Weekend Photo Fun 31 October - 2 November 2014

["JaBear"]

BRVRR

Bear, You may already have these but I thought I would forward them just in case.

Yes Alan I already have those links but thank you very much for taking the time to look, and I’d be appreciative if any further links come up. I‘ve spent a lot of time on Google trying different search phrases with differing success, or lack of, but am sure there is undoubtedly  more info out there. I’ve managed to get some really good information from the Bowling Green University site, (what an interesting name) and wonder if they may have plans or drawings. That said if I was modelling the Wabash I would search for more information to build an accurate model of the “Windsor” but as I’m freelancing I’m prepared to use a large dollop of modellers licence

Again thanks to all for the really Good Stuff.

Cheers, the Bear.

[Motley]

I just finished building the flood loader for the Empire Mine in Craig, CO.

[zgardner18]

mlehman

Beautiful work, Zak

Thanks Mike!

[Marc_Magnus]

bogp40

Great stuff guys, here's a few trackside pics

 

 

 

Nice pics of what seems to be a great layout.

I have tired eyes but it seems you handlay your track, congratulations; it's a great asset.

Marc

 

[bogp40]

Great stuff guys, here's a few trackside pics

[BroadwayLion]

 

[BRVRR]

Bear,

You may already have these but I thought I would forward them just in case.

The first is a link to a photo of the RR Ferry "Windsor":

http://ul.bgsu.edu/vsl/img/00/76/007675a.jpg

This is a link to a photo of what I believe is the same vessel, converted to a Norfolk-Southern RR Barge.

http://www.railfan.net/railpix/submit/subphoto.cgi?dansyrcher/30-NSrr_Barge-ds-8-26.jpg

There isn't much available, but the source of the first link has several photos of similar/sister vessels The photos may help with some of the details. It might also be worth an inquiry to Bowling Green University which is near Toledo in Northern Ohio.

Good luck with your quest.

 

[riogrande5761]

The lights look good in the Concor Super Liner I cars.  If you are going to that level of work on them, don't forget the trucks, which are incorrect and really stand out.  Train Station Products made/makes correct truck replacements so the SuperLiner I cars have the right trucks, not trucks from 1950's era passenger cars.

[mlehman]

Ed, Jack, and Marc,

Great pics! 

Ed,

I never knew Pennsy had it's own version of the troop sleeper. No, no chewing gum in the FT truck. Seemed good to go with just baling wire.

Mike, is your hay barn constructed from scale timber?

Bear,

Most of it is 1/16" basswood sheet, with 1/32" sheet for the roof. I used scale 2x3 lumber to make the battens. For bracing and the visible posts, I used 3/32" square sticks (equivalent to an 8x8), along with some scale 2x8 for bracing on the dock.

[Marc_Magnus]

Gidday All, a Happy Halloween to all of you who celebrate it.

Well a little more progress on the ferry.

Looking forward to the Really Good Stuff,

Have a Great One fflokes,

Cheers, the Bear.

 

Congratulations for your nice ferry, I'm impatient to see the whole finished project, look great. ( I have post one more pics of my ferry on your individual post)

 

Unfortunately, there are some months I didn't have show progress of my Nscale Maclau River RR WPF,  don't have much time and taste to play whith trains this time, but...

But I'm starting to work on a future village on the line and this village is also the place where my double main (Hills section) change direction, one is going to "Cincinati" (staging) and the other direction still follow the peddler route through mines and village.

I am looking for some track arragements, including this one whith the bidirectionnal double line and some turnouts to offer place of industry in the village.

Most of the turnouts are Fastrack handbuild and some are Peco 55 included in the proposal track schematic

Following my habit, I build the turnouts in mass production; a few days hard work whith cutting rail, shape them, solder them and check them, this succeed in 18 turnouts build in 2 and a half day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jalajoie]

As usual another great WPF. JaBear this is going to be a great ferry, can't wait to see the whole port scene.

This parc is the latest addition to the club layout

["JaBear"]

Gidday All, thanks for the kind remarks regarding my ferry project, and once again a great variety of inspiring really Good Stuff, thanks all.

 

Mike, is your hay barn constructed from scale timber?

 

Peter, I can’t say I’m thrilled to learn that it was a fellow country man that came up with the idea of daylight saving.

 

 "......still can't get over the size of those stacks!"

