The shot was kind of an experiment - every now and then I like to play around and get photos that are impossible to get any other way.  This one was taken through a mirror because the camera wouldn't fit any other way.  I also used Helicon Focus to get the depth.  Then flipped it in Photoshop, straightened it, and cropped it.  Simple, right?

Must say that the Oakville yard crew does a fabulous job with keeping the fleet clean.  I imagine the overtime must be through the roof though to accomplish this.

[Skeebo]

Thanks, Here is a close up of one of my four U28C's and one of the cars without the extensions as built in the late fifties. I made the molds in three parts so I could run them with early diesels, as delivered or in my favorite era the mid seventies with extensions. You might get away with cab forwards as the last SP steam was retired the same year the G100's came out, but I've never seen a picture of that. The extensions are seperate but with loads already built in. I made a master of the U28C based on the Kato U30C but with a retrofitted radiator section. The radiators are off a U25B. It was actually a lot more work to extend the batteryboxes on the left side than make the main shell. I have molds for all my detail parts to save me money and time. There were many involved in this model. Cab top vents, mars light, bell and bracket, antenna base, Nose light, walkway equipment box, conductor cab face electrical box, cab headlight bezel with glare cups, snow plow. Only the sun shades and windshield wipers are store bought. 

Here is a closeup I had on hand of the two cars with extensions I built up to see how they'd turn out before jumping into making 100. I'm not happy with the paint as I tried to lighten boxcar brown to a color equivelent to the light brown Micro Trains uses on many of thier releases. I need to keep working on that, would anyone know if there is a ready to purchase color like the one Microtrains uses? After I have all 100 there will still be a lot of work to do, etching brass ladders for the ends, air tanks for their bellies and mass producing decals. Micro scale has a set for these but they're too large, they don't fit. I have an ALPS 5000 so I can make my own. Just putting together enough sets of MT 1025's ought to fill a few evenings! I also have fine iron ore to sprinkle over the loads to finish them off.

Will I be making kits for others? I won't even consider it unless I can find a source for V240 rubber in reasonable quantities, as it is the Smooth-sils quick degridation has delayed this projects completion for months. Making molds is one of the more tedious jobs in this process.

[Bremner]

well, if you won't make the kits, how about 2 bells and some EMD light packages? I would be interested, and I know some more peole that would be as well!

[rochsub]

Added a few non railroad industries along side the yard.  Need a bit of work on the loading dock and a few figures.