Nice touch...with the washer! Looking good.
Happy Easter...Hope you can enjoy friends and family.
Hi, Joe. Olde Frothingslosh tonight. That way, I won't be tempted to have seconds...
Well, about this time tomorrow, I'll be cruising across New Mexico on the way to Beautiful Downtown - Ashland City, TN... Then to Lebanon (the eastern terminal of the Music City Star) before coming back by way of Tucson, In between, visits with my kids, grandkids and great-grandson (in TN) and my sister and her tribe in Arizona. Depending on timing, I might have a chance to visit my parents' grave, at a military cemetary a little way off the route.
A little , but have to extend a big, "Well done!" to the US Navy. Maybe it's about time to return to the (not so) wonderful world of yesteryear. I wonder if the pirates would be anxious to try taking a ship with a 105mm on the stern and twin 20mm on the bridge wings...
Remember seeing a model ship next to the quay on an HO scale layout set in the early 40s. The ship was a foobie, but the weaponry was spot-on.
The cargomaster just called me - something about getting the suitcases and such into the RAV...
See ya - in a couple of weeks.
Chuck (Temporarily not modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Chuck... sounds like a long trip. I watched the tracks being upgraded for the Music City Star. I have family memebers in Mt Juliet between Nashville and Lebanon. Ridership has been disappointing on the Music City Star. It seems the goverment upgraded I-40 which runs parellel to the tracks but about 2 or 3 miles south. We're located 100 miles NW of Nashville in western KY. If you're interested in seeing the layout, stop by.
Regarding the heroic rescue of Captain Phillips, I figured out what saved him. It was Easter Seals. ...Well, the folks in Elliot's Diner just about kicked me out with that joke. Kidding aside, the incident could have been tragic, and I am glad it was not.
JB...I'll let you know if I go to Duluth.
Happy Model Railroading.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Chuck:
You and the Mrs. have a great trip. Be sure to have as much fun as possible and DON’T pass up anything you really want to / need to do!
As for the pirate thing, I’m in your boat! The Pres. (giving the oky-doky) and the navy did well. But… I just don’t get it!!! Now they threaten to retaliate??
I almost hate to say it, but I’m really sick and tired of some of this stuff (for lack of verbiage I would otherwise use if not on the forum) and as an old military guy….I’m thinking some weaponry (perhaps some large weaponry, I'm thinking maybe "puff" on the wings and a few dasey cutters inland) could go along way to prevent all of this who-ha from happening over and over again!
Sorry, I’m not usually an advocate of violence…But this has got me torked!
Just realized I am at the top of the page….
I know that it is 5:00 o'clock somewhere, but coffee will do just fine here this morning.
MrB, Love the ringer washer on the porch. The first house that I bought had one in the back shed. It had been taken care of and still had the manual with it.
Larry and I worked hard on the layout this weekend. We started the fascia so that I can finish the streambed. He made a fishing pole for my fisherman, and lettered 2 locos, while I got out the bragdon stuff and crafted the next opening for another tunnel portal and the hill around it. I did some rocks and made the portal from one of the rock molds. It tried the smallest amount of petroleum jelly in the mold release. We will see how it turns out. I am also going to try some acrylic color in the gesso on the inside of the tunnel.
MrB did you use the tempra on the rock as Joel suggested?
Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
Hi everyone. The work week's half over, so it's reason enough to celebrate.
Yes, Sue, I eventually got my Bragdon rocks to look very good. I think my big problem was too much petroleum jelly. The second casting used a lot less. I also was very thorough with the degreaser. I only have that one jar of gesso, so that's what I used, and then the black powdered tempra. I quickly ran out of the small set of paints in the kit, so I switched to craft paint acrylics, and they worked fine. I was even able to salvage the original casting with a lot of degreaser.
Incidentally, the wash machine and the hand water pump are from Scale Structures Limited. Walthers carries them, or you can browse their catalog at http://www.jaksind.com/. Lots of fun stuff for building interiors, and many other accessories as well.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Hi, Joe. Singha, please. It's lunch time.
(There's a joke in there somewhere, but only if you were with the 23rd TASS at NKP...)
