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

[p51]

As always, it's the summer of 1943 at the Hunter, TN depot, and a lovely local gal is waiting for her sweetheart to arrive with a 72-hour pass at Camp Forrest:



The old men are inside arguing about checkers and the war "across the water" at the Grindstaff store near Hurley Hollow, at Sadie, TN



The commuters wait for the 12;15 5o Johnson City at the Buladeen depot:



Another duty day is halfway done at 'Baker' Company, 796th ROB:





And near the Ensor farm, the gap is set correct to keep the cows in their pen. New-fangled flatlander swing gates are unheard of here:

[Philip H]

Who are you using as your go to pusher for supplies?

[p51]

Who are you using as your go to pusher for supplies?

I'm not 100% sure I understand the question, but if you mean who I get my modelling supplies from, it varies.
I can get stuff online from various places, there's a hobby shop about 50 miles from here and a few decent ones if I drive a couple of hours. eBay has been good to me as well.
I also have a lot of stuff on hand from before the pandemic. In fact, that gas station was built with all stuff I had around, all the plastic, paints and such. Only the detail parts in the interior I got online after I realized it screamed for a full interior.

[p51]

I added this to the wall over the weekend:


It's an aluminum casting made by the Age of Steam Roundhouse museum off their original. I drilled attachment holes and painted it to match how it'd look in service in WW2. It's hanging on the wall of the train room. I used clevis pins attached to picture wire from behind to hand it on the wall.

THEN, I put my GoPro camera down inside the Grindstaff store with the roof on and took shots with the app on my cell. They're not the best shots as the camera wasn't made for this kind of thing, but once I ran them through some filters, they have a feel like "someone with a Speed Graphic" took them in the summer of 1943. It was neat to see it from the perspective of a O scale person:

[p51]

My layout is in MR, the March 2021 issue, in the trackside Photos section (though auto correct put down the owner of the layout as "Ashley" Bishop, darn it. I have a niece by that name). Oh well, the photo looks decent.

Yesterday, I realized I had the right kinds of pilots for my ten-wheelers they carried in the 30s and 40s, in the spare parts package. I hadn't known that before and was pondering scratch building the right kind of wood pilot they carried in the war and pre-war years. Clearly, I was happy I didn't have to do that, and also angry I didn't know that earlier. An hour of paint and weathering, and now ET&WNC 9, 11 and 12 all have the right pilots!

Here, you can see what they'd carried up to yesterday, boilertube pilots that were correct for the final days of the narrow gauge era on the RR:

[Philip H]

Its a great picture - got my hard copy yesterday.

[davefoxx]

Lee,

I agree with Phil.  Nice job and congratulations on the Trackside Photos inclusion, Ashley. 

Glad you were able to address the pilots to match your era, especially before you scratchbuilt a new pilot.  I will admit that I like the boilertube pilots, though, as they better match the down-home, backwoods nature of the ET&WNC to me.

https://myspace.com/et_wnc_hs/mixes/classic-my-photos-556829/photo/281197759

DFF

[p51]

Thanks for the kind words, guys! Of course I wish they'd ran it bit bigger, but you all know how tough a nut MR is to crack to get into the magazine.

Glad you were able to address the pilots to match your era, especially before you scratchbuilt a new pilot.  I will admit that I like the boilertube pilots, though, as they better match the down-home, backwoods nature of the ET&WNC to me.

Yeah, I can't disagree with you, Dave. The boiler tube pilots came in sometime in the late 40s as they had the wood pilots all through the war years. The plug was pulled on the 3-foot line in 1950.
On the pilots you can really see the difference in On30 coupler heights v/s normal. the ET&WNC had their couplers set at standard gauge height (so the locos could switch standard gauge cars with special swivel couplers), so when compare the real thing to On30, it's really obvious.

[davefoxx]

On the pilots you can really see the difference in On30 coupler heights v/s normal. the ET&WNC had their couplers set at standard gauge height (so the locos could switch standard gauge cars with special swivel couplers), so when compare the real thing to On30, it's really obvious.

It's funny that you say that, because on my G scale ten wheeler and rolling stock that I purchased in the early-1990s (No. 12, a tanker, and bobber caboose No. 202 are stuffed and mounted over my desk at work), I installed body mounted #1 scale Kadee couplers, which I figured at the time came close to scale couplers for 1:20.3, that I mounted at the standard gauge height using photographs (I couldn't do the swivel couplers, though  ).

DFF

[p51]

My layout is now on Trainmasters TV, if you know anyone who's a paying member:
https://trainmasters.tv/programs/mylayout-lee-bishop?categoryId=228

[p51]

My presentation to a NMRA affiliated group on Friday was edited down to this in case you might be interested:

[p51]

I finished a 3D print of a ET&WNC hopper car, which is coupled to a wood kit of the same type of car. These are great looking cars and I'm looking forward to ordering and completing two more of them:

[p51]

Over the weekend, I decided to do something about hopper car 44 which had issues on one turnout, it’d often ‘split the switch’. I thought it was the turnout itself (and dreading the very idea as of course it's the least accessible) but then it occurred to me that one of the axles might be out of gauge. I swapped the wheel sets on one truck and sure enough, that seems to have done it.

Here I am pushing it back and forth, coupled to 36 (the new 3D print from Western Rails) which sailed through with no problems.

[davefoxx]

I call "anachronism"!  That 0-5-0 is way too new to be used plausibly with that ET&WNC rolling stock from the 1940s. 

DFF

[p51]

Last night I finished what I think will be the last new hopper cars for the layout. These are 3D prints made by Western Rails.
I found that the plastic molded 'coal' loads for Bachmann gondolas will drop right into these cars if you break off the spacer tabs from underneath and cut notches into the underside of each end. I then covered them with real scale-sized coal.



I already had five of these types of cars from laser kits from On30IMA, and now I have eight of these cars which were very common on the ET&WNC.
These are numbered 36, 43 and 1. All are numbers of hopers that were running on the line to the end of operations in 1950.
36, because that's the birth year for both of my parents. 43 because it's always 1943 on my layout, and 1 because you hardly ever see any freight cars with that number, so I had to have it.

I call "anachronism"!  That 0-5-0 is way too new to be used plausibly with that ET&WNC rolling stock from the 1940s. 

Dave, the layout takes place in the "Bible Belt," so would the O scale citizens of Stoney Creek consider this to be divine interference?