Weekend Update - 2/18/2007

[John]

Another weekend update .. 18 Feb 2007

[John]

M&O East End Yard

On the old layout east end, I didn't like the yard functionality. It was a little too hard to switch cars because the yard lead wasn't long enough, and there was not enough trackage. I wanted a dedicated car shop, and an engine terminal, with engine shop and turntable. The turntable is on order, the engineshop will be built from the Bachmann kits, and the roundhouse will be a 3 stall. The whole thing will loosely represent Cumberland Md. There is no way to do Cumberland justice in 12 feet, but I hope to catch the flavor ..

This area will be the engine terminal. The loco shop and turntable will be to the left of the refueling rack.



Looking railroad west from the engine termial.



Overhead shot. I have room for one more track at the top, and I may add that at some later point.



Looking railroad west, overhead to the car shop, and the short west yard lead.



Looking railroad east, the car shop, west end yard lead and open real estate.



Looking railroad east again, from a lower angle



Back to the car shop.



The Bachman kits are very good models for this particular yard. They are loosely based on B&O prototypes. The car shop in particular.

[wm3798]

 ;D


At Grafton


B&O hotel at Grafton  (This needs to be in the background of your yard, there John... Grafton would be a great prototype to follow for the west end.)


This is about where the old coal dock was


I also visited the Morgantown Model Railroad Club, and met some great folks there.





This week scores a 10!!

Lee

[keystonecrossings]

I've been working on my PRR Sherman's Creek bridge, for Duncannon, Pa., home of VIEW interlocking.

This started as pure white hydrocal castings, which I painted a base coat of sandy brown. I've now started weathering it and this is where I am at now.

You'll see some vertical wires behind the bridge. There are 7 turnouts on the bridge itself, half of the interlocking.

The project is unfolding as an Atlas N Scale Forum topic... I'd give the URL, but their forum is down!

Here's the current pic...



And a closeup, without a flash, under flourescent light...

[randgust]

Similarly frustrated with Atlas....

Got the first slant-cab Whitcomb 55-tonner painted up yesterday.  I'm making these resin shells, cabs and frames as fast as I can, have to have the basic models finished for photography for the copyright, then we're (finally) ready to go on orders here.



Dan Pikulski is making Allegheny & South Side decals and is downsizing them to N for me, so I'm doing the prototype in that scheme.

I've done decal graphics for "Grace 2900" the high cab, and Iain is working on decal graphics for the Beaufort & Morehead units.

I have a Tomytec TM05 on the way from Japan.  I'm hopin' and prayin' that those components will fit into my custom frame as well as the other Tomytec mechs that are out of stock.

The A&SS 100  above uses the chopped TM01 mechanism, which is about 18" short on the wheelbase - a fact that was corrected on my custom resin frame:




It really does look better with the corrected wheelbase.

If you want to e-mail me to get your name on a list for these so I can send out order specifics.... I guess I'm that far along!

[atsf_arizona]

SNFF 2007 2 18

Here's my contribution for the week.

I've been working on weathering the Santa Fe passenger locomotive
fleet and passenger cars.  This has turned out to be a great learning
experience;  it's noticeably more challenging and time consuming to
get close to the subtle weathering that a often-washed passenger
loco/car would receive, as compared to a dirty freight diesel or
freight car. 

Thanks to Skibbe for giving me the tips on what/where to weather
passenger equipment, that made my efforts start to turn out (hopefully)
OK:   http://therailwire.net/smf/index.php/topic,11860.msg94785.html

Following is one example of my efforts so far to take a stock model and
improve the appearance, a Santa Fe PA-1:



By the way, can you tell what is the scale of the above model?

I worked on getting appearance of depth in the trucks with washes and
strategic applications of Grimy Black in the deep areas. Here's a
comparison, after (left) and before (right) on the PA-1 A-1-A trucks:



Investigating a closer look, here's the EMD F unit B-B trucks. After
weathering is on the left, before weathering on the right:



(Yes, these are all photos of N scale models by Kato)

After the original step of applying a base coat of Stainless Steel
silver paint to the trucks, here is where the Grimy Black for making
shadows was applied.  Final step was to apply an overall wash, made
of 6 parts water to 1 part PollyScale acrylic Grimy Black - to tone down the silver: 



Takes some time, but it's fun.  A continuing journey.

Thx again, Skibbe!

Have a great week, all.

[wm3798]

/>
Some CSX goodness from Grafton on Friday
Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I did some fascia painting, and touched up some areas that were still pink.

I may begin doing some more scenery this evening, we'll see.

[Iain]

John, I can tell that is N beause the couplers are HUGE. 

Been working on a NS 55-ton hopper.  I am completely redoing one end because I accidently cut off a little more than I had meant to  :-[ :-[.

I also started working on a handlaid No. 12 turnout with code 80 rail for practice.  The idea is to practice handlaying with the c80 rail and do turnouts that I will actually use with c55.  It's a case of I need another single slip and a few curved turnouts, and I don't see paying the prices of the Peco stuff.  Besides, it means I can design the turnout for the trackwork and not the trackwork for the turnout.

[Iain]

I used the Trainmaster to give you all a sense of size; a number twelve switch.  I wanted to do a No. 20, but it would not fit on A-sized paper.

[Catt]

This one started out as the Walther's Hardwood Furnitue factory.It is now called Kindel Furniture after a real company here in West Michigan.


 
The real Kindel's has that recessed loading dock too but the other small doors are part of the kits structure and I'm in no mood to fill them in.



This is going to be a rather long project as there are 61 windows in this beast and they all need to be modified.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Mmm... big industries...

As promised, I laid down some dirt on the layout. I need to get some more tomorrow though, from the banks of the Susie-Q.

[Robbman]

Message deleted

[skytop35]

The Valley local comes off the east leg of the wye at New Lisbon, Wisconsin on his way back to Portage. While the local "Barney Fife" is on the look out for speeders.

[sirenwerks]

Jerry,

What happened to the front truck of that FA unit? It looks a wee bit melted.