Living the dream.
Welcome to a brand new weekend everyone.
This week I am sharing a new purchase, and the story behind it.
For a long time I have wanted to have an "Athearn Double Hustler" center cab switching locomotive like this one.
This is not my model, and I did not take this picture. This is just an example of what I want to build.
Athearn Hustlers have been selling for some insanely high prices on eBay. All of the locomotive bodies are pre-painted, and most are in poor shape. I did not want to deal with broken junk, and I was getting worried about obtaining ther necessary donor parts.
I very luckily stumbled into two factory-fresh undecorated Athearn Hustler replacement bodies at the web site of a major model model train reseller. They were still pricey, but they are in mint condition and do not need any prep work.
It took a few more weeks of searching, but I finally found the perfect donor for the locomotive chassis and mechanism. I found a truly "new in original box" Athearn SW-1000 undecorated locmotive. I do not think this model had ever been removed from the original box when I bought it. The couplers have never been installed, the handrails are still in the sealed envelope, and it is perfect.
I removed the mechanism from the shell and gave it a quick inspection. There was just a little surface discoloration on the contact strips, but other than that, it looked brand new.
I put the chassis on a piece of test track and test ran it. It runs silky-smooth and perfect. This will be a great mechanism to use.
So now I have all the major parts I will need to build an Athearn Double Huster of my own. This is another of my planned project locomotives I no longer need to purchase parts for. I might need a pack of Athearn single horns, but I might decide not to use them.
This is going to be fun to build.
Knowing I can build this locomotive makes me OK with not being able to get one of the Piko Whitcomb 65 ton diesel locomotives. This will do the job just fine, and it fits in much better with my fleet.
The two Hustler shells and SW-1000 locomotive were a little more than $100.00 to obtain. That was more than I wanted to spend, but a lot less than the Piko Whitcomb.
I remember it was not too long ago when decent husters were less than $5.00 at train shows. I should have snapped up them all.
OK, that is my start for Weekend Photo Fun for this week.
I am looking forward to seeing the awesome model train pictures that make this the best thread every week.
-Kevin
Thanks for starting off another fine installment of WPF, Kevin.
Quite amazing what supply and demand will do for (or against) a product. Seems like those Hustlers were dime-a-dozen a few years back! I remember I had one, it was the modern geared version.
Much of my week was spent installing a few upgrade decoders in several of my "vintage" Broadway Limited steam engines. I have it down to a bretty good systyem and I'm extremely pleased with the outcomes
I large degree of the improvement, I believe, is installing a much better "hi-bass" speaker plus doing some modifications to the tender shell (sealing air holes). An added bonus is the greatly improved motor control and fine-tuning capabilities of the Tsunami 2 decoder.
I did make a little more progress on the roundhouse "back yard" but haven't taken any Kodaks yet.
Some of you may have heard the giddy news about the NYC cabooses recently available from Tangent Models. I gave in to temptation and bought a pair
NYC_caboose-broad by Edmund, on Flickr
NYC_caboose by Edmund, on Flickr
Doing a side-by-side comparison to similar brass models, the Tangent examples win, hands down!
NYC_caboose-x2 by Edmund, on Flickr
On to more fun contributions, folks!
Regards, Ed
Good morning from sunny and mild Northeast Ohio!
Kevin, thanks for starting us out that is a nice conversion of two old Hustler Units, it looks like something that could have existed.
Ed, if I had not just finshed two brass NYC cabooses, I would have sprung for those, I still may get a PC version.
Finished a couple of cars this week:
Old McKean kit where I removed the cast underframe and replaced it with a Details West Hydrocushion underframe along with Moloco Extended coupler pockets, and A-Line sill steps. Painted with Scalecoat II Armour Yellow, Boxcar Red and Silver Paints then lettered with Mask Island Decals. Car was in service for the Campbell's Soup Plant in Napoleon, Ohio and then to locations across the country.
Atlas 23,500 Gal Tank Car Kit, removed the Accubreak Couplers and fitted Kadee Shelf Couplers per the prototype. Car was painted with Scalecoat II Black paint and lettered with Highball Graphics Decals. MacIntyre Fuels was located in Vermont and service the New England and New York areas with heating oil and diesel fuel via trucks and tank cars.
The real reason I did not pickup a Tangent caboose right now, I just received a pair of Walthers SW7 Switchers, I would rather have had SW9's as those were MU equipped and were used on the Lang Yard Hump.
Last Saturday I took my New Haven C-425 and U-25B to the club with a general freight train for operating.
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, Kevin.
The hustler's look good fun to build.
Ed. Great looking cabooses. I like the colors.
Rick I like the cars. The tank car is exceptional imo.
