Weekend Update 6/26/11

[atsf_arizona]

As we enter the last week before the July 3-9, 2011 X2011 West NMRA National Convention and last few days of the
online store (which closes on Thurs 6/30 for tours/events), the X2011West team thought it appropriate to provide
some comments for anyone needing that one remaining piece of information or to review where you can watch the
convention as it happens in real time. 

To watch the convention in real-time, see it at our Facebook page:

http://facebook.com/x2011west

For those of you attending, there is a ton of news on tour signups, expanded tours, etc, at:

http://x2011west.org/tweaks.html

Here's one example of the many things that are at the above  links:

-------------------
Wed July 6: Tour P444 — Union Pacific Roseville Yard Tour - NEW TOUR

Due to the overwhelming demand for tour P404, we have arranged with the Union Pacific Railroad for a third bus to tour their Roseville Yard. The third bus will depart at 12:30 PM Wednesday afternoon instead of Wednesday morning. Due to the imminent closing of the on-line X2011 e-Store, tickets for this tour will only be available at the X2011 Tour Desk in Sacramento at the Convention. The tour price is $20.00.
------------------

Check it out, and see you either there in person or virtually on Facebook as the convention happens.

Finally, as always, attaching a few layout tour preview photos below for you all to enjoy, these are
from Mitch Valder's N scale Northwestern Pacific layout:





And there is a photo album here with tons of layout tour preview photos:

http://www.pbase.com/atsf_arizona/x2011_west_layout_tours_preview

Enjoy, all, hope to see some of you in Sacramento and all of your virtually on the
X2011 West Facebook page as the convention happens.   


X2011 West NMRA 2011 Convention online Social Media URLs:

http://www.facebook.com/x2011west
http://www.twitter.com/x2011west
http://www.youtube.com/x2011west
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/X2011WestAttendees

 

[Scottl]

Repaired my airbrush, so the last section of backdrop was subjected to my artistic efforts.  I wanted to try a sunset scene for my swamp section.  It needs some touch ups, hence the masking.

[skytop35]

A photo of the Varsity which ran between Madison and Chicago usually with hand me down Hiawatha coaches. Sometimes Union Pacific and even Southern Pacific coaches would show up on a quick turn to Madison!

[Dave Schneider]

That is a great looking train and scene Bill!

Best wishes, Dave

[chuck geiger]

John is this the layout in Rocklin that was in MR July issue? I was
hoping you had some more pictures - NWP?

[skytop35]

That is a great looking train and scene Bill!

Best wishes, Dave

Thanks Dave. The last coach is from the castings I've been working on. Much easier than building each car from the ground up!

[Catt]

and now for my once every other blue moon contribution to this thread.This is Barb's Bodacious Bagels a refugee from my old 4' TTRAK module in it's new permanent home.The trees are WS straight from the package and the dead leaves below them are from a idea I picked up from Lee's river article in N Scale mag.

[Chris333]

Finished the M&StL modified AAR 1937 double-door boxcar.

Oh man this is just superb!

[delamaize]

I was able to make some more progress this week/weekend. The Heisler has sand (I just noticed it is uneven, DAMNIT!!) and steam domes now, a ash pan, doors and windows, front beam and coupler, and I moved the traction tire to a diffrent Axel and packed every spare space I could sacrifice with lead split shot fishing weight. (that is all I could find over here.) It pulls just as good as the Class B now. I did have a few setbacks though, My first mech failure with this model, one of the pins holding the crosshead to the connecting rod came out somewhere and bound up the whole works.  > luckly, it was moving at a slow speed, as it should, and it didn't strip anything. It was hard to replace the pin but I was able to get it done. Also moving the traction tire screwed up the pickup,  > Although I got that sorted out. Any more progress is kinda on hold, Next is the steam and exaust piping, and I don't have the right diameter tube/wire to get the job done. gotta make the hour drive to Trier to get the right stuff.

Here is a shot of the Heisler with the Class B Climax and the Atlas Shay.



Still on the list to do:
Piping
Handrails
grabs
head lights
decoder
Small details, like whistle, pop offs, and bell
Airtanks (Mabey airlines)
Paint
I think that's it. I am sure, I will see more to do once I am "Done"

[BCR 570]

In addition to becoming a Canadian citizen this week, I had an enjoyable evening running Nelson Yard at Mark's operating session (see above), and began work on assembling trackage to go between the turnouts at Tremblay:




Tim

[John]

In addition to becoming a Canadian citizen this week, I had an enjoyable evening running Nelson Yard at Mark's operating session (see above), and began work on assembling trackage to go between the turnouts at Tremblay:




Tim

Congratulations .. where are you from ??

[Scottl]

Congrats on your citizenship.  You must like seeing your name on every corner in Canada  ;D

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=66445

[Puddington]

Welcome...hoser, eh ?

Another fine "official" addition to the club...............

[bbussey]

Oh man this is just superb!

Thanks!  Unfortunately it didn't win anything in the freight category of the contest (too "plain jane" for people to notice), but "our" Erie bay window took second place in the caboose category.

[wm3798]

Welcomed a few more traveling cars from around a$$hat land, including a couple collected at the Hershey convention.  The highlight was Bryan Buss'ey's magnificent Conrail OCS full dome, shown above just ahead of the PRR full dome Eric220 provided.  Sadly the roster shot I took of this car didn't turn out very well, but we did get a peek inside at the neatly set tables and other details:



Also had cars from Dave Foxx, Mike Delamaiz, Bob Bufkin, and David K. Smith. Sizemore (Tim Alder) was well represented, having painted the F-unit on the point.  Phil Hoffman brought along some Spanish prototype cars, but they were unable to be included due to some compatibility issues.  According to Phil, this was in keeping with Spanish rail operations... 

While the layout wasn't built with passenger traffic in mind, we managed to get the Golden Spike Special around the layout in reasonably good order.  We didn't ever really reach "track speed" owing to the numerous photo and video run bys requested by the crew.  Here's a couple of highlights:


Crossing the Potomac from Ridgeley into Cumberland.


Passing a freight holed up on the long siding on the Connellsville Sub.


Crossing the river into Greenwood, en route to Connellsville.


Returning to North Junction at the east end of the layout.  Note that the KCS has spotted the Spanish cars near the scrap yard.  I'm not sure what this means.

The train then headed west again, this time working its way up to Thomas via the Thomas Sub.  Here it is leaving the main at Maryland Junction:



Restricted clearances made Thomas the end of the run, so the engines turned around, and pulled the train back down to Ridgeley.


Here it is drifting downgrade at Shaw as the sun starts to fade.

While we didn't get to run many trains, we had a great time.  It was good to see the layout back in action, although we naturally found a few things to add to the "to do" list.  Thanks as always to the crew, who have been such a great support through this whole project.



Lee