Rick, armed with this 5 inch long drawing, the knowledge that the “Windsor" was 358 feet long, and some additional photos, I scaled up the drawing to HO scale and while I freely admit that that my dimensions are nowhere near precision engineering standards, I am confident that they are generally “within cooee”. 

Have Great Sunday,

Cheers, the Bear.

[gmpullman]

Hi, Everybody!

Did you set your clocks back? (those who participate in the time-honored tradition, that is) 

There seems to be a predominance of Pennsy Tuscan here! Rick J, GPman with his freight—ening pumpkin!

Mike, I see the bailing wire... how much chewing gum is in those trucks? 

Well, my employer seems to think that after 36 years and 3 months that my services are [temporarily] no longer needed and I'm laid off (they call it a "time out") kinder gentler,  yippee! Actually, I volunteered to go and save one of the younger guys' jobs... SO I can work on TRAINS! There's actually a slight dusting of SNOW outside here in NE Ohio! Good time to be workin' on the layout!

Finally, I dusted off the old Paasche and got to work on some brass P-Company stock that has been collecting dust for the last year or two! First up is a P-30a troop sleeper that I stole from Ebay! 

Here she is when it arrived on the property...

Then to the paint shop...

Lots of Tuscan here... and this is only half the job!

And — finally...

Looking good! Next steps... decals and real glass in the windows, then a bit of matte finish to tone down the gloss.

This is my first attempt with Scalecoat I paint. The cleanup is a bit of a pain but the results are fantastic! In this case I wanted a glossy surface for the decal work and Scalecoat came through beautifully. No primer. Just cleaned and etched the brass in vinegar, then a distilled water rinse and a blow-dry with heat, then shoot the paint! A 1 hour roast in a 160° oven, too. (sounds easy, in reality there was a bit more than that... but I was doing eight cars all together).

Here's a link to some PRR troop sleepers for reference.

http://www.billspennsyphotos.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=11158055

Great photos! Great thread! November is Model Railroading Month! 

Ed

 

[mlehman]

Beautiful work, Zak

[zgardner18]

[mlehman]

Don,

You got those fall colors just about right, looks great. They're often depicted as rather garish, which works with having a few trees like that, but just doesn't look right for a whole forest.

[EMD.Don]

Well done all, great stuff! 

Well I was able to get in a good few hours around the layout last evening when the kids went to bed...tuckered out after all the trick or treating no doubt...LOL! That, coupled with be being an early riser meant that I was able to reinstall the track, add and secure the ballast (not my favorite part of the hobby but with a beverage and good music it can actually be quite relaxing), add some more shrubs, vines, and place some trees. This was the scene yesterday morning:

This is the scene as it sits now:

As you can see I am going for an early fall seasonal time frame for my N scale layout. It's my favorite season with so many rich and vibrant colors to choose from. So far I am quite pleased.

Keep up the good work and excellent posts all!

Regards,

Don

[mlehman]

BRVRR

Mike, Thanks for the tip about tilting the lights. I'll give it a try. I'm not happy with the uneven light in the cars which is why I 'split' the light strip. Your idea sounds like a good fix.

Hi Allan,

Tilting may do the trick for you. For some cars it's all you need. Ultimately, I found that more LED segments running at a lower intensity gives the most easy to control lighting. Then all you do to adjust is vary the resistance. In fact, best results come when you have enough LEDs so that they start acting like tiny light fixtures, but that can get $$$ depending in your source for the segments.

I've been using some from Radio Shack, so not the cheapest. They do have a diffusser on each "LED" in the segments, so it appears tp be just one LED under most conditions. Stop it down with a lot of resistance and you find there are actually 3 tiny LEDs under each so that it appears to be like a tiny light fixture with 3 bulbs. I haven't really done anything visually with this effect, which would work best if the 3 unit segment was separated into the individual units so it could look like an overhead lamp, but it really helps to spread the light to have more of the segments running at lower intensity. If you doubled up the segments in your Superliner, it'll be much more evenly spread.

Paul,

I like it

BTW, I'm used scale 2x3 boards for my battens on the barn.

HO-Velo

Mike, "Tanks" for the curved stairway tip. Managed to fumble finger the caged ladder, oh the pain of it, but have another on the way from Tichy.