Some new residents have made their appearance on the layout.
Sylvester and Cassius
Cherub the cat and Ringo the dog.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
Kevin ..... Thanks for starting Weekend Photo Fun . I have an old Hustler in one of my storage boxes. I thought it was nearly worthless. That is an intersting kitbash.
Ed ..... That is an impressive group of NYC cabooses.
Rick... I like the DT&I boxcar and the tank car. I like your giving background information about your freight car models. .... The D&TSL switchers look good. I have been to their Lang Yard in Toledo a few times years ago. ... The New Haven locomotives look great.
David ..... It is good to see you included cats and a dog in your nicely detailed scenes.
....
Here is a bridge I am using on my current layout. I built the bridge many years ago from a Campbell kit with wood parts. A CB&Q SD7 is hauling coal hopper cars across the bridge.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
20210908_211317 on Flickr
Simon
Another good weekend of photos so far. For us retired people, every day is a weekend day!
Kevin, that looks like an interesting project. It's nice you found the different needed parts to work on.
Ed, those are great looking NYC cabooses. I'm glad you found the Tangent cars to be so good.
Rick, you do great work on the cars you show us each week. I really like the tank car.
Thanks for another neat scene from your layout, David. You have a real talent for story-telling scenes on your layout.
Garry, love the bridge scene with the backdrop. Very realistic looking.
Simon, you've done a beautiful job with that building. The coloring and the weathering are just right.
Once again, I haven't done much layout work this week. These containers were 3-D printed by my son-in-law. I painted them and put on some decals. The paint and decals are not done real well if you get up close, but with N scale, they look fine. I bought the SeaLand and Mexican containers. I still have to "dirty" them up to add some realism.
York1 John
SeeYou190For a long time I have wanted to have an "Athearn Double Hustler" center cab switching locomotive...
Great you could finally find the necessary raw material for your Double Hustler. I have one of them, though bought off ebay and built by Jeep Captain in HOn3.
Used a lot in logging service earlier in her tenure, #10 is the narrowgauge yard switcher in my dual-gauge version of Durango. She's proven to be very reliable, even more so since the recent addition of a keep alive.
Ed: Those NYC cabooses bring back childhood memories of traveling along next to the old "Egyptian" line that ran down the east side of lower Illinois, where hundreds of double-bay hoppers and a few dirty cabooses like those held down the rails in the 1960s.
Rick: The DTI boxcar was an certainly eye-catching prototype.
David: I have a few cats on the layout, but need more. Have a couple of 1:1 examples that are a bit lonely since losing the eldest cat this spring.
GARRY: Nice bridge and you did an outstanding job on it. Very impressive!
Simon: It's a basic mill, but looks great!
John: We were just talking with about a half dozen folks who check in on regular my Wed evening Zoom exchange call-in about how 3D printing is getting more affordable.
I've been steadily acquiring a small fleet of wild lands fire-fighting equipment, while intending to do something with it. Between all the fires out west and the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I seemed to have been inspired to do this as a memorial to the efforts of everyone to overcome these tragedies.
To portray them in action on the layout seemed fitting. I'd been holding onto a nicely-former piece of spray expando foam that looked about right for the plume from a loco's stack or a forest fire. A little flat black and white paint followed a base coat of Zinser 1-2-3 all surfaces primer. Then yes, you can spray paint extruded foam witout worry of melting it.
Another pic with more elements in place to fight what looks like a small fire.
It may be just a small fire now, but rugged canyons with winds whipping around can quickly turn it into a large fire. The first responders are racing to the danger. Thanks to all who do that on this tragic anniversary in the midst of ongoing fires.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
York1Kevin, that looks like an interesting project. It's nice you found the different needed parts to work on.
mlehmanGreat you could finally find the necessary raw material for your Double Hustler.
John & Mike, finding parts is always interesting.
One of my other projects I have collected components for is a Baldwin Center-Cab transfer locomotive. I intend to build this on an Overland E unit chassis because of all the interior room this chassis offers, plus, I have it on hand already.
I recently purchased the second Athearn Baldwin switcher shell that I needed, as a complete locomotive.
This was interesting because the original owner had assembled, weathered, and then operated the undecorated model. It looked terrible in photographs. He assured me that it was complete and ran well, but it had just been used as a test-bed for weathering techniques.
I bought it for a song. When it arrived, sure enough it looked bad, but easy to work with. Then, the chassis ran great as described, so I can use it on another project.
This plan came together pretty well. I paid less for this whole, good runner, then I paid for the other undecorated shell.
It looked awful, but turned out to be a great purchase.
I will be back with more later.
