East Tennessee & Western North Carolina RR ("The Tweetsie") branchline in On30

[p51]

Well, the Grindstaff store project is DONE, finished last night. I added grass all around the concrete base for the room supports and pump, some bushes and weeds along the bottom edge of the entire building, two figures standing outside (Mr. Grindstaff himself looking in the direction of the tracks and another guy looking at him), and then I painted some new and old oil splotches in several spots on the small concrete base, as well as new and older bird poop on the roof. I continued the oil spills to the gravel, roughly where you’d expect to see cars sitting at the pumps, facing either direction, and trailing off toward Stoney Creek Road. As the gravel lot needed more randomness, I sprinkled some ground up leaves and some random small debris especially on the outside edges as you’d expect. It’s now no longer a consistent monochrome surface.


I started this project with a simple sketch when the pandemic started, in April, and it almost feels weird that it’s actually done. I’m so glad I did this as the pre-built structure that was sitting there never looked ‘right’ to me. I had a blast working on this and now I’m thinking of another project. Maybe a small shack that has burned after being hit by lighting?
 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That building looks fantastic!

[p51]

On the original store I used for inspiration (a couple of photos of the store at Carter, TN, back when it was made of wood, in the 30s), there was a two-sided Texaco sign facing toward traffic on the road. It was connected to the roof and I didn’t want to re-create that as it hung from chains from a thin metal bracket, something that could be easily damaged when taking off the roof to show off the interior. So, I later found a photo of a pre-war shepherd crook style sign pole, and I recreated that with the wire from a coat hanger (it took a few tries to get the shape somewhat correct).
I was pondering how to frame the signs on to the pole, as the real one used turnbuckles or metal brackets. After using a grinder bit to cut off the ends, I wondered how I was going to attach the sign into the center.  Then, as I was throwing away a soda can it just hit me has an epiphany.
I cut the shape out the side of a Doctor Pepper can, glued it in place with ACC, and spray painted the whole thing black.
After blasting the whole thing with black spray paint and then dull coat, I just glued the signs into place, and test fit it onto the layout. Afterward, I weathered it with dry brushing and some light washes.

While the brackets aren’t perfect, only an expert on 1930s Texaco signs would know that by looking. I like how it turned out.

And here I am a few days earlier, enjoying running trains (thanks to my long-suffering wife, Jennette, for the shot):

[p51]

I shot this video late last night, on my third attempt, just to show what I’d been up to and for those who have just seen the layout through still photos. It was all in one take, so when my phone booted me off near (but not at) very end of it, I didn't bother shooting it yet again:

[p51]

Here we go, my newest project. A while back, someone uploaded color movie film from Hampton, Tennessee during what it labelled as taken during the fall of 1940. Sadly, I looked up the Vimeo video and can’t find it there now. I’m glad I screen saved a few shots from it. In this film, they showed a few Carter County school busses heading back to Elizabethton from a football game. They were 1939 Dodge truck fronts with what have to be custom bus bodies.




Sadly, nobody makes a ’39 Dodge truck in O scale, so I had to find something that could be used as a representation. My scratch-building skills to create the bus body (with all its compound curves) are nowhere up to the task. So, I had to compromise there, too. I’m going to use a Russian GAZ bus body, grafted onto the front of another maker’s truck front end.

I’m going to grind off the nose of the truck from the firewall, do the same to the bus body and graft them together.
After that, I’ll shorten the truck frame to match the wheelbase for the finished body and mount it onto the shortened truck frame. It’ll then be painted in yellow, and I’ll make my own decals as I have a typeface very close to the original busses already prepared for the decals.
The irony here is that I model the summer of 1943, so a school bus doing anything doesn’t make a great deal of sense, though I assume they did get used in the summer for moving people around as needed?

[Hawghead]

Lee,

I think you could simplify scratch building the bus body by just using a solid block of balsa for the roof.  Cut it to the needed length and width of the body and thick enough for the height from the top of the body sides to the top of the roof.  Then I think you could carve and sand the contours fairly easily.

Scott

[p51]

I’ve been experimenting with some photos after changing the structure I use to represent smoke from locomotives in photos. It had been covered in cotton balls, but now I stretched foam pillow stuffing over it and painted it black. I’m just playing around trying to determine the best way to represent smoke with it, as it looks great in person.
In this shot, ET&WNC # 12 brings water car WC2 (formerly the tender of now-scrapped Stoney Creek Southern RR locomotive #2) slowly past the Unaka Company barrel plant at Winner, TN

And here, #9 brings passenger coach 23 around the curve at Sadie, TN. Photographer Clarence Ilyankoff watches through the lens of his Speed Graphic camera:

I will be doing more experiments to best show the smoke.

[p51]

A couple more recent shots:

[p51]

I haven't done much with my layout as I've been working on 1:1 scale trains for each weekend (as a brakeman on a nearby tourist RR) since June. I'm taking a break until the end of this month, so hopefully I can get back to the layout.
Meanwhile, the Sergeant who normally drives the CO's command car for 'B' Company, 796th ROB has some washing to do!

[p51]

Someone managed to snap off a shot with their Speed Graphic camera on a August afternoon at Sadie, TN. The shadow from the Texaco "Sheppard's crook" sign post shows up on the TN State Patrol car, though.

Mr. Grindstaff must be discussing "that war across the water" with one of the older men who hang around his store these days...

[p51]

Over the weekend, I shot a lot of video for a project I'm keeping mum about until it comes to pass.
While trying out new angles I found one I really liked, I staged my own shot of a coal train at a spot that worked well, which I'm keeping for my own uses (don't worry, they'll get shots from the same angle and I doubt they'll care what's in the train on those shots they get):

[p51]

Want to see the tightest spot for a Blue Point?




I lucked up with having just a couple of extra millimeters on three sides to even mount this thing. It's over two feet away from the edge, so I mounted this to a small block of wood, lined it up with the turnout as best as I could, then held it into place underneath with one hand, and with the other hand, ran screws from the top down into that block. It was not a happy experience.

Sadly, the turnout has always given be grief and it never wants to set to the passing siding (thankfully it doesn't get used that way much) as easy as the other turnouts (all of which are far more accessible). I'm going to have to do some work to the one of the points so the cars want to go that direction better...

[LIRR]

I use these Blue-Points....most work flawlessly. One or 2 were sketchy. on these I added a 'flickable' center spring. that did the trick...

[davefoxx]

That's definitely a tight spot for a switch machine.  Kudos for getting that into there, especially if it works.

I ended up going with the BullFrog Manual Turnout Control from FastTracks, if I recall, purely for price.  The Blue Points would have been my second choice, though.  Thankfully, the BullFrogs have worked flawlessly.

DFF

[p51]

As the cable for the blue point has to go through an "s" curve and that specific turnout likes to stick (I'd removed all the springs in these ME turnouts as the blue point op rods didn't seem to like to overcome their resistance), I'm seriously thinking of running an op rod along the top of the benchwork (under a small tube and then covered with scenery to hide it) from the throw bar to a switch mounted on the fascia to use that turnout...