Living the dream.
Hello everyone. It is a new weekend, and the first weekend in October. October is my favorite month of the year, and I am excited to finally be here.
My new share this week is another brass model of a covered hopper car. There was a thread last week where one of the forum members askled for advice purchasing brass models. Wayne posted a link to a "flash sale" at BrassTrains Dot Com, and this model was on sale. I snapped it up, and that was that.
The covered hopper I shared last week is my smallest, and this one is my largest. It is a model of the CANADIAN NATIONAL "Slab Side" covered hopper car. This is the earliest version with twelve roof hatches.
The model is by Overland, and is in very good condition. As usual, the condition is better than BrassTrains described.
This model barely makes it into my 1954 era legally, but it fits!
Also new this week, I bought a new strobe flash for my camera with a 6" by 9" soft box double diffuser. I also bought a rig with two LEDs that screws to the bottom of the camera body for fill light.
I experimented with this for a bit, and this was the best picture I made. I set the camera in full manual and stopped the aperature all the way to f36. I set the ISO at 200 and the shutter speed at 1/100 and was able to get good color and decent depth of field.
This is a promising equipment bundle, and I think it might be the ticket for future layout pictures.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone's photographs this weekend. This thread can always be counted on to be the best of the week.
-Kevin
Kevin .... Thanks for starting Weekend Photo Fun . That's a very nice covered hopper. It has plenty of hatches on top.
.....
I'll repost some pictures of passenger cars.
First one is a Santa Fe Budd sleeper (Walthers) which I worked on in the previous week. I added it to the Super Chief which now has nine cars.
Here is my Super Chief pulled with Fairbanks Morse Erie Built locomotves.
Most of my passenger trains are Burlington, and I like making prototypically correct cars for them .
The Happy Hollow Club is a sleeper lounge car I made from an NKP Car Company kit. The prototype was a modernized heavyweight car which Burlington painted silver in an effort to look better with stainless steel cars. I weathered it so it would look like it was at the end of its economic life in the 1960's.
Another Burlington modernized heavyweight car is this baggage/mail car.
I have several other protoypically correct Burlington passenger cars. Currently, I am working on another one.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Good morning from mostly sunny and cool Northeast Ohio!
Thanks for starting us out Kevin, surely you know Atlas is releasing the slab side hoppers soon, I think they are on the ocean right now, which of course probably lowered the price on the brass ones right now.
Garry, great looking passenger trains and cars, I have a number of passenger cars but I have not gone into modifying them like you have, great work!
This weeks completed cars!
Proto 2000 Double Door boxcar with enddoors, painted with Scalecoat II Boxcar Red and Black paints and lettered with Champ Decals. The Wabash in 1942 acquired 25 50' Double Door Boxcars with end doors for shipping automobiles which accounts for the old paint scheme I used without the flags that came about later.
Walthers PS 2893CF Covered Hopper kit as a standin for the Greenville car which will probably never be produced. Car was painted with Scalecoat II MOW Gray and lettered with Prime Mover decals. These were the last covered hoppers the Erie acquired before the EL merger. Many of them lasted on to Conrail in Erie paint.
Another pair of 40' Trailers starting with Athearn Blue Box cars and removing the landing gear gusset and grabs which were only of FGE trailers. Trailers were painted with Scalecoat II White and Silver Paint and lettered with Microscale Decals. Also added mud flaps which for some reason nobody includes with their trailer kits.
Continuing on the passenger train motive, here are CP FP7 and F7 A&B units with a passenger train in the mountains.
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!
Great start folks! Here is a city scene from our local club.
20210928_195406 b on Flickr
Simon
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you to Kevin for starting the weekend photos. That's a nice brass car you bought, but the impressive thing is your photographic skill. You really know how to adjust the camera to get the best possible light, focus, and depth.
Garry, once again, I love passenger trains, and you have some great-looking Burlington and Santa Fe passenger cars.
Rick, nice looking cars. I especially like the covered hopper, since that is what we see a lot of out here.
Here is a photo of a Cracker Barrel I built. The lighted sign on the pole actually took me the longest to get the two LEDs mounted correctly. The windows are from Tichy, and the rockers are from Gold Medal:
Looking forward to a lot of good photos this weekend.
York1 John
Simon, that's another nice scene of passenger trains. Very realistic scene from your club layout.