There were a few prototype locomotives much like a "double Hustler"
A few were built for the US Army and were used in Thailand and Vietnam...
http://www.railwaysinvietnam.com/firstD10H.html
These were Plymouth locomotives which are the most likely inspiration for the Athearn locomotive, but most of these were four wheeled.
Peter
Back this week.
Kevin, great double ended hustler. Can't wait to see the Baldwin transfer locomotive.
Ed, those NYC cabeese are great looking.
Rick, really like like the Sw7's.
David, animals everywhere!!! REally brings things to life.
Gary, how old is that bridge?
Simon, neat windows in the woodmill.
John, nice 3D printing, like the look.
Mike, will the planes and smoke be permanent?
This week a couple of aquisitions and new building.
The stop a couple of weeks ago yielding a great heavyweight parlor car and new Milwuakee rib side automobile box car.
As I was browsing around in the shop, a young man came in and asked if they bought trains. The owner said sure, evaluated the car and said $15 which the young man took. I asked if he was will to turn it around and said sure $20. SOLD!!. New in the box Walther Heavyweight.
The next car is an Accurail Milwaukee automobile car that they bought moulds from Rib Sided Car. It has the end door for loading lumber which makes a great addition to my Milwaukee fleet. Kadee wisker couples and some light weathering and it ready to go.
The last pictures are of a build thata my wife picked out when she accompanied me on a trip to EngineHouse Services a couple of month ago. She thought it was 'cute'.
Actually based on CNW drawings, makes a great addition to my interlocking tower at the junction.
Great stuff as always everyone.
Scott Sonntag
Great looking outhouse. I need to keep an eye out for those.
Lakeshore SubMike, will the planes and smoke be permanent?
I tend to have a rotating aerial fleet, depending on what I'm building and what I want to bring back. So probably not, but it's taken a couple of years to come together, so may take that long to fly back to base for fuel. I've got a lengthy thread somewhere around here on my collection up to that point.
The smoke plume may get repurposed for steaming purposes, an old trick with cotton that is pre-Photoshop/
Good stuff, all of it; the rolling stock, planes, critters, little structure, and RR Critters!
I conducted two launches today. First:
I was trying to figure out what to do with this little piece of no-man's-land behind the ship (sitting on top of the water surface). Another junk area?
Mmmm. Nah. I thought make it more "organic". Just make it a bank of boulders sloping into the harbor, and give the ship a little more space. OK. I laboriously cut away some tough benchwork, added a new larger surface, and, something I've been putting off for yeeeaarrs! Put the ship IN the water, not ON it.
First launch I mentioned: A Deans Marine "Hudson Firth", as a basis of a chip ship, now down in the surface.
More harbor space, and the rock bank area. The 2nd launch? The camera that took the pictures. That was the last pic it took before I launched it off the layout (at 4'10 height) with my elbow! It hit the floor HARD, even sounded like it. Poor little Olympus 545 won't power up now. I loved those things. I still have one, this was my backup, loose and tired. But I misplaced the primary one last week, and CANNOT find it. Oh,I have other cameras, the show goes on. Overall, it still a good day, hard earned progress made! Keep'em coming! Dan Edited in: I found another 545 on ebay for under 14 dollars, about 7 cents on the dollar from what I paid for a new one in about '06.
More harbor space, and the rock bank area.
The 2nd launch? The camera that took the pictures. That was the last pic it took before I launched it off the layout (at 4'10 height) with my elbow! It hit the floor HARD, even sounded like it. Poor little Olympus 545 won't power up now. I loved those things. I still have one, this was my backup, loose and tired. But I misplaced the primary one last week, and CANNOT find it. Oh,I have other cameras, the show goes on. Overall, it still a good day, hard earned progress made!
Keep'em coming! Dan
Edited in: I found another 545 on ebay for under 14 dollars, about 7 cents on the dollar from what I paid for a new one in about '06.
Simon, John, Mike, and Scott ....... Thanks fo commenting on my bridge.
Simon ..... I like the building.
Scott ...... It is over 30 years old. I like the CNW parlor car and the MILW boxcar.
John .... The backdrop combines a Faller backdrop for the sky in the upper part and a Walthers backdrop for the hills in the lower part. I cut hem as needed. I painted some of the sky where the two backdrops meet.
Kevin and Mike ... Interesting kitbashes for making center cab locomotives.
Dan .... Nice work on your layout.
Kevin, Thanks for the WPF start-up and a look into an interesting project that jogged my memory. I recall seeing a center-cab locomotive in USAF livery servicing Travis AFB in the late 70s and early 80s, maybe a GE-80ton?
Mike, Like seeing your aerial first responders knocking down the forest fire.