I wonder if this is going to be the first of a new bunch of posts. We seem to have gotten onto a schedule of a bunch every few weeks, followed by a long period of quiescence.
I see that, in the process of commenting on this and that, I reached the top of the postometer! Maybe it was my comment on the would-be Desert Xpress that lifted me into the lead... (Las Vegas to - Victorville??? in the Trains Mag Passenger forum.) Maybe I'm a distrustful old (fillintheblank) but, to me, this has the delicate corroded-fish aroma of an investment scam.
The trip was interesting, and pleasant enough. Met my first great-grandson (and found out that his little brother will be due about August First.) OTOH, I love my grandson - as long as he's in Tennessee and I'm here. If I had tried similar behavior at his age, I would have died 67 years ago! (He's sixteen years younger than his sisters, and has been spoiled rotten.)
Well, time to shut down the computer and pick up the tin snips and power drill/screwdriver. The new section of benchwork won't build itself...
See ya,
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Evening all. Joe, a round of Boston-brewed Harpoon, in honor of our Boston Brewin's, uh, Bruins. Game 1 of the second round is safely in the record books, 4-1 over Carolina.
I had some alone-time while the girls have been off doing other things. After a long delay, I finished installing the diesel Tsunami in one of my Proto GP9s. It really does sound good. I had to go learn some more CV management to speed-match it down to its sister Geep, since Tsunamis do it differently. Once all the internals were done, I realized that I really didn't want to take this thing apart again, so I removed the truck sides, masked off the windows and weathered it up. I was so happy with the results that I dismantled the other Geep and also the Alco RSC-3 and gave them the treatment as well. I realized that on my layout, "fresh from the paint shop" doesn't mean new-looking, but rather the acquisition of a number of years of wear and tear.
Chuck, I love the idea of putting a car float on springs so it would roll and pitch and like a real barge as cars were loaded on. I'm thinking that the apron would have to be modified to have some play in it, too, which could make for an interesting operation. How about a camshaft beneath the float, with a set of push-rods coming up to simulate natural wave action? On second thought, better limit this to the roll axis. On my layout, I haven't figured out how to set the brakes on the rolling stock yet.
Hopefully, I'll get to the scenery around the coal loader this weekend. I got it installed and wired, and the scenery right around it is done. But, there's that narrow band between the loader and the main line. I've been putting together some more chain-link fence for it, and there will be a re-habbed signal bridge right there, too.
Well, getting late on the East Coast. See you all over the weekend.
Joe, I just stopped in for a Long Island Iced Tea. Looks like everyone is doing serious work on their layouts.
Hello...
Good to see "the Barn" is active!
Bergie... I posted in the big thread on your new job, but again I wish you the best. Feel free to supply some "Strumpets" from time to time. If you like KY country ham, I can reciprocate with that from time to time. Folk in "the Diner" like it.
Glad Chuck had a nice trip to TN!
Cheers!
Milestone reached. Joe, set 'em up. A Strumpet IPA for me, if you please.
Well, the scenery is "done." Of course, it's never really done, and there are still a number of small problems that need to be corrected, but to the casual observer, there are no unfinished spots on my layout.
The far back corner where the old operating Vollmer coal loader has sat on pink foam for the last 4 years is done now. I put some "water" into a trackside ditch and "planted" some tall grass along it. It was surprisingly easy to get the coal chutes running again. Machining a new core for one of the solenoids wasn't much work, and I fabricated a new hinge for one chute door out of brass tubing. I wired it up, and both chutes opened and closed on cue. One of these days, I'll make a video.
Still some work, of course. I've been looking over parts of the layout, and found a few spots that never got ballasted. A few of the scenic covers for those Atlas switch machines are not up to my current standards, and I've still got some signals to install. Still lots of cars with horn-hooks sitting in boxes, too.
I'll be starting the new section of the layout in the fall. Until then, maybe I'll try my hand at a flashing crossing signal, or the brake squeal sound unit for the subway stations. Never a dull moment, anyway.
Wow, Mister B! Joe, give that man a refill - and I'll have one, too.
What I remember from my days of riding the IRT wasn't break squeal. It was the scream of tortured flanges on the streetcorner curves.
