Hi,
Like the story about the cat. Our cats are too busy being cats (sleeping all day) to be interested in trains.
The train in the photo is not any particular train. I wanted a steam loco with sound and I thought a Challenger would do as it is different to the UK steamers which do not have two sets of driving wheels. So I got an Athearn Challenger off ebay which happened to be undecorated. I put some Rio Grande decals on it as I like the writing and it is different from the usual UP ones. I then bought all the walthers coaches in D&RGW that the local hobby shop had in stock to pull behind it. I like the yellow silver colour, hence the loco and coaches combination. As my layout is supposedly present day it represents a Steam Special running through!
Your layout looks great. Nice to have some long curves and space for the train to pass through.
Thanks
Paul
Paul:
Nice job on the tunnel. Actually, what's equally as interesting to me is the train going through your tunnel. Does it represent the Rio Grande "Ski Train" or the earlier 1949-50 "Royal Gorge" that was made up of both Pullman Standard and lightweight equipment? Reason I ask, is that I just modeled the "Royal Gorge", courtesy of Walthers heavyweight and lightweight cars. Quite an interesting train.
Nice job, though.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Hi!
Nice innovation! May I suggest you fix up your backdrop to give the impression that this massive rockwork is the edge of a larger mountain(s).
You did bring back a very old memory for me, and I have to share it....
In 1953-4 I had a Marx set, and would often set it up on the living room rug floor. We had a grocery store, and lived behind the store, which gave me ready access to all the cardboard boxes (and candy) you could imagine. Needless to say, I took a couple of boxes and cut out tunnel portals and set them over the track - ala instant mountains!
One Sunday morning as Dad was sitting on the sofa reading the paper, I was running the train round and round the large oval. However, after a couple of runs the caboose seemed to derail each time it came thru the larger mountain - while all the other cars were just fine. After a couple times of this my Dad started laughing, and as he was several feet away I knew he had nothing to do with it.
Well, finally I wised up, lifted up the large mountain, and there was "Tom" the cat, whose tail was swiping at the train each time it went through, but only powerful enough to knock the caboose off track. It was really funny at the time, but I soon got rid of the Marx and began a Lionel layout in the basement.
Oh, and Tom, well "he" went on to have kittens, and we ended up giving him away due to allergies.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
My layout looked a bit flat so I built a tunnel from a cardboard box.
Here's how.
First I cut off the top flaps of the box flush with the top. Then I made several Hydrocal moulds of rock faces using the Woodland Scenic’s rock face kit. I coloured these in the usual way and stuck them on the sides of the box with white glue. I then marked out where to cut the ends to form the tunnel openings using the tunnel portals as a template. Then I stuck the Hydrocal Tunnel portals on each end. To fill in the gaps between the Hyrdocal mouldings I put white glue and ground foam to make it look like a crack in the rock surface and to hide the cardboard underneath. This makes it look like the cracks in the rock are damp and attracting plants and moss etc. The top of the tunnel is made by laying bits of polystyrene packing material on top and then covering it with plaster cloth. Then paint and cover in white glue, sprinkle ground foam on top, add a few bushes and you have a removable tunnel.
As one side of the tunnel is against a wall I did not bother putting rock moulds on this side.
And here is the finisher article.
PaulWhitt20