Weekend Update 10/3/21

[nkalanaga]

"They have all sorts of ways to push anything anywhere."

True, and they don't have to be pushing it.  Give a car a shove and it will roll a long ways.  A rolling car is almost silent.  I learned that growing up around a hump yard!

[BCR 570]

Last weekend I completed my current batch of gondolas and chip cars and they are now ready for painting.

Six NSC riveted gondolas with replacement fixed ends:




Close-up of one of the BCR cars with letterboard for the dogwood logogram:




Five chip cars converted from gondolas using the Briggs Models kits:




Two of the cars are built as originally converted:




One car completed with side clean-out doors:




One car completed with letterboard for the BCR scheme:




One car completed for the second series with revised top chord and different door:




And today saw the completion of the first phase in getting the new layout room prepared, with a sub wall installed to match the build-out for heating pipes.  The uprights for the shelving brackets which support the layout will be fastened to this structure:




A big thank you to friend John W. who assembled the wall sections, and Nolan S. who helped us install them.  This wall will now be painted to match the room, and I will then mark the locations for the uprights.

Tim

[bbussey]

Finished three Caterpillar D7 crawlers for my RBB&B circus consist. The base models were 3D-printed components assembled and then enhanced with wire and styrene details.  I painted the models the perfect Caterpillar Yellow color by airbrushing Rustoleum paint decanted and degassed from the big spray can.

[Super_G]

Curious about this rack

It's a low-deck autorack, with notches cut into the deck for extra clearance for the trucks.


Here's an example of a tri-level rack, but I've seen the bi-level versions as well.


[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Ike the BN Freak]

It's a low-deck autorack, with notches cut into the deck for extra clearance for the trucks.

Thought so, but wanted to verify, any thoughts of using etched panels like the plano kits for the panels versus 3D printing it?

[Super_G]

Thought so, but wanted to verify, any thoughts of using etched panels like the plano kits for the panels versus 3D printing it?

That's the original plan for these. I was mostly curious as to how well the panels would turn out printed. My only concern with using the plano kits is supply, since it seems that they are trying to sell all of the inventory they have currently.

[Mike C]

@Mike C stole my thunder. 

All of the details on the build, along with five more videos, can be found here: http://davidksmith.com/modeling/animation/project-7.htm#Second_Generation

Plus, I also finished this today:

Details on this are here: http://davidksmith.com/modeling/animation/project-20.htm#Second_Generation

Sorry about that D K S   I usually see you're work here first    Mike

[DKS]

Sorry about that D K S   I usually see you're work here first    Mike

No problem!

[robert3985]

@Dave V  Congratulations Dave on your third cover!

RGS Goose 5 rattles through a cattle guard at Jays, three miles outside of Ridgway, CO with Log Hill Mesa looming in the background:



Leaving Ridgway:



I've been adding lineside details like switch stands:











And lastly, another cover shot (that makes 3 for me!):

(Attachment Link)

Your work is really excellent Dave and your photography is quite good too.  Very good composition, such as #1 where the road leads your eye to the main subject in the distance, #2 where your main subject (the engine) is sharply in focus, and the converging tracks guide the eye into the photo...then disappear behind the water tower..excellent!  I am also very impressed with how your 3D scenery blends so well with your backdrops with no grossly noticeable line dividing the model from the 2D skyboards in any of the shots...and, the color balance is near perfect between them. I hope my own skyboards when finished will be of equal quality!

I haven't said anything about the level of detail your scenery and your equipment bring to the realistic quality of your photos...really excellent. I get a very strong "art" sense about your modeling and photos...enough detailing to imply much more, and an overall "mood" which your photos show very well...sort of a cross between Realism and Impressionism. 

However, I notice that in most shots, the foreground and background are in various states of being out of focus.  In some shots, such as #4 of the switch stand, this pops the main subject into dominance (...the track in front of the switch stand is sharply in focus...the switch stand is not quite!), but in the overall shots, the narrow band of what is in focus makes the shots more obviously of a miniature. Some recent smart phone cameras actually have this miniaturization effect as an option to edit a photo of a full-sized subject to make it look small.  I don't know what equipment you have used to take these photos, but...if you could do the Helicon Focus thing to allow focus stacking, it would make most of your photos look more realistic...much more realistic. 