Scott, Don't know that a rustic privy can be charming, but somehow yours is.
Dan, Sorry to hear about your camera, I'm always worried about such a mishap. Not an inexpensive option, but your harbor might lend itself to plexiglass 'water'.
Thanks to all the contributors and viewers. Have a good and safe weekend. Regards, Peter
Rick, you must have one gigantic parts bin (and decal file)! You build many "Frankenstein" cars from lots of parts sources, and the results are always excellent.
I like those New Haven U-Boats. Do you look at the Flicker site? There's a fellow there that posts tons of "our-era" N-H photos named Mike Robbins.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alcomike
Lots of great photos there.
I like your cats, David. I have a few of the Preiser ones but your Ninja Cats have character. I like those colorful trees Quite a contrast to your usual "gritty" scenes.
Nice Campell bridge, Garry. I still have mine and it is amazing how strond a few sticks, glue and paper gussets can be!
That is a nice Mill House, Simon. Any thought to setting up a little boiler and steam engine to power the saw? Might make a point of interest.
I'm debating the 3D thing, John. I can't quite justify taking the time to learn new tricks. I bought one of those Cricut things five years ago and it is sitting on the shelf.
You have great mountain scenes, Mike
Nice touch with the flag, Peter
Twenty bucks is a great deal for a Proto passenger car, Scott. You were at the right place and time for that.
You have given lots of thought to your scene, Dan. I can relate. I have a few last spots to conquer and just can't make up my mind on how to proceed. Then suddenly an inspiration hits and I plough right in, "usually" works out OK.
Well, my pension check took another hit this week when my GHB DD1 arrived.
PRR_DD1-GHB-HO by Edmund, on Flickr
It is taking me some time to get used to the color of those stripes! I do not have any other PRR equipment in quite that shade of gold leaf or buff. It might be accurate as this was special paint for the '39 Worlds Fair. Still, just seems odd to me.
PRR_DD-FF-GG by Edmund, on Flickr
I lined her up with my other Alco models DD1 that I painted and lettered plus the Eisenbhan FF1 and a Broadway GG1 (lots of alphabets here!)
PRR_Motor-lineup by Edmund, on Flickr
I didn't realize until after I "developed" the photos that the front hand rail was out of joint.
PRR_Motor-lineup1 by Edmund, on Flickr
The new DD1 sure runs smooth as silk and, on level track, it easily pulled 21 passenger cars (quite a few more than a single DD1 would have been tasked with). I'm sure it will have no problem with the ten or twelve I'll usually have coupled to it.
Great Stuff everybody!
Your fleet is very impressive Ed!
Yes, I have a steam powered saw that will fit under the cover, on the left side of the photo. Still working on it...
Mike, that's a neat idea for the smoke. I saw some of that stuff laying around a house down the street, and never gave it a thought that it might be used on a layout.
Scott, I really like the Chicago and North Western Pullman car. Passenger cars are my favorite layout cars.
Dan, that's an interesting project. I hope you can get some more photos taken so we can see the progress. Good luck with the new camera.
Peter, thanks for the patriotic photo.
Ed, that's a nice lineup of trains you have, and your signal tower looks great!
Did I miss anyone? If I did, forgive my tired old brain.
Thanks, everyone, for a good weekend of photos that keep me enthusiastic about the hobby.
Thank you to everyone that contributed to another great edition of Weekend Photo Fun. This turned out to be a very busy weekend for me.
Ed: Those new bay window cabooses are really great looking models. I also like the new motor unit. I am also glad you are enjoying the improvements you can get with the new Tsunami decoders.
Rick: I very much like the DETROIT TOLEDO AND IRONTOWN boxcar you shared this week. Great job as always. Your pair of switchers also look great.
David: I like the inclusion of animals in your scenes. I just ordered a pack of the Ninja cats for myself. I am hoping they are packed with personaluty.
Garry: Your old Campbell model of the bridge looks right at home in that scene. I want to build one of their through truss bridges some day.
Simon: Your color and proportions of the mill look perfect to me. Is it scratchbuilt? It is a wonderful structure.
John: The 3D printed containers sure fill out the scene. My sons-in-law are only good for tech support and answering the occassional home impovement question.
Mike: The firefighting scenes are impressive. Very nicely done.
Scott: The heavyweight is a stand-out in bright CNW colors. I also like the restroom building. It is a nice detail in the scene.
Dan: Sorry to hear about your camera. I am terrified of anything happening to mine. When I think about all the long trips it has made with me, and the tens of thousand of pictures I have taken with it, I am amazed nothing has ever happened to it.
Peter: Old glory is a colorful stand-out in your scene.
Sorry if I missed anyone.
See you all next week.