Weekend Photo Fun 23-25 May 2014

["JaBear"]

Gidday All, as you’ll see by my “signature” I tend to the optimistic side of life which suits me just fine until comes to estimating time for projects. Now as it is a hobby it doesn’t stress me but it is taking me a lot longer making and applying my decals which I was hoping to present this weekend.

So instead during a break from straining my eyes (and brain, what there is of it) on the computer I tried to weather a box car in less than 5 minutes using an el cheapo rattle can.

 I’m not unhappy with the result but I’m not entirely convinced either.

Looking Forward to the Really Good Stuff,

Have a Great One ffolkes, 

Cheers, the Bear.

[kbkchooch]

Good Morning gang!

Bear, it's a good start! Just tone down the upper half with some oxide colored chalk,and it will look perfect!

Looks like something my B&O Mike should be pulling,,,not an excursion train!

[dti406]

Good morning from Northeast Ohio, I have only managed to finish two cars this week but I have some more in progress photos of my IMRC Pflauder Milk Car.

Undec IMRC 5077 CF PS Boxcar, painted with Orange/Red Floquil Mixture and Platinum Mist, lettered with Islington Stations Products decals for latter Saint Mary's Railroad scheme.

Athearn 4 Door 86' Hi-Cube Kit, removed the cast on grabs and replaced with wire grabs, painted with Scalecoat II ATSF Red and Floquil Platinum Mist, then lettered with Oddballs Decals.

End shot with brake gear, airlines and grabs.

Side shot with all but one of the grabs installed (sent the wrong size grabs for the one under the door).

Thanks for looking!

Rick J

[GP-9_Man11786]

Great stuff everybody!

My big accomplishment this week was knocking out two more house kits.

Here's Model Power's "Decorated Christmas House:

I was going to repaint it until my wife saw it. Christmas is her favorite holiday and she pleaded with me not to. Even thugh my layout i set in summer, I figure there's always at least one tasteless rube who leaves them up all year.

Here's Branchline Trains' "Tower House kit:

This kit was a holy terror to put together. The instructions don't do a good job of telling you what goes where and how it's supposed to fit together. As a result, I had to pull this thing apart and reassemble it several times. If that wasn't enough, a lot of the pieces simply didn't fit together right. Perhaps the folks at Branchline should have measured twice before firing up the wood zapper!

I also decided to switch things up and run Conrail on the layout:

The year is 1996, Clinton is in the Whitehouse, The Macrana is at the top of the charts and the Summer Olympics are being held in Atlanta.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Bear .... B&O boxcar looks great for 5 minutes of work. 

Karl ... I like the Steam Lcomotive at the grade crossing.

GP9 .... Your houses look great. (I, too, have Christmas greetings on my summer layout).. The Conrail locos look goo in your scene. 

The dome cars of the westbound Heartland Zephyr are party visible.

As the train heads westward, it meets its eastbound counterpart coming from the left in this photo.

 

 

 

[DGX GP 38]

Bear, thanks for starting the best thread of the week. Also, great start on the box car!. It's a long weekend too... So maybe a few more really cool pics will be posted!

Rick J , that's a nice long boxcar!
GP 9 , good looking scenery and consist!

I was far enough along to share a pic or two with you folks... Been working on some more weathering and rusting in my spare time. Hope you enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Been working on the passenger dock on my layout this week.

The humble beginnings:

... and now it looks like this:

 

[mlehman]

Great start to WPF, with some really amazing work. Thanks for the pics, everyone!

Hmm, what have i been up to. Been working on upgrading the NCE wired control network to support a couple of fast clocks on their way from Logic Rail Technologies, so that's a preview of upcoming pics.

The big project this week was building the Cyrstal River Section Town kit, which consists of a tgroup of their kits of support buildings the Rio Grande built as it pushed into sparsely populated areas. I split the resulting structures between Silverton and Tefft.

Here's the section house and handcar/tool house at Silverton

I added some typical household stuff around the outside

At Tefft, the bunkhouse helps support MOW work in the Animas river canyon and along the Cascade Branch that diverges here. Then there's all the winter snow, so it sees crews summer and winter. The coal house between it and the depot was also part of the Crystal River kit, as well as the official Rio Grande loo

Red Mountain was the last area of the layout primarily lit with old school tech. I swapped out the flood bulbs in the ceiling with an LED version that 5000k color temp. I also added a 6' section of Warm White LED light strip.

And I finished painting some figures that turned out well, so will start some more. This batch included some unpainted Model Power figures and some nice metal castings of old timey folks, seen here hanging around near train time at the depot in Red Mountain.

 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Bryan .... Terrific weathering job.

Ulrich .... Dock looks outstanding so far.

Mike L ,... I feel like I'm in the Rockies long ago.... I see the velocipede! ... I do not need a fast clock because I do sequential scheduling. 

[Curt Webb]

Awesome work everyone. I know I have been gone for a while. I just finished a 4 month layout project changing it from a rectangular double oval to a continuous run single loop in a modified U shape. I kept what I could from before so it is not a complete redo but I would estimate 60-70% is new. Everybody keep up the great work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cU2ASfBdk

[Grampys Trains]

Good stuff from everyone. GP7's taking the siding at Stoney Creek.

[mlehman]

Heartland Division CB&Q

Mike L ,... I feel like I'm in the Rockies long ago.... I see the velocipede! ... I do not need a fast clock because I do sequential scheduling.

Garry,

Thanks!

