Weekend Photo Fun 6-8 June 2014.

[dti406]

Bear and Mike, nice start to the weekend! 

Nothing new this week just a couple of club pictures of the NKP and Wabash, both of which used to be in my backyard when I lived in Toledo, Ohio on the joint line from Toledo Zoo down to just south of Maumee where they then split with the NKP going to Fort Wayne and the Wabash heading to Montpelier.

Athearn Genesis GP9's on a general freight!

Athearn Genesis F7's in the best scheme applied to the F7's IMHO.

Rick J.

["JaBear"]

Gidday Dave, the day that I can’t take constructive criticism is the day I either get a sense of humour transfusion, find something else to do (knitting or tiddley-winks), or become a Lurker, besides Bears are not renowned for being thin skinned.

A couple of WPFs ago I commented that I had spent the week “Dithering over Decals”. I’m afraid that I have to admit I’ve been dithering (not full time of course) for a couple of years!!

I’d designed my herald years ago and had even almost settled on a font, but my trouble is the more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know. So more looking at photos of prototype covered hoppers, lead to more indecision, as each railroad had their own way and style, and even those could and did change over time.

 Now some people may model a free lanced railroad as an easy way of getting around historical impossibilities, but I am aiming for a degree of realism which is all very well except that I use that for an excuse to do nothing!! “Procrastination is My Enemy”.

The push I needed was when (on another forum) doctorwayne was kind enough to allocate me a GERN Industries reporting number for my kit bashed “shorty’ covered hopper so after sorting out the data, size and font for that car, I knuckled down and finalised my freight car roster numbering system, font and font size, the latter being dictated by the different widths between the ribs of the various manufacturers covered hoppers I have. I have allowed a little variation in the herald size but with the1930s management of the Lachlan River Railroad being of thrifty Scots descent they weren’t going to waste hard earned funds in making different sized stencils, though you may see some of your suggestions adopted for later cars, due to the post war boom. (Besides I’ve printed enough decals for another 20 cars).

 I do wish I had started decaling steel sided box cars.

Mike, thanks also for the kind words, I am still in awe of the efficiency of the Lehman Works.

I could never work out those founding fathers that went and threw all that tea into the Boston Harbour when if they had taken it home  they could have enjoyed a nice cuppa, no surprise then that they weren’t thinking of future commemorative holidays.

Apologies if I’ve bored you all to tears, this is supposed to be Weekend Photo Fun, not the Bears waffle.

Cheers, the Bear 

[mlehman]

Bear,

Great looking scheme. That's Really Good Stuff!

And of course that whole Commonwealth thing is really all about the holidays, isn't it? The Queen may not visit regularly, but her holiday shows up every year promptly, right? Just think, back in 1787 or whenever we'd finally gotten the best of the Red Coats, we should've just shook hands and said, "Jus keeeding!" and we could've ended up with twice as many holidays. Could use 'em, too, as American employers are notoriously stingy about vacation time compared to employers in much of the civilized world, where they have laws about such things, etc...but I digress

More time off is always good for the layout is how I figure. I think THAT is what's killing the hobby -- not enough time off.

Anyway, got some projects finished up for next week's ops session and been working my way through developing my first serious timetable. It's a good thing I used to shuffle truck loads around to get to different places or I'd really be over my head. But I think I'll get it done in time. Will be runing 6:1 fast time, so that should keep them moving...

Hard to see through the basement windows, but Maguire's has thrown on a large stock of Colorado Black Stripe kegs to accomodate thirsty operators. Those HO scale kegs are %#$@! hard to open, though.

I got a pretty good reverse angle shot, where I can check my progress on getting that concrete wall done behind Meinrath's. Still some space to fill, 'fraid to say. But since it's HO, I can get away with stuffing some ground cover or something in there.

I dug around in the scrap box, because I needed a small shed to store drums for the Sinclair dealer in Red Mountain. Came up with this shed and, since the reverse-angle gods were with us this evening, there's a shot of trackside.

You can even see the "front" of Red Mountain's depot, normally never seen by humans. I really like how digital cameras now make these so easy with a little practice. And you won't waste any film if it doesn't work for you. What works for me pretty well is resting my camera hand on something, as I tend to be rather shaky with a trashed right shoulder and some other issues.

Finally, #375's Micro-Tsu came back from it's short vacation to Durango. It's all better now. Worked on installing it and cleaning things up. Worked right off the bat in torn-down mode, then after I buttoned it up, worked great then

Just back from its test run in the above pic, it still needs a little tuning and CV adjustment, but runs really well considering my slight run-in with the gearbox.

[hon30critter]

JaBear:

The hopper car looks really good. As I have said before, the detailing is excellent.

If I am allowed to make a suggestion or two, I would suggest that the "Lachlan River" name be moved more to the center of the car. The diamond shaped 'LR' emblem can stay in the same place but just moved lower down on the car.

Dare I also suggest that the "Lachlan River" letters might look better if they were larger by maybe 20 - 30%. Of course you will have to figure out the spacing of the letters so they will fit neatly between the side braces. That might put the kibosh on the larger letters.

I am a great admirer of your work. Please don't take my suggestions as criticism.

Dave

["JaBear"]

Gidday All, well as last weekend, here down-under, was three days being “Queens Birthday Weekend” this week has gone really fast, being busy at w**k helped as well, so only managed to decal my first car in my freelanced railroad scheme.

Looking forward to the Really Good Stuff,

Have a Great One ffolkes, 

Cheers, the Bear.