Have you considered using cassetes to move rolling stock onto and off your layout? I use mine as 'extended removable staging.' Having track to put them on is a big incentive to rehabilitating semi-retired units of my freight car roster - and I'll never have enough track to have everything on active rails.
Here's hoping a few other folks will stop around. See ya...
I’m with Chuck!! Buy that gentleman a beer…or two!
I have gotten NOTHING done in the Trainroom! It has been one demand after an other for weeks, seemingly months.
I’m still trying to get the off pike staging finished, let alone work on any number of projects that I have started!
I may need to implement a “12 step program” for my railroading. Demanding time for the Trainroom as opposed to demands away from the Trainroom!
Good Morning!---
I'll have a bottle of The Hobgoblin----I NEED something that has zing to it this morning--
Nice pplace you guys have here!
As to not getting stuff done in the trainroom---I've just started to sneak around the house so's I could find myself in the trainroom without some one going ---"Oh we need to-----" Mind, Audrey isn't as bad off as some apparently are----
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/
tomikawaTT Have you considered using cassetes to move rolling stock onto and off your layout? I use mine as 'extended removable staging.' Having track to put them on is a big incentive to rehabilitating semi-retired units of my freight car roster - and I'll never have enough track to have everything on active rails.
Ah, proof that great minds think alike.
When Walthers re-issued the car float kit, I started re-planning the layout extension to include it. To me, using a car float as a casette is the best of all possible worlds. It's a scenic element and an operational puzzle, too, a lot more than simply a staging mechanism.
Another thought that came to me is using the car float as a "boat-lix." Like a helix or "nolix" that connects different levels of a layout, a "boat-lix" could connect spatially separate sections of a layout. Cars taken off the layout could be carried to another room, where they would be unloaded "across the water" and they could continue their journey.
Hello everybody. I am new to the beer barn. Just had to tell you about a real railroad themed beer. Search "hub city brewing company". History on the website. Yes, they have train pictures on the bottles!!!!!! Very good beer!! Found it at my local grocery store.
Well, thanks for the heads-up, Trainman. Believe I'll try one, virtually, of course, but here at the Beer Barn everything is possible.
http://www.hubcitybrewingcompany.com/about.php
(Seriously, I'm disappointed that I can't have a glass for real. It seems to be confined to Iowa, at the moment, but maybe they'll expand. Do you suppose Walthers would distribute it for them?)
This has been an odd couple of weeks. My layout is basically done. All the track is down, and, with the exception of a couple of spots I missed originally, it's all ballasted. There's no pink foam showing, and all the scenery is complete. I've got one more structure I want to add, and another one which will be a swap-out for a more modern theater when I go back to the 1930's, but that's about it. I've got some kits for rolling stock to complete, and some vehicles, too, but there won't be any more substantial changes.
Well, not until the extension starts. It's planned so that it will cause minimal disruption to the existing trackwork and scenery, so that I can continue to run the current layout while the new section is under construction.
I would love to see Walthers carry it!!!
The real "beer line"!!!!
This Strumpets Lager sounds mighty tastey. Is ot a dark or pale beer?
trainman6446 This Strumpets Lager sounds mighty tastey. Is ot a dark or pale beer?
Then serve me up a large mug of extra dark stout!!!!!!!!
Whoa, it's been two months since anyone was in here. I had to use Search to find it.
I'll have a Strumpet IPA, Joe. Thanks. One of my recent projects was a Jordan truck, and I picked up some unpainted Preiser "Truckers" on sale from Walthers at the same time. I found a good driver for the truck, but also a number of guys in work clothes doing "truck things." I painted up a pair of them to help unload my earlier Strumpet beer truck. I even decalled the back of their jackets with the Strumpet logo.
I finished my ballasting a little while ago. No big deal. Actually, it was about a foot and a half of track on the yard ladder. It's right in the middle of the 5-foot-wide layout, so it's awkward to reach, and it's hidden behind a couple of structures, so I never see it anyhow. But, now it's done. There is no unballasted track on my layout, no pink foam, nothing unfinished to the untrained eye.
I'm debating what to do next. Over the last few weeks I've been doing one vehicle after another - a Jordan truck, the General Lee and a Jordan school bus. I put a Soundbug into an F7, and used my newly-acquired truck tuner on my squeaky Rivarossi coaches. Happy to say, the F7 is louder and the coaches are quieter, the way it should be.
