Weekend photo fun 1/3/19-1/6/19

[Jimmy_Braum]

Welcome to the first weekend photo fun for 2019. For new posters, WPF is where we post what we have been working on.

Heres my project. HO gondolas with custom designed decals. 

[SeeYou190]

Jimmy, thank you for starting us out this week. Welcome to the custom decal club. What do the initials WE stand for?

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I finally completed my Westerfield early automobile boxcar this week. A few weeks ago in WPF I posted a picture of the assembly complete. This was an old Westerfield kit with the brittle dark brownish metal filled resin pieces.

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I love the different roof and sides of this car. It will add some variation to the fleet.

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I do not often use funny roadnames, but PISTON VALLEY just seemed right for an automobile boxcar, and it fit nicely between the diagonal braces.

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Please keep the pictures coming.

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-Kevin

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[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Jimmy .... Thanks for starting Weekend Photo Fun.... Your gondolas with custom decals look great. 

Kevin ... I think your creative brain was running on all cylinders when you thought of the road name for the boxcar. LOL It looks very nice.... WHat is in your middle photo ? 

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Below are Baldwin switchers working at the steel mill . The last photo includes Burlington SD's hauling away some empty coal hoppers. 

 

 

 

 

[SeeYou190]

Heartland Division CB&Q

WHat is in your middle photo ? 

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Garry, your pictures of your layout are always fantastic.

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The middle photo shows me using a small steel machinist square and magnets to hold the ends square to the roof while the adhesive set.

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I took a lot of "in-process" photos of this build.

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-Kevin

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[RDG Casey]

New Hope and Ivyland 40 running fast on the early 90s mainline excursion (that never happened).

[middleman]

Jimmy,thanks for starting things off,good to see you back!

Nice looking auto car,Kevin - looks like a lot of grabirons on that unit!

Here's a shot of those phantom tank cars from last week's picture:

Garry: Those steel mill scenes look great!

Nice scene,Casey,and excellent job on the steam/smoke.

All I've done this week on the Sunset K-28 is to get a few LEDs installed and tested:

S'posed to have warmer weather the next couple of days,hope I can get a coat of flat - and maybe some weathering - done on the engine.

Have a good weekend,and post some pictures!

Mike

[snjroy]

Thank you all, these pictures are quite inspiring!

Simon

[Harrison]

Jimmy- Nice looking gons!

Kevin- Nice looking cars.

Garry- I am always amazed by your relistic layout scenes

RDG Casey- Nice looking smoke- is it photoshopped?

Mike- LED's always inprove the looks of lighting.

I have been doing scenery and detailing, as usual.

  

I Finally got the static grass to stand on end.

Now trucks can access the GP mill via this road.

    

 Keep it coming folks!

[mlehman]

Jimmy, I'll bet you can get enough decals to do a dozen cars on one sheet, as spare as those are, so a good economy move and very much like many on the prototype cutting their costs in this way.

Kevin, Neat shop practice with the magnets. I could use that sometimes - and will.

GARRY, Making steel is RR-intensive, as your pics prove.

RDG Casey, SWEET!

Mike, Tanks a lot for that pic!

Harrison, Your pics are improving. Another good tip is to get the lens down to what would be the viewing height of the scale people on the layout.

Menards got me the power supply to light up Wally's after week's wait for online shipment to store. Was walking past the train aisle on the way out and, guess what?, they now have power supplies on the shelf there. Guess my complaining helped do some good. Plugging in, it was way too bright.

The LED in the last gas pump on the right was also out. That turned out to be a quick fix. Turn things over and you'll see the wires glued in place, but gently tugging at them will loosen them as needed. Turns out that each pump has a small connector you can pull out that the LED sits in. I made sure the LED legs were in the correct holes, reinserted and it worked. Here's a pic of the connector pulled out with the LED still inside the pump.

All the bright lights were a bit more trouble. I put a 2200 ohm resistor in the line that feeds the pump lights. I cut small "cans" to surround the lights on the roof that shine up at the rotating sign. That sign's motor is the reason you can't just throw a resistor on the whole thing to turn the brightness down. It also restricts access to the tape lights that are under the overhang. I was able to add 5000 ohms to the lines that feed the parts of the tape lights over the overhead doors and around on the side where the restroom door is. I glued some translucent paper over the still too bright LEDs in the middle section of the overhang and will be adding more to further dim them. Here's the results so far.

The pic doesn't do justice to the impovements because of those still too bright LEDs in the mid-overhang. The sign looks washed out because my efforts to point the lighting at it better are paying off; looks much better in person.

[RR_Mel]

Really good looking work guys!  I really enjoy the WPF, best on the Forum!

 

Didn’t do anything but sit at my computer in December, got a head cold that refused to go away. 

 

 

Mel

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[BRVRR]

Great stuff everyone! A good beginning to WPF for the weekend and the year.

Test fitting the cut down cupola/skylight. It looked to be a little out of proportion before.

Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. Thanks to you WPF is always the best thread of the week.

[gmpullman]

Thanks for starting off 2019's first Weekend Photo Fun, Jimmy.

Those are some nice work-a-day gons there.

Thanks for the lessons in clamping, Kevin. Those grab irons would have made me batty!

Your steel scenes are the best, Garry. Always enjoy seeing your layout 

RDG Casey

New Hope and Ivyland 40 running fast on the early 90s mainline excursion (that never happened).

We all have fun making scenes that "never happened" but we can recreate them and enjoy a bit of the taste of the past. Your NH & I scene is perfect  Casey.

Your scenes are awe-inspiring, too, Mike! That yard scene has the apperance that it goes on for miles. Beautiful  I think I smell hot valve oil and coal smoke.

As Mike points out, your camera work and modeling get better every week, Harrison. Very nice work!

I see you are tweaking your "night scene" again, Mike. Like you, I love to see the whole new personality the layout takes on when illuminated for night running. Good Job!

Hope you get better and back in the saddle again, soon, Mel. 

Your stone depot will be a real treasure, Allan. Nice to see.

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I had this pair of Broadway Limited Alco RSD-15s on the roster for a while. One was the old "stealth" no sound and the other had an awful sounding QSI decoder. I ripped out all the old electrics and added a mini cube speaker and a better 32mm speaker plus Loksound Select decoders in both engines.

BLI_BLE_RSD15dcc by Edmund, on Flickr

I also added a pair of LEDs for the number boards so they can stay lit while the headlight is off.

BLI_BLE_RS15dcc by Edmund, on Flickr

Fugitive Glue? Yep, that's that sticky, gooy stuff they use for magazine inserts and mailing credit cards. I bought some of the Woodland Scenics window tint material and it came with a sheet of sticky dots. This glue is perfect for sticking plastic glazing into structures and passenger cars.

Fugitive_dots by Edmund, on Flickr

Amazon sells this box of 600 3/16" dots for about eight bucks. I found that it is very handy for sticking wires in place inside locomotives, too.

Fugitive_dots-wire by Edmund, on Flickr

Above you see the dots holding these wires away from the drive shaft. Trying to get a piece of tape to stick in there would have been tricky. So I looked it up and this stuff is called "Fugitive Glue" — don't know how they came up with that name?

I also had a little time to wire up and install a goose-neck lamp over the stairway of one of my many signal towers.

TowerA-1 by Edmund, on Flickr

Leverman_14K2 by Edmund, on Flickr

Leverman_14K by Edmund, on Flickr

Leverman Larry is working a laserKit HO lever machine that I installed inside.

Great Stuff, everyone! On to more, I hope 

Cheers, Ed

[peahrens]

Many impressive and inspiring items.  Thanks to all for sharing.  Fun to see everything folks accomplish.

I just have a couple of "new" items for the queue.  The C30-7 is an Atlas that will get a LokSound Select and perhaps multi micro speakers.  The Walthers work train kit looks like fun, 6 cars included.  I don't like the painting so will strip, repaint (color TBD) and decal.  

EDIT: Flickr has recovered, so some delayed photos:

C30-7 (2) by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr

Work Train (2) by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr

 

[HO-Velo]

Jimmy,  Thanks for starting the WPF and a view of your gons. 

Can't say I didn't consider upper quadrant wig-wags in the median, like the ones that still stand in Point Richmond, Ca. 

Thanks to all the contributors and regards,  Peter

  

 

["JaBear"]

Thanks for sharing your really Good Stuff, ffolkes.

 

Paul, those Work train kits are fun, but depending on the year of manufacture, you may have to tweak the trucks and wheel sets. Here’s a link to the history...

http:/cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/258610.aspx

 

Cheers, the Bear.

[PennCentral99]

Always the best thread of the week!

Railfanning southern Nevada (USA)

Terry

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Kevin, Mike Middleman, Harrison, Mike L, Ed ...... Thanks to each of you for commenting on my steel mill photos.

Casey, Mike Middleman, Harrison, Mike L, Allan, Ed, Paul, Peter, Terry .......... Your photos are outstanding and your work is awesome. 

 

to all contributors ! 

[Jimmy_Braum]

Sorry for the late response, but Great work everyone.

Answers to a couple comments on my Gons:

 The WE is Wheeling and Lake Erie...The Wheeling uses the letters "WE" for their equipment.

Well, I could get probably a dozen gons on a 8x11 sheet, but I had a multi car sheet printed.  It was for these gondolas, the 500xxx series of their hoppers (ex CHIT 4 bay hoppers) and a misc detail sheet to do patching jobs on assorted rolling stock.

[WEUSANDCORR]

General Mills Power plant coal unloading facility West Chicago

 

Some nice work being shown here

Les

[steemtrayn]

RDG Casey

New Hope and Ivyland 40 running fast on the early 90s mainline excursion (that never happened).

 

I fired that engine once. For about five minutes. Wasn't very good at it.