jeep35 John, Thank you for the compliment. Actually the backgrounds are presenting me with something of a dilemma. The backdrops are available at just about any hobby shop and they are designed to connect together to form a longer scene. The problem is I bought them a different times and I suppose when the company manufactured them there are differences in the color of the sky. So I need to figure out a way to connect the backdrops together and blend the different sky colors into something a little more uniform. I'm leaning towards airbrushing a "white haze" to try to pull it all together. But, any ideas anyone has would gladly be considered. Jim
John,
Thank you for the compliment. Actually the backgrounds are presenting me with something of a dilemma. The backdrops are available at just about any hobby shop and they are designed to connect together to form a longer scene. The problem is I bought them a different times and I suppose when the company manufactured them there are differences in the color of the sky. So I need to figure out a way to connect the backdrops together and blend the different sky colors into something a little more uniform. I'm leaning towards airbrushing a "white haze" to try to pull it all together. But, any ideas anyone has would gladly be considered.
Jim
Why not cut the sky out of the backdrops (with a sharp hobby knife) and then paint the wall / surface your sky color and then mount the backdrops against that. Then the sky will be a nice uniform color.
John
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
Here's my scratch build Track Cleaning Transfer Caboose.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
Come to us http://www.westportterminal.de my videos my blog
[image removed]
My RI caboose.
Another shot:
Yeah I know, RI never had this caboose but I do. Rest of my cabeese ( six ) sit on the side most of the time.
Wadda ya mean I'm old ? Just because I remember gasoline at 9 cents a gallon and those big coal burning steamers.
jwhitten -- Does your railroad use cabooses?
-- Does your railroad use cabooses?
Not a one. However, three out of four of my railroads use brake vans.
-- If so, what do they look like? Are they just one type, or does your railroad have an assortment, or perhaps different types for different jobs?
The full brake vans look like 4-wheel bobbers, with platforms on both ends but no coupolas. All black, except one assigned to the (runs occasionally) train of brand new high speed cars, which is pastel green.
There are also a wide variety of somethingorother-brakes. That is, there's a brakeman's compartment on one end (usually) of an otherwise standard goods carrier. This list applies to the JNR:
Old ones and slow ones are black, some newer ones are fanciful. The container-brake is baby blue!
-- Did your railroad ever have a "Caboose shortage"?? If so, why? And what did they do about it?
The Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo needed brake vans for its unit coal trains. The results are un-sanctified unions between one end of an Athearn 50 ton BB hopper and one end of an Athearn bay window caboose, painted black and numbered with SeKiFu single digits. (Of course, the coal units also include articulated hopper cars...)
-- Does your railroad have any "unusual" cabooses?
Standard for the railroad, but unusual nonetheless, are the Kashimoto Forest Railway's four wheelers - something like a phone booth centered on a disconnect log truck. There IS a prototype! The Kiso Forest Railway was using them in 1964 (and probably for years before.) The most unusual thing about them is that the 'phone booth' is painted red.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I have a few cabooses, but have not taken any pictures of most of them; here is what I have so far:
In the early 60s, MEC had a caboose shortage and built a number from old 40' box cars. MEC 646 was one I found in a photo. It is a kitbash of an Athearn 40' boxcar and a wide vision caboose.
MEC had 3 versions of these cabooses. Narrow coupla like the 646, wide vision coupla and a couple for their Portland Terminal RR subsidary that had no coupla.
MEC 556 is an older caboose made from an MDC truss rod caboose kit. The paint scheme was used prior to 1955. Boxcar red sides and red ends. It was replaced by the yellow and green used on the 646.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Here's my offering, a re-worked Athearn bay window caboose:
Because the end platforms needed to be permanently attached due to the ladders, I sectioned the floor and secured both the ends and the centre section with screws, some of which are just visible at the corners of the underbody:
Here's a look at the finished end. The screen door was done with silk screening material, sandwiched between two doors of .010" sheet styrene.
My next caboose project will be 9 or 10 scratchbuilt wood-sided ones, built to three different designs on the frame/floor of the Athearn Santa Fe style cupola caboose ('cause I'm too lazy to build 40 sets of steps ).