The extension is a couple of months away, at least. I've got the track plan, more or less, but I need to think about structures and scenery.
Hey, guys, let's have a cold Strumpet on tap. I feel like I have been neglecting my friends here at Joe's.
We too have been consumed with the back 40. I think that we have enough firewood cut and split, but we stacked it under the trees where we cut it. Now we just have to haul it up to the house. What we cut and split from here out will be for next year. We have changed our mode of operation. We used to fall a bunch, but now we drop 3 or 4 trees; cut and split; and chip the branches. I found that I was not very good at getting back to the chipping.
This has been one of the best summers. I now have almost 800 miles on my scooter. It is more relaxing everyday.
We operate the locos and clean a little track, but the most that gets done on the layout is discussing what we should be doing.
We are both working too much, however, with the economy like it is, we feel the need to push forward.
Sorry it has been so long.
Bump.
I keep trying to revive the Beer Barn.
Is anyone doing layout work. I am still working on the streambed. Larry has been bugging me to get moving. I need to be out of the way of his trestle.
Hi - Strumpets all around!
It's brutally hot in New England today. The girls are out of town, so I took the opportunity to take on a project I've been putting off for too long - the re-make of my subway video. The original was done with only the Saint Anne Street station complete, and a lot of open-air subway tracks. I finished the subway scenery quite a while ago, but never got around to re-doing the video.
I scrounged around for desk lamps, and added some extra lighting to the stations from the outside. From earlier experience, I knew that I needed more light to show off the details. The surprise I didn't expect was poor running from my trains. Wouldn't you know it, the tracks picked Day 1 of shooting to decide they needed to be cleaned. Well, that's what a CMX machine is for, huh?
I tried a lot of different scenes, and made sure I shot with the camera car moving in both directions. I did some passes with the extra lights, and some without. All in all, I took about 20 minutes of raw footage. I added Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train" as a soundtrack, and everything came together pretty well in a 3-minute finished project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ5OvZtI-QU
Not sure about using the music on You Tube, of course. It's very old, and the original copyrights are long expired, though. So, here's hoping it stays there.
MrB,
We will have strumpets while we watch the Subway Video.
It looks like you had great fun composing your video. We enjoyed the inside view. I am always awed by your detail. It makes me think about where I should be working harder. I loved the cruise past Penny Lane.
Later, Sue & Larry
I just noticed that I had 8,999 posts, so I thought I'd drop by here for #9000. Strumpet IPAs all around in celebration, Joe.
Now that there's a chill in the air (34 on the way to work this morning) it's time to think aobut the railroad and what will happen next. I've got to pick up some lumber for Benchwork, Phase 2. This will be a 19-foot along-the-wall section, with a balloon loop at one end. The existing layout will join the addition near the other end, but there will be a bit of space where the car float terminal will go, according to the present design. I'm going to finally have staging/storage tracks, so I can run trains without having to watch the same one loop the loop all the time. I'm even planning staging tracks for the subways to make that a bit more interesting.
I plan to switch to Code 83 for this part of the railroad. I just think it looks nicer, and I guess I'm getting more "prototypie" as I get older.
IT"S ALIVE!!!
Joe, I sure hope the mundanes have been keeping your till full! Seems that all the regulars haven't been...
Mister Beasley, we all get a little more prototypical as we go along - until the day when wild imagineering takes over. When are you going to equip that moose with a harness, drawbar and coupler???
Thanks to my bum hip, activity on the layout has been confined to test-running newly activated rolling stock. I can do what's necessary to activate it while sitting at my all-purpose work surface, and don't have to execute any fancy contortions or dance steps while adding it to the expanding collection stored in cassettes. My DD13s (B-B diesel hydraulics) have enjoyed the workout.
The temperature here has actually dropped into a range suitable for human activity - low 60s to high 80s (F) instead of low 80s to preposterous. Easy enough to see the difference. My rail gaps are wider...
I specified (F) because, in Celsius, 34 is bikini temperature. I know you actually meant 1 degree C...
And on that note I'll slowly fade away...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - eventually)