Weekend Update 3/31/19

[SP-Wolf]

Was that the Desert Daylight that ran on SP's narrow gauge in Inyo County; the former Carson and Colorado?

Nope -- The slim princess ran the #1 a GE 50 ton machine -- affectionately called the "Little Giant"
The 70 tonners were used on passenger trains in Arizona for a time. (I'm at work so I don't have access to my library to give better details)

Wolf

[JMaurer1]

C855B: Give me a bigger hint where in Pomona and I might be able to help. Grew up in Ontario and spent more than a few days along the tracks in Pomona (I was much braver back then). Now the only way anyone is caught there is dead...BAD neighborhood (I left SoCal for NorCal almost 30 years ago but still go back to see the parents). I remember the big military factory right at the 57 but not a paint factory there or east of there...

[RRRover]

JMaurer1: I grew up in Montebello, but shot a lot in Pomona. The plant C855B is referring to I believe is straight across the tracks from the old General Dynamics plant (high school GF's dad was their press secretary). I'm looking for shots of the area, but it may be a while since they're on slides. I know I have shots of SP trains taken off the 57 bridge and on-ramp - risky because of traffic, but at 16 or 17 who cared?!

[Cajonpassfan]

Speaking of paint factories, remember that place in Pomona next to SP, a little east of the 57 overpass? They had a spur, so there are loose plans to model my recollection of it. The factory with several materials hoppers is long gone, so lacking an easy reference it'll have to be freelanced. Interestingly, the spur is still there serving some manner of warehouse. The model will obviously need "cool colors" and "warm colors" loading docks.

Sorry, but I don't, it's been 45 years since went to Cal Poly and I seem to recall being more interested in ladies at the time. Was this east of 57, west of 71? North side?
Otto

[C855B]

It may have been east of 71, but for some reason I am not remembering 71 at that location, I always accessed 71 from 60. Is it possible 71 was extended to I-10 after our time there? Color me confused.

The paint plant was right about where the UP started its split IIRC. The GD plant was pretty big, but - again, faded recollections from 45 years ago - I think the paint company may have been just east of GD, on the north side.

[chuck geiger]

Finally settled in Page, AZ. Modeling on hold for a few months. I have two consulting projects, in Alaska and here working on. But I have a room! (shhhhh don't want to anger the wife gods).


Near Page


I found Arbo.


Transcon near Winona

I have all the red dirt and sage armatures anyone needs.

[MK]

You went from one beautiful place to another!  Lucky you! 

[Bruce Bird]

Nearing competition of what I've come to realize is my first railwire collaboration. 3D printed WM 66t hopper printed at home on my photon. A big thanks to all the guys in the photon thread for sharing your experiences, thanks to @wm3798 for the decal artwork, and thanks to @peteski for printing them up! All that's left is to put the stripes across the ladder that goes on the right side 
 

Nice looking car!  Can I get about a hundred of those?

Bruce

[jpf94]

Started a new switching layout, based on the old Weyerhaeuser facility that was here in Saint Paul, shown here in 2006-



Today I used a 12" x 63" sheet of 3/4 lauan plywood, 2x3 steel stud and track, a handful of screws, some cork sheet and some still wet craft paint:



Here's the track plan, it's about 50% compressed but the number of cars and proto operations remain intact:



The key is that the run around lead into Franklin Avenue is one locomotive in length, opening a gate and blocking traffic and other fun 

I have some leads soldered to the turnouts, have to add some to the flex yet then tracklaying can start. Also need to design a cassette for the switching lead, something lightweight and simplified. 

-Lucas

Looking forward to seeing this layout progress. 

you in St Paul area?

Joe

[brokemoto]

The 70 tonners were used on passenger trains in Arizona for a time.

Those must have been some slow passenger trains.  What is the top speed of a 70 tonner?  ..................thirty five MPH on straight and level?

[Onizukachan]

Just a quick picture showing what I am alternatively working on with the T-Trak Challenge. A modified Con-Cor SP C30-4 bay window caboose, a 3D printed SP C40-3 cupola caboose on an Atlas 1st gen underframe (there's my retro contribution) , a NP 30' wood caboose (old Robert Ray kit), and a SP MOW water car built from leftover IM parts. Next step is the paint shop. Assuming that the SP cabooses come out well, that will allow me to jettison the Traincat kits (I like working in wood or styrene , but brass kits drive me batty).

T

The irony... I just cut up one of those atlas to do the Concor c30-4 conversion. I narrowed the Atlas subframe  and used the middle most crossmembers to match them up to the concor center frame section, instead of a bay caboose frame and the outermost crossmember on the concor. I did not relocate the smoke jack to the other side, but am considering melting the end of the sacrificial neon yellow con cor smoke jack to see if I can file and reshape it into the correct SP “can” style smoke jack.



Interested in how your 3D print comes out, though I bet these days someone with a resin printer could do a much much better job than shapeways seems to be doing recently with their “new & improved” aka more expensive machines.


Asfor me, I finished the tavern car, it has a drastically cut down 3mm color changing RGB hidden inside the bar,  and I made the bar “mirror” with a strip of styrene bent to an arc, and stretched a piece of aluminum foil over it.
Way overkill since you can’t even really see it with the shell on, but I wanted to do it anyway. No room for a decoder in this one, so I piggybacked the color changer off the Kato light’s bridge rectifier.

Color changers restart at red when power is interrupted, so on DCC without a rectifier it never changed colors. Might have to put a couple of 100 uf smd caps parallelEd on it too. Just hate trying so solder something that small, if some one sold those and smd 1k resistors prewired i d buy em! Shoot, I’d buy  40 of then and then put 2 on every Kato 11-213 I have.

[milw12]

Looking forward to seeing this layout progress. 

you in St Paul area?

Joe

Hey Joe, thanks for the kind words. Saint Paul and proud

Here's a link to the new layout thread for those interested:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=46807.0

Good stuff all around this week, as usual 

-Lucas