Wayne
mononguy63 The road I model had a delightful assortment of caboose styles and paint schemes over the years. Always trying to put a good face on threadbare financial resources, it wasn't at all unusual to see new paint jobs on old equipment. Here's a representative sample of the caboose fleet I've made. This would cover about a century's worth of railroading: Some of my caboose paint/decal jobs are, uh, sometimes a bit more prototypical than others... The Monon also had an assortment of rider cars that ran behind the engines. Some day I intend to try my hand at scratchbuilding one of these fellows Jim
The road I model had a delightful assortment of caboose styles and paint schemes over the years. Always trying to put a good face on threadbare financial resources, it wasn't at all unusual to see new paint jobs on old equipment. Here's a representative sample of the caboose fleet I've made. This would cover about a century's worth of railroading:
Some of my caboose paint/decal jobs are, uh, sometimes a bit more prototypical than others...
The Monon also had an assortment of rider cars that ran behind the engines. Some day I intend to try my hand at scratchbuilding one of these fellows
If you see one, grab one of the old Revell Track cleaining cars. The cleaning head out to be metallic hard by now, so remove them, but thy don't make a bad stand-in for a reider car. Their wooden modeled, but it's easier than cutting into the side of a Troop Carrier from Walthers...
Grampys Trains Cabin cars, wood and steel, on the service track. DJ.
Cabin cars, wood and steel, on the service track. DJ.
No no, those are Cabeece. Or if you prefer, cabooses.
That's a cabin car, those are cabooses. Just so you're clear.
-Morgan
The Milwaukee ran bay-window cabeese. Here are a few on my caboose track near the roundhouse. There's a stranger who stopped for the night, too.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
LMAO, Flash. That's a good one. DJ.
Pacemaker HO 41 foot plywood caboose. Only five were made out of old wood freight cars.
I have since painted the wheels black.
The prototype.
The caboose cupola and stack are lower because of height restrictions when the NYC ran the 90 car Pacemaker frieghts.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Got a request to post these here.
Intermountain Santa Fe cabeese with Tomar marker lights (HO scale):
I'm currently on the hunt for a figure with a telephone to fit in one of the cupolas. Would be neat to simulate the early radio system.
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website
Southwest Chief Got a request to post these here. Intermountain Santa Fe cabeese with Tomar marker lights (HO scale): I'm currently on the hunt for a figure with a telephone to fit in one of the cupolas. Would be neat to simulate the early radio system.
Do your markers turn on with the track power, or can they be independently controlled?
That's very cool, btw.
You could probably modify an engineer or fireman figure to look like someone sitting with a phone. Cut the arm off (with appropriate HO-scale anesthetic of course :-) and re-attach it in a different position and then stick a piece of wire bent like a phone receiver painted black, in its hand.
The markers are battery powered (AA) with a miniature on/off switch.
If they were track powered I'd use a simple one or two function decoder to control the markers. But to make these track powered I would have to add some form of power pickup (wipers), and I'm not a big fan of friction on the last car of a train.
Cutting and modifying an engineer figure is probably what I'm going to do for the cupola rider.
the Repo Chick movie trailor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK9hzoong64
here is a behind the scenes look at the movie and how it was made...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpLLuTKZsts
I have several versions of cabeese on my road. Here is one of two Athearn BB Bay Window Cabeese in NYC Jade Green I use frequently. This one and its brother are lighted. I have to find a way to put markers on it (them).
Here is the same caboose at night:
I used brass wire wound around the axles for pickups on this one. Its brother has modified Kadee coupler springs for pickups. Details on my website.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
304live the Repo Chick movie trailor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK9hzoong64 here is a behind the scenes look at the movie and how it was made... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpLLuTKZsts
Very interesting... Not sure about the movie itself, but the idea and the way it's made is very intriguing. Gives one ideas...
The Yuba River Sub uses standard 1930's-'40's Rio Grande wooden cabeese. Mine come from both Walthers and Roundhouse.
I'd like to get some later 1940's steel ones, but finding them in anything other than brass is pretty darned impossible.
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!
Late post, but I found a pic you might enjoy. CMPA's "mdern" caboose...