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Modeling "The General"

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 13, 2011 4:22 AM

Once Upon a time.........

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Thursday, October 13, 2011 5:43 AM

We have an old waterfall style chest that my wife and I are currently considering on turning into a permanent winter/christmas display set up. I've got a few 1/24 scale cars that I've been thinking of mounting in there as if people are waiting at a train station for loved ones to come home .....

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 13, 2011 10:12 AM

Such a simple solution I don't know why I never thought of it before.A RR station has been built over a coach sitting on a sideline track (spur line?)using whatever materials happened to be at hand.Why ? who knows !, but that is not what is important to our story.
To say the least the station is very crudely built of old weathered siding with RR ties for a platform.It could have been built on one of Hollywood's backlots expressly for this purpose or it could have been just a found location.

Once Upon a time.........

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Posted by robert sylvester on Friday, October 14, 2011 2:12 PM

John:

I do appreciate your effort and it sounds like a worth while project. I have always felt that all scales are a part of model railroading. I have seen articles in MR concerning each and every scale we work on, each has its own distinct importance.

In fact I model HO, N, O, as well as G scale with an outdoor railroad as well. To me it is all apart of what we do, so I thank you for sharing.

Will this be a static model or will you power this model. On my G guage I run vintage steamers as well as more up to date road power and I love them all.

Keep us posted, modeling tips are always welcome.

Robert Sylvester, WTRR

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Monday, October 24, 2011 5:06 AM

Hi Robert .Glad you like my stuff,this model will be static display.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 6:45 AM

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 7:22 AM

I was wondering has anyone here had a problem with allergies and super glue ? I have had some problems in the past with the fumes but lately it seems to be getting worse.I am very careful about exiting the fumes outdoors but just handling the stuff now seems to be a problem and of course there is always some fume residue lurking around.I have been using it for years but lately the symptoms seem to be getting more troublesome with even some skin reactions involved.Filters and masks don't work either.

I love my hobby but  I don't want to croak because of it.

Is there a good substitute for ca ? something that sets up quickly but is not too toxic ?

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 8:19 AM

mmmm...you might want to get that checked out by a doctor as well...

As far as ca alternatives go...UHU All-Purpose is supposed to be a good alternative...pdf MSDS seems fairly innocuous...http://www.saunders-usa.com/uhu/msds/twistglue_msds.pdf

Another alternative that I have used myself is http://www.filla-glu.com/...it is a form of superglue that has no odor and does not bloom either...

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/

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Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 2:31 PM

Thank you !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

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I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 4:38 PM

Still hangin in there TA ! more pics soon.

Once Upon a time.........

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I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by jeffrey-wimberly on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 4:51 PM

JohnReid

I was wondering has anyone here had a problem with allergies and super glue ?

Yes. It aggravates my asthma if I use a lot of it. I try to keep it to the point of one item to be glued, one drop.

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:20 AM

thanks for the heads up !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:50 AM

You know this is actually a great little kit but it did test my patience at times.Most of the problems are with the instructions and the hard to read identification  #'s of the parts on their sprues.In a kit of this size and complexity I wonder how many ever actually got finished.I know mine had been started years ago by someone else and I picked it up for the price of the postage.If the manufacturers had put a little more money into the actual kit and less in marketing a nice box ,it would have been money well spent.It makes me wonder how many potential modelers have lost their interest in building due to this problem.I know that if I hadn't of had lots of prior experience mine would probably be still in the box in the cupboard too.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:35 AM

You raise an interesting question here. I am in the process of doing another N scale Olsen's Feeds and Larsons Implements kit from DPM and I have gotten so  used to odd instructions that I am to the point of just blunderbussing my way through the building process. 

Mind, I'm also reading a manual for Sonar X1, which is a digital audio workstation...all 1,500 pages of it.   

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 27, 2011 9:40 AM

Gettin' there slow but sure !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, October 27, 2011 9:48 AM

You know I can't help but marvel at what a wonderful bit of engineering this model represents.They must have been wondrous sites in their time.These locomotives seemed as if they were alive and were well named by our native peoples as "The Iron Horse."

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, October 28, 2011 7:22 AM

Imagine seeing this roll into your local station !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 28, 2011 9:11 AM

OK, it looks like this thread is never going to go away what with our daily update dose of The General - - LOL.

What the heck is The General anyway? 

I had no idea, so I decided to research it a little. 

According to Wikipedia, The General is a 4-4-0 steam locomotive that was built in 1855 to provide passenger and freight service on the Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A RR) between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga Tennessee.

During the Civil War, a military raid occurred on April 12, 1862 in northern Georgia.  Volunteers from the Union army commandeered a train powered by The General locomotive and took it northwards toward Chattanooga doing as much damage as possible to the W&A RR as they went pursued by Confederate soldiers in other locomotives.  The raiders were eventually captured and executed as spies.  Some of the Union raiders became the first recipients of the Medal of Honor.

This raid and subsequent pursuit by the Confederates on other locomotives became known as The Great Locomotive Chase.  In 1926, Buster Keaton starred in a silent movie coemdy film titled The General.  The movie was inspired by The Great Locomotive Chase.  Disney remade the film in 1956.