If you are using a DSLR, then stopping your lens down is the other way to increase depth of focus, but nothing other than a precision pinhole camera will do what focus stacking software will do. 

There is at least one app (Open Camera) for Android phones that will take up to a dozen shots in a fraction of a second between your selection of the far point and the near point...which makes a tripod unnecessary.  I am not sure if there is something similar that is available for iOS phones, but I would assume that by now, an app or two is probably out there. 

If I didn't have a few covers under my belt too, I wouldn't dare give you any advice since the publications obviously love your work (and rightly so), and I agree with them.  However, it's good to know what tools are available to us who take photos of our model trains, and focus stacking software is the solution to that great curse for macro photographers...a narrow depth of field.

Looking forward as always to seeing more of your top-notch work, and hope your health problems are soon over with!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[GaryHinshaw]

I'm finally getting back to the Kato Maxi-IV upgrade project and have reached the point of "better is the enemy of good enough" for now.  Here's an overview of the first set to be completed, AOK 55353:



As seen from the 1,000-scale-foot level, the single most effective improvement one can make is to simply weather the model, especially the walkways so they blend in better (top: before, bottom: after):



Zooming in, here are a few shots of the new 3d-printed end-frames, walkways, and container guides:




(These photos make it clear that I still need to replace the Kato brake wheel with a finer MTL one.)  I'll post a few more shots in the weathering/detailing forum, with a link to the files for printing your own.  Then on to the Maxi-I conversions.

[John]

I had the hope of having a steel mill section on the M&O, but after not making any progress over the last 10 years, much like the real Sparrows Point, I started a repurposing of the space into an industrial area with a lot of opportunity for switching and places for cars to go.

In Baltimore, there are a number of "transload" facilities, where everything from distillates to grains can be unloaded / loaded from rail cars. One such facility is on Boston Street - which is the inspiration for this scene.  My intent is not to model the actual facility, but to try and capture the general look and feel.  The images below are the inspiration and the start of the scene. Not much to see yet.









10/5/2021 Update

Made some progress this week -- printed out three silos (rather than 5) for space sake - the real ones in the prototype measure out 25' diameter .. these are about that .. added an additional track to be closer to the real thing - and also extended the paved area .. started to lay out the street grid ..  also scratched out a truck scale .. the real thing is 125' long .. and about 12' wide .. will go with something slightly smaller ..

[DKS]

And hot off the press:

http://davidksmith.com/modeling/animation/project-43.htm#Second_Generation

[Dave V]

@Dave V  Congratulations Dave on your third cover!
 

I haven't said anything about the level of detail your scenery and your equipment bring to the realistic quality of your photos...really excellent. I get a very strong "art" sense about your modeling and photos...enough detailing to imply much more, and an overall "mood" which your photos show very well...sort of a cross between Realism and Impressionism. 

However, I notice that in most shots, the foreground and background are in various states of being out of focus.  In some shots, such as #4 of the switch stand, this pops the main subject into dominance (...the track in front of the switch stand is sharply in focus...the switch stand is not quite!), but in the overall shots, the narrow band of what is in focus makes the shots more obviously of a miniature. Some recent smart phone cameras actually have this miniaturization effect as an option to edit a photo of a full-sized subject to make it look small.  I don't know what equipment you have used to take these photos, but...if you could do the Helicon Focus thing to allow focus stacking, it would make most of your photos look more realistic...much more realistic. 
Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

The photos here are all just iPhone grabs (save for the cover shot done with a DSLR).  When I did all the shots for the article (none of which I shared here), those were also done with a DSLR.

My normal mode of operations is to do quick iPhone grabs and upload them to my layout's Facebook page (as well as some other group pages like an RGS modeling group) and then, from time to time, share them here.  Anything headed for a real magazine gets accomplished with a DSLR and a much greater depth of focus.  I don't have any plans to change how I'm doing the routine stuff...iPhone grabs are quick, easy, and--for the most part--good enough.

Based on your suggestion, though, I am looking into iOS options for focus stacking.  So far I'm not finding much.

[Philip H]

Based on your suggestion, though, I am looking into iOS options for focus stacking.  So far I'm not finding much.

I have yet to see any either. It’s a big hole in capability.

[bnsfdash8]

I spent some time on another passenger car, NW 300 "Roanoke". It's just a stock MTL heavyweight business car paint with Trucolor and lettered with Shellscale decals.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]