You know, I'm with you on sequential scheduling. That's how I've been operating, but my ops have tended to endlessly obsess about what they're supposed to do and what train they're going to get next. At other local ops, having a more, ahem, rigid scheme in place seems to help. So I'm putting them on a schedule, getting them a dispatcher to hassle them if they're not getting over the road fast enough, e6tc...we'll see how it goes.

[mlehman]

Curt Webb

Awesome work everyone. I know I have been gone for a while. I just finished a 4 month layout project .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cU2ASfBdk

Curt, lots of work there, I really like the improvements.

[Burlington Northern #24]

Lots of awesome work guys 

Jabear, I think that boxcar looks great. it'd fit in out here along the columbia, thats wwhat most of the SP&S boxcars looked like until they got they're occasional rain bath.

Well, I've actually done something and it's nice not to be an armchair modeler for much longer. I joined the NMRA and my friends Omni rail club, here's my plan for my 2 x 4 module

Here's an old photo, I've done a bit more to this. Will continue working on it today

[C&O Fan]

Painfully Slow Progress on the Restoration of my old Varney 10 wheeler

It took 8 days to get the wire for the hand rails

Will trim and paint when the glue sets up

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Still waiting on the Back ordered Wow Decoder

[P&Slocal]

Nice work everyone.

Curt, I did not see Godzilla anywhere on the layout, but he sure sounds angry in those background sounds. 

[trainguy4466]

I got REALLY bored this week 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a GP40 to a GP4.0!

["JaBear"]

Gidday Again, a long weekend in the States is it  Well in that case I’ll come back for seconds.

Great Stuff everyone,, and thanks for the comments regarding my 5 minute weathering though on reflection I should perhaps have called it “the travelled look.”

Curt, that looks like you’ve done major surgery. I didn’t think of Godzilla in the under growth, instead I was waiting for a pterodactyl to come swooping over the layout.

BNGary, good to see you’ve quit your armchair, a young bloke should really be out and about.

Well winter really arrived today, the upside being that I managed to partially decal one car. I tried very hard to make a pigs ear of the job, I don’t recollect that when I was a young lad applying decals to kitset aircraft, that it was that hard!!!

Anyhow a “shorty” LO for trainguy4466s GP4.0 Wot a little ripper.

Keep the Great Stuff rolling,

Cheers, the Bear.

[HO-Velo]

WPF never fails to provide loads of interest.  As I wait for the new pocket camera to arrive I'll slip in an old rerun from my previous layout.

Thanks to all, regards,  Peter 

 

 

[secondhandmodeler]

Very nice pictures so far. 

Here is an old shot from before I moved the layout to the new house.

[PennCentral99]

Anyhow a “shorty” LO for trainguy4466s GP4.0 Wot a little ripper.

Agreed, that has to be one of the best yet!

[trainguy4466]

Thank you all, the little guy's still a work in progress. I'll post some clearer photos once I've done some more work to it

 

[G Paine]

trainguy4466

Thank you all, the little guy's still a work in progress. I'll post some clearer photos once I've done some more work to it

Does it have a power truck or is it a dummy? How many cars do you think it will pull?

[Burlington Northern #24]

Trainguy THat's an awesome unit! 

Thanks Bear, I'm not so young anymore.... well amongst my coworkers but I'm still a lad comapred to the great folks here. I just turned 20 today, I'll be spending my time working on my module. 

[trainguy4466]

G Paine

 

 

trainguy4466

Thank you all, the little guy's still a work in progress. I'll post some clearer photos once I've done some more work to it

 

 

Does it have a power truck or is it a dummy? How many cars do you think it will pull?

 

 

It does run, and the chassis has in the past, but I did something to it when I made the conversion that has stopped it from working. It's an old tyco chassis so any reliability I can get out of it remains to be seen. I may try to get something like a geared Hustler chassis for it but for now the tyco chassis will do. As for pulling power I esitimate it can probably pull 5 or 6 reasonably sized cars with metal wheels

[Burlington Northern #24]

I've done a little bit more, I've started in the bottom main line. 

I'm sure #6012's crew is not happy about their task, unfortuantely SP&S road units are awaiting DCC conversions. THis unit will hopefully be switched by tuesday or so. 

["JaBear"]

Burlington Northern #24

I'm not so young anymore......... I just turned 20 today,

 Scheesh!!! 

 A belated  , the only advice I would give is that while you have to get older, you don't have to grow up.

Keep up the good work,

Cheers, the Bear.

[Burlington Northern #24]

 

 

Burlington Northern #24

I'm not so young anymore......... I just turned 20 today,

 

 

 Scheesh!!! 

 A belated  , the only advice I would give is that while you have to get older, you don't have to grow up.

Keep up the good work,

Cheers, the Bear.

 

THanks Bear! 

 

Waiting on the foam tack to dry so the cork and track will stay in one spot, thenI'll start on the other main.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Burlington Northern #24

 

 

 

 

 

Burlington Northern #24

I'm not so young anymore......... I just turned 20 today,

 

 

 Scheesh!!! 

 A belated  , the only advice I would give is that while you have to get older, you don't have to grow up.

Keep up the good work,

Cheers, the Bear.

 

 

 

 

THanks Bear! 

 

 

Waiting on the foam tack to dry so the cork and track will stay in one spot, thenI'll start on the other main.

 

 

BN24 Gary ..... Happy birthday. Allos there are b'day greetings for you in the Diner. 

[Burlington Northern #24]

THank you Heartland, I will stop by the diner in a couple.