Good morning from Mostly Cloudy, Rainy and Cold Northeast Ohio!
This is the thread where modelers can show completed projects, work in progress or pictures of their layouts both new and old.
A couple a weeks ago I showed the parts for a Tangent 70 Ton 52'6" Bethlehem Steel Gon, here is the completed model painted with Scalecoat II Black Paint and lettered with Herald King Decals. Gon was in general service on the Reading.
Atlas 50' FMC 5347CF Boxcar Kit, painted with Scalecoat II Silver, Big Sky Blue and Black Paints and lettered with Herald King Decals. Car was part of the IPD boom of the late 70's and early 80's until the Staggers act changed the rate setting for these cars. Many short lines purchased lots of Boxcars to alleviate the box car shortage and in the mid 80's found all of the back with no customers.
Picture from the Strongsville Model Railroad Club with a pair of Athearn GP38-2's for the DT&I passing the off loading facility for covered hoppers at the club. They are hauling a mixed freight with the first cars being hauled for Campbell's Soup at Napoleon, OH
Thanks for looking!
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
Thanks for starting WPF Rick. Great looking cars as usual. Thats a good photo of the club layout, too.
Here is another photo of my 'pipeline on wheels'. I had to change the motive power as the little Mikado couldn't hack it on the curves. The Niagara had no trouble.
Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. Thanks to you WPF is always the best thread of the week.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
Thanks for starting us off Rick. My progress on the layout has been up and down over the years, however, a milestone was reached with the actual moving in of a few locomotives to the roundhouse. So, I actually have something to contribute the week.
Great work so far guys.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Rick, Nice looking Reading car.
Allan, Nice, long train.
Brent, Roundhouses can be a time sink (ask me how I know) but yours is off to a great start.
I've been taking some time off from WPF because life has just been too busy, please I have a train show (Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana, IL, March 28 & 29) to help organize, several non-rail projects going on, and just haven't had the time. I've still been taking pics and working on the RR as there's an ops session here next month and another one the Thursday of the Midwest Region Convention on May 14(https://www.peoriarocket2020.org/drgw). Here's some recent work.
I revised trackwork in Purgatory by swapping a #6 in place of the wye swicth I had there just before the Lime Creek Gulch Bridge.
BEFORE
AFTER
The Tefft Grade where the Cascade Branch takes off from the Silverton Branch was originally laid as a logging spur. Despite lots of effort to improve it, the basic grade location of the line needed serious revision. Here's a pic the previous arrangement (ignore the black helicopter ).
The line was straightened, helped by taking a big chunk of rock down. Also needed was smoothing of the grade. I could've just added a couple of more layers of cork, but there would be nothing for the tips of my spikes, which I use to hold everything down. Instead, you can see where I used some softwood shimming on top of the original grade, then a single layer of cork was glued over that. My spikes can then be used as intended and get their bite into the wood shim.
Here's more progress...
Substantially finished:
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Rick: Thank you for starting us off again for another great weekend of photo fun. The reading car looks very good. Also, that is a wonderful picture of the club layout.
Allan: The tank car train must be quite a load. Glad to hear you found some motive power up to the task.
Brent: Good progress on the roundhouse. I hope that it is operable and working up to your expectations.
Mike: Glad to hear you are happy with the modifications to your layout. It looks like a good bit of work. Great job.
.
This week I completed a monster! It is so big I cannot even pose it in my normal portrait setting for my equipment.
This is an Athearn 86 foot High-Cube boxcar. I built this for two reasons.
1) I wanted to test out the nifty Kadee 451 swing bracket for long cars.
2) I intend to use this as the “Clearance Car” When I build my layout.
I modified the Athearn underframe for the Kadee coupler and weighted the car to a total of eight ounces.
I ran the car on my test track of Kato Unitrack 24-inch radius curves in an abrupt S-Curve. All my equipment must pass this test to run as part of my fleet. This car zipped through the curves with no problems at all.
That Kadee swing coupler bracket is just amazing. I think this proves it will be the coupler I use on my passenger equipment.