The General locomotive is preserved in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw Georgia, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I am a history buff, particularly military history, and I find the Civil War totally fascinating.

Do any of you have a Civil War era layout?   Some photos would be interesting.

Rich

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Posted by mobilman44 on Friday, October 28, 2011 9:45 AM

Hi!

Oh my, I loved that Disney movie - The Great Locomotive Chase - and saw it at the local theatre when I was about 12 or so - making that in the mid-late '50s.   Yup, admission was 12 cents at the Avaloe Theatre, located on Diversey near the California avenue cross street in Chicago.

Fess Parker was the northern "spy", and was just sooo cool.   He was almost up there with John Wayne.  Of course this movie is on Kalmbachs list of 100 best train films (I have the DVD).  

Fess Parker also starred in the three Disney TV movies / serials of Davey Crockett.......   I think one was about Congress, one about river pirates and of course one about the Alamo.  Obviously, Colonel Crockett is a Texas Heroe!

But, I digress...........The trains of the mid 1800s were often colorful and well taken care of cosmetically - by those RRs that could afford to do so of course.   I suspect there was an awful lot more of locos/cars that were just plain Jane and allowed to deteriorate with the weather.

MR had some Civil War era layouts in its pages over the last few years, and as I recall they were pretty interesting.   Of course there are some models out there for the cars and locos, and while there aren't that many structures there are some that could be kitbashed to put them in that era.

Still, it was a sad and horrible time in American history, and I would personally not want to model it.

ENJOY !!!!!

 

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by Stourbridge Lion on Friday, October 28, 2011 10:14 AM

Looking at the real thing and the model I think John is doing a very nice job and I have enjoying reading the efforts it takes to do this type of project.

File:W&A No3.JPG

Photo By:  Harvey Henkelmann

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 28, 2011 10:35 AM

So is that the actual The General locomotive in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw Georgia?

We drive down to Fort Myers from the Chicago area once a year and pass through both Chattanooga and Atlanta.  That would be worth a stop in Kennesaw.

Rich

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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, October 28, 2011 10:48 AM

See now if I hadn't posted all this you would have never known !Idea

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, October 28, 2011 10:51 AM

Thank you Harvey,glad you are enjoying it.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by Stourbridge Lion on Friday, October 28, 2011 10:51 AM

It's the real deal Rich...  Cool

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 28, 2011 5:15 PM

Just out of curiosity, I checked the Walthers web site to see if anyone makes a powered 4-4-0 and, lo and behold, Mantua not only makes a 4-4-0 in HO scale, but one of the road names is the Western & Atlantic - - The General.  The release date is yet to be announced and, ominously, the price is yet to be determined.  That's not good.

 I have no idea if this loco will be DCC ready, but that would be a must on my layout.  Of course, my era is certainly not the 1850s or 1860s, but I could always include The General as a railfain excursion train.

Rich

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Posted by mobilman44 on Friday, October 28, 2011 6:33 PM

Hi!

On my previous layout (11x15 two level HO), I was preparing a place for my first HO Steam loco, a Bachmann or Tyco 0-4-0 switcher.   This would have been a historical display of an old ATSF loco and I had fencing around it and a park like setting.  The in joke was that the Santa Fe never had a loco like this with the sloped tender.   I believe Tyco just patterned it after the PRR, which did have such a loco.

Anyway, I barely got the set up in place and dropped the thing 4 feet to the carpeted floor - but it still broke in several pieces - especially the shell of both the tender and loco.  

I finally  decided I had to replace it - for I am a sensitive guy and this was my first HO steam loco.   I got one for parts off of Ebay, and pieced together one decent loco.   But, then I realized I was fixing to allow a non prototype loco on the layout, and that didn't sit well - so I ended up selling it on Ebay that next year.

My point - yes, there is a point - is that if you didn't model that mid Civil War or postwar period, you could set up that HO model in a park display - complete with chain link fence.

ENJOY ! 

 

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Friday, October 28, 2011 6:45 PM

JohnReid

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/th_281011004-1.jpg

Imagine seeing this roll into your local station !

That, when compared to the real thing shows just how much care and precision was put into that model...wow!!!

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

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Posted by BIG JERR on Friday, October 28, 2011 6:51 PM

I believe the first to break the 100 mph mark was a modern (1900s) 4-4-0 with extra large drivers .I think bachman makes the modern 4-4-0 in spectrum ...nice work John ,an a great movie

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Posted by jwhitten on Friday, October 28, 2011 9:50 PM

Stourbridge Lion

Looking at the real thing and the model I think John is doing a very nice job and I have enjoying reading the efforts it takes to do this type of project.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/W%26A_No3.JPG/800px-W%26A_No3.JPG

Photo By:  Harvey Henkelmann

 

I agree, I am amazed at the amount of detail going into the model! I remember watching the Fess Parker movies too when I was a kid, probably of around the same age I expect.

 

John

Modeling the South Pennsylvania Railroad ("The Hilltop Route") in the late 50's
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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, October 29, 2011 6:26 AM

Sounds like a great idea Rich ! glad to hear about the new 4-4-0.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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