"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I still say it looks like the thing has been punched in the nose!
Sorry Bear, couldn't resist firing back. I just can't stop thinking that the EMD Es and Fs were so much more attractive with their smooth flowing lines, E6s especially. The FAs at least were still trying to add form into function (i.e. the designers were trying to make them look good). I'm not enamoured of the modern diesels with their strictly functional designs. (There I go again! That's going to start a firestorm for sure!!)
I don't have any new photos to offer to WPF but here is one of my favourites. Grandt Line 25 tonner in front of an