Keep all the good stuff coming for another weekend of awesome photo fun. I am looking forward to all the contributions we will be seeing as the weekend rolls on.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Hey all, Great work as always:
Rick, the cars look great as per usual
Allan: Who makes the Tanks? They look pretty good.
Brent: Is that a Rapido steamer?
Mike: Amazing work and layout as always. That is worthy of a MMR certificate in my opinion- Master model railroader through the NMRA.
Here's my offering. I've been putting feeders in the yard for awhile, so I FINALLY have it working right- minus two switches my locos are stalling out on-insulfrog IIRC. So I've started ballasting all the trackwork that I have working correctly.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
Brent - The roundhouse looks good to me.
Mike - Excellent work. The Before/After photos really illustrate how much.
Kevin - Thats a big car. I don't think it would clear the Rt-32 underpass on the BRVRR.
Jimmy - The tank cars are a mixture of Life-Like and Bachmann cars that I picked up at various train shows and on e-bay. I painted them, installed Kadee couplers and lubricated the wheels. The photo is from the test run after lubrication. Still deciding if I'm going to leave the hand rails on. Ladders, other details and decals yet to do. Sill looking for more cars.
Keep the goodies coming guys.
Thanks to Allan, Kevin, and Jimmy for your kind comments.
Jimmy_BraumAmazing work and layout as always. That is worthy of a MMR certificate in my opinion- Master model railroader through the NMRA.
Jimmy,
Well, maybe if I wasn't so lazy and started writing stuff up. I'm the division super of the Illinois Terminal Division. However, since I finished my dissertation in 2016, I've had limited interest in writing anything extensive. The urge may come back and I have lots of pics and other documentation, so it's possible. I'm pretty satisfied with the results, so pursuing the MMR would be the icing on the cake.
BTW, you're making steady progress with your pike. Things are starting to look very railroady.
Rick, Thanks for starting up the WPF, your railcars are both eye catching and eye opening, enjoyed learning about the IPD boom.
Mike L., Looks like you had to blast, always good seeing your work.
Was worried about applying Microscale cots panels to the finished weathered and dullcoted surface of the hopper, but with the decal cut close and using Microset only came out okay.
Thanks to all the contributors and viewers, have a good weekend and regards, Peter
Here is some serious fun... my new set of Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes just arrived!
Now I can get down to some serious figure painting! These have not all been available for quite a while.
The bristles are harvested from Russian Weasel Tail, the brushes are made in England, then they need to get an exception from fur import restrictions to get into the United States... but I have them now!
Please do not ask how much this set (plus two spares) cost. Once you have used a W&N Series 7 brush, nothing else will do.
This is my old set (or the remains) that is about 4 years, and several armies, old. These brushes last if properly maintained.
Oh, look at how pretty my new babies are!
Rick,thanks for starting WPF. That picture from the club is Mmmm Mmmm Good!
Impressive looking train,Allan!
Good looking home for your engines,Brent.
Mike! Good to see you back - enjoyed the updates.
Kevin: GIANT car,but I can't stop thinking about the poor little Russian weasels freezing what's left of their tails off...
Yard is coming along nicely,Jimmy.
Peter: Beautifully done weathering! Would you please tell what you did? I especially like the trucks and wheels.
Here's a smaller tank train coming into the yard:
Still time to post your photo's!
Mike
Very nicely done freight cars, Rick.
The tank car's paint jobs look excellent, Allan.
Roundhouse looks ready for the surrounding scenery elements, Brent.
Mike, the scenery updates on your layout look superb, I can see the substantial improvements.
Kevin, that's a very long Hi-Cube. Glad you liked the new Kadees you installed.
Jimmy, it's very nice trackwork and ballast mix.
Peter, did you use chalk to accomplish the weathering? It looks very good.
----
Well, it's my first time participating in Weekend Photo Fun, and it's a quiet Sunday, the weekend is winding down. I didn't do any construction on my layout or any work on the rolling stock, and I don't have any big plans as of the moment.