Hello all, getting an early start on the weekend. The main reason is today was "OCS day", as I've spent the morning chasing the CP Office Train. Rick, your CP passenger train reminds me quite a bit of the train I just saw...
I've recently posted a "short" of some mess-ups at the recent Massena Train Show:
https://youtu.be/cxI-abCKgWM
I'll be back later with the full train show video...
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
Thank you to everyone that has contributed so far. We are only 12 hours into this edition of Weekend Photo Fun, and we are off to a great start!
Garry: Your passenger cars are an impressive fleet, and the loving care you have put into your BURLINGTON conversions sure shines through.
Rick: I was made aware that Atlas is releasing the hopper cars, but I have such difficulty getting undecorated models of theirs that I just decided to jump on the Overland model.
Your WABASH 50 foot automobile loading boxcar looks great. I have tried to come up with a one-word roadname for a ficticious railroad, but nothing ever seems to sound right.
Your CP F units sure look correct in the mountains. Nice photograph.
Simon: The red and white on the front of your Budd RDC looks sharp. Having the figures slightly outy of focus and in the shadows makes them look very realistic. All-and-all, that is a very good photograph that has amazing realism.
John: Thank you for commenting on my photograohs. I am still going to experiment more with the new photographic equipment, and I think I can do better. My Passport Color Card is packed away right now, so I am literally just eye-balling the color balance. I think it can be much better.
Your Cracker Barrel restaurant looks amazing. The Gold Medal Models rocking chairs really make the scene look correct. That is a detail that was worth the effort for sure.
Harrison: Those are some mighty nice pictures of the CP executive train. You said you were chasing the train, are you driving yet? When I first started driving I tried to chase trains, then soon found out I had no idea where the tracks went once I lost sight of them!
Let's all keep the good stuff and helpful responses coming. I am looking forward to it all.
Hello Everyone — It is great to be here in October!
Thanks for starting things off, Kevin
I had another week inspired by evaluating and upgrading some of my steam fleet and a few electrics, too.
I really forgot about this beautiful Q2 that has been resting quietly in the roundhouse.
PRR_Q2-6187 by Edmund, on Flickr
I tore open the guts and removed the old decoder and cheap speakers and installed a TCS WOWSound decoder in this one. What a beautiful difference in sound quality and in running smoothness, too!
PRR_J-meets-Q by Edmund, on Flickr
I remember buying this Q at a train show where the seller was asking $250 and I offered $225 and he was OK with that. Saw one go on eBay a while ago at over $1000!
I've upgraded a pair of J1a's this week, too. Again, like a new engine.
PRR_Q-meets-J by Edmund, on Flickr
Great stuff from everyone this weekend! Keep up the good work
Cheers, Ed
Fine looking pictures this here Friday night Gents!
Here is a shot of the Clackamas Yard facilities. Things are a bustlin'!
Don; Prez, CEO or whatever of the Wishram, Oregon and Western RR
-Kevin - Thanks for starting WPF. You have a brass beauty there. Good for you.
Garry - Loved the bridge photo with the Budd sleeper and your version of the Super Chief.
Rick - Great looking cars as usual. Nice photo of the CP passenger train.
Simon - Nice photo.
John - Good job on the Cracker Barrel.
Harrison - Thats a handsome 1:1 CP train. BTW your vidio wouldn't play for me.
Ed - You have been busy! Love the Q2. You are right she/he is a beauty.
taknertoad - Interesting photo.
Nothing new on the BRVRR lately. A little maintenance and cleaning is all. I ordered a couple of locos this week and looking forward to their arrival. Hopefully I'll be able to post photos next week.
In keeping with the passenger train motif, here is my contribution:
One version of my George Bush train, which can be construed as a passenger train.
Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. Thanks to you WPF is always the besst thread of the week.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
Kevin, Thanks for opening the WPF with a couple nice shots of alloy craftsmanship.
Thanks to all the contributors and viewers. A special thanks to truck and delivery drivers everywhere in keeping the goods flowing. Regards, Peter
HO-Velo truck and delivery drivers everywhere in keeping the goods flowing
Russell
I'm back... with my promised video. This is from a train show I attended last weekend with my club. Chapters can be found on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/Pe26dJfNElk
So much great stuff in this thread every week. With all the F7s showing up, here is one from me.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Lots of great modeling, folks.
Was working parking at the Illinois-Charlotte game today (a big win for the now 2-4 Illini) when I caught the passing northbound Saluki.
It was running ahead of an hours-late City of New Orleans.
Back home in the basement, I added an extra track in the storage yard in Durango. JA Bear and a couple others witnessed part of the install (I do a weekly Zoom hangout call, PM for the numbers if you'd like to join us) then I later crawled underneath the layout for what might qualify as the trickiest Tortoise install of the week.
The new track dropped in place.
Underneath, I had to finagle the Tortoise in between the bottom of the layout and my narrowgauge return loop. I drilled the hole in the crossmember in case I ever need to loosen the screw holding the actuating wire.
Also tricky was working the hot glue gun in to put a dab on top of the Tortoise without burning myself.
Then I carefully placed it, aided by some shims at the points. Things worked out well.
While it only added about 4 car spots, the way it's configured makes the spurs work with the lead track more effectively to hold cuts of cars. Just like the big roads, the narrowgauge is shifting away from single car railroading and more toward a unit train concept for many commodities, along with shfiting toward containers.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Impressive Mike! And how do you reach things with a layout that wide?
Some great stuff here this week, everyone!
My track gangs are ready to start pushing the mainline west out of Casper...
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
snjroy Impressive Mike! And how do you reach things with a layout that wide? Simon
Thanks, Simon. I have long arms and things are just within reach for uncoupling, although I use the delayed-drop Kadee feature a lot, too. The engine terminal is the farthest reach and usually doesn't require uncoupling as the motive power gets cut off closer to the layout edge.
Didnt do much Straightened out the sharp curve in the street tackage. started the rest of the track by moving to the two other tongue and nape turnouts. Also these HOe cars arrived from England.
Took apart the camelback 0-4-0 for stripping and repair.
SHane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
One more video this weekend- my haul from the recent Massena Train Show.
https://youtu.be/KxQb0guGP8I
Enjoy the week, everyone...
Rick.... Thanks for commenting on my passenger cars. I like your Wabash boxcar and Erie covered hopper. The TOFC trailer and the CP train look great.
Simon ... Nice photo of the RDC in a city scene.
John York 1 .... Thanks for your remarks about my pictures. The Cracker Barrel restaurant looks good espeically with the rocking chairs. We have been to many of those restaurnts over the years, and I think the rocking chairs are always part of them.
Harriosn .... Nice shots of the CP train. Thanks for the videos.
Kevin ... Thank you for commenting about my passenger cars.
Ed .... Your Q2 is an amazing model of an amazing prototype.
Don .... Your photo of engine serviceing is a great one.
Allan ..... Thanks for your comments about my sleeper and my Super Chief. I like the Bush 41 train.
Peter .... Nice photo of a big truck crossing the track.
Brent .... CP 1400 looks great in your picture.
Mike L .... Your feight yard looks good. It is good to see your work installing the switch machine. Thanks for the video with the Amtrak train.
Mark P ..... Your bench work is impressive. Evidently, you are building an empire.
Shane .... That looks like interesting rolling stock.
BRVRR One version of my George Bush train, which can be construed as a passenger train. Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. Thanks to you WPF is always the besst thread of the week.
Allan: Nice to see a George Bush train. I was lucky enough to see it in person as I lived in College Station at the time of his funeral. It was an overcast, rainy day; so I did not take many pictures; and I wanted to look at the train with my eyes, not the lens of a camera, as I felt it was a moment of history in the making. I too, have been working on assembling a HO scale George Bush funeral train.
Tin Can IIAllan: Nice to see a George Bush train.
I had staged this "photo-op" back when GWB had passed away:
UP_4141b by Edmund, on Flickr
I bought the engine years before on a closeout sale because I liked the colors (credit: Raymond Lowey) .
UP_4141d by Edmund, on Flickr
When I set up the Preiser people I had no idea at the time that the actual dedication of 4141 was remarkably similar
Note the photos on the right of this page:
https://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/releases/heritage_and_steam/2005/1018_4141.shtml
Particularly the bottom photos here:
https://blog.overlandhobbies.com/2018/10/01/omi-up-george-bush-presidential-library-and-museum-sd70ace-4141-consignment-model/
Regards, Ed