Peter,

That came out great. I think your experience was like mine, as I remember fumbling through the first one, then the second one was much easier. That's another good reason why some projects you just do, learn from, then do over in much better shape. IMO avoiding the Paralysis of Perfection is the key to learning new skills in model building. Whatever you come up with is either worth the experience -- or worth taking pictures of! You can't lose.

[HO-Velo]

Thanks Bear, Your project is looking swell, and thanks to your countryman G.V. Hudson many may enjoy an extra hour of model railroading tomorrow.

Mike, "Tanks" for the curved stairway tip.  Managed to fumble finger the caged ladder, oh the pain of it, but have another on the way from Tichy.

Thanks to all,  Peter

 

[peahrens]

The day after Halloweening, unfortunately with leftover candy on the counter.  How to solve that??

I'm enjoying the realistic scenes people are showing, an ultimate goal for me.  Plus the techniques shown, such as hand built board & batten.  I often don't contemplate scratch options.

Well, I got my first two buildings lit, both these with multiple 3-LED sections.  I'm getting the knack of soldering the small wire to the small connection spots, and strengthening with an epoxy blob. These look "cooler" than in the photos.  Still experimenting with paint colors, but these with gray/sand color floor and tan interior walls (over primer).  I added Peco inspection pits to the engine house and really like the addition.

[BRVRR]

Mike,

Thanks for the tip about tilting the lights. I'll give it a try. I'm not happy with the uneven light in the cars which is why I 'split' the light strip. Your idea sounds like a good fix.

Thanks again.

[C&O Fan]

A Repeat of last week

 

My open house for the Houston TX Area  is Nov 15th and 16th

 

http://sanjac.leoslair.com/styled-5/index.html

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone's invited

 

for those that can't make it here's a peak

 

 

 

Sing It Willie

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdwFivkrKrM

 

[mlehman]

A busy day, but I did squeeze in time to finish the new barn, as well as gave it a the first pass of weathering.

Yeah, I know about the posts floating under the dock...

 

 

[EMD.Don]

So much inspirational work presented here...well done all!

[mlehman]

Allan,

That's a pretty good pic, as it's hard to get the exposure right, even with things set to Auto. I try Manual settings sometimes and the camera is usually smarter than me. I know what you mean about needing to fill the interior after things are nicely lit.

On some of my tape light installs, I've been able to fix the segment in place so that the center LED shines down, but the two end segments tilt up a little at each end to spread the light out more down the aisle each way.

[BRVRR]

Bear your ferry is looking good.

Mike great photos as usual.

dti406, Love the little Pennsy cabin car.

GP-9 Man, Great Keystone!

Garry it is still a great scene.

Don your work looks good to me.

Grampy another great photo.

I have been slowly adding to my Amtrak consist for the past few months. Below are a couple of ConCor Superliner cars which are recent additions and a few photos of some of the modifications I made to the cars.

SuperlinerDiner.

SuperlinerSleeper32067.

To both cars, I installed new body mounted Kadee's with draft gear boxes and replaced the 'push-pin' truck mounts with #6 brass screws. I installed wound wire pickups on the axles of each truck. I soldered a power lead to each pick-up and routed the lead through a small hole in the car body.

On the interior of the car I added a few ounces of weight and soldered six split tape type LEDs to the leads. I put the LEDs on the interior roof and fixed them in place with cellophane tape as the original adhesive isn't very tacky.

Here is a photo of the car with the lights on in the dark. Sorry for the quality of the image.

Both cars received the same treatment and are welcome additions to my Amtrak consist. The youngest grandson loves them.

Still some things to do. Fabricate and install an interior on the upper deck and put in a few passengers but those things will have to wait for awhile.

In addition, I purchased a powered chassis for my dummy AMD-103 loco, but that will have to wait until next time.

Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. You always make WPF the best thread of the week.

 

[Grampys Trains]

Nice work from everyone, esp. the Halloween themes. A GP7 doing a little switching.

[mlehman]

Great rocks, Don

[EMD.Don]

Here is my rock cut that I have been working on for my N scale layout:

Having only been a model railroader for about five years and this being my first layout, this is the first scenery that I have ever attempted. I still have trees, vines, different shrubs, reinstalling the track and then adding ballast to go yet (plus a little more dry brushing on the rocks). But I am pretty happy with my work thus far. 

Have a great weekend all and Happy Halloween!

Regards,

Don.