Might as well show everybody my Chinese rolling stock, only two pieces of passenger equipment as of now. Both of them were personally brought home to the USA from two seperate trips to mainland China.
The top one is a hard seat passenger car, it's in a older Bachmann China box, the one below is a more recent Class 22 baggage car. In my opinion, the older Bachmann China boxes look nicer then the newer ones, but that is only my personal preferance.
"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." -Lin Yutang
-
L. ZhouWell, it's my first time participating in Weekend Photo Fun,
Excellent, and welcome aboard.
This is my favorite thread every week, and it keeps me inspired to work on projects.
I hope we hear from you regularly.
Hello,
Late to the party!
Excellent contributions as always — Thanks for kicking things off, Rick.
I wired up the lights and gave a name to the Harshaw Chemical Company this week:
Harshaw_shipping1 by Edmund, on Flickr
Harshaw_shipping by Edmund, on Flickr
Also, Jaite's Scrap Yard got a new sign
Jaite_Scrap by Edmund, on Flickr
Thanks for all the great contributions, everyone!
Cheers, Ed
Wow, great job guys!
I've been doing small projects while my layout is down.
I assembled this hopper kit, a B&LE covered hopper, next to come for it is some weathering.
BLE 3782 HO Scale 2 by Richard W, on Flickr" alt="BLE Hopper" />
I have also been assembling this coil car kit, and old Walthers kit, that had somehow been overlooked when it came to the assembly instructions....
NS 168528 HO scale progress 1 by Richard W, on Flickr" alt="NS Coil car 1" />
NS 168528 HO scale progress 2 by Richard W, on Flickr" alt="NS Coil car 2" />
Everyone keep up the great modeling!
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
I have no pictures this week, but all of you are doing a great job.
This is one of my favorite sites on weekends!
York1 John
Many thanks, Kevin!
I will definitely be around in future Weekend Photo Funs as often as I could, however, life does happen so I will have to see.
Welcome to WPF L Zhou! Those are nice looking passenger cars.
L. Zhou I will definitely be around in future Weekend Photo Funs as often as I could, however, life does happen so I will have to see.
Yup, non-train life has been happening to me, that's why I've been gone. BTW, nice work as usual everyone, I like the big boxcar Kevin.
Harrison
Homeschooler living In upstate NY a.k.a Northern NY.
Modeling the D&H in 1978.
Route of the famous "Montreal Limited"
My YouTube
L. Zhoua quiet Sunday
L. Zhou and Middleman Mike, Thanks for the interest and nice comments. Now in the winter of my life I like quiet Sundays more, though I did fire up the airbrush and shoot some Dullcote today.
GN hopper weathering is a combination of techniques gleaned from tutorials. Main ingredient is Pan Pastels, also used are pigment powders, tube oil paints and watercolor pencils for highlighting/dry brushing. Wheel faces and trucks are painted, when dry the faces get some Pan Pastel and trucks treated with oil paint/pigment powders a la Jeremy St. Peter.
Enjoy the remainder of your Sunday and regards, Peter
Thanks to Peter (awesome weathering on that hopper!), Mike, and L. Zhou for the kind comments!
L. Zhou,
Yes, please send more pics when you can. China's model railroad market is huge, but we have only limited knowledge about it. For some reason, they build everyone's stuff, but we mostly see North American prototype and little else.
Indeed Mike, China makes many of our locomotives and rolling stock back home, most for North America.
I find it ironic that many factories in the country make models for the North American market, not so much for their own country. Most of the Chinese prototype rolling stock, locomotives, and structures are manufactured by small firms, and are difficult to find or expensive.
Of course, there are Chinese prototype equipment and such on Ebay, but shipping and the overall cost across the lake known as the Pacific is a challenge, hence why I use modified European prototype rolling stock as stand-ins. If you remove the buffers and add some Kadees, it blends right in.
Definitely would send more pictures this way down the future, maybe from time to time. It's a bit tedious to send my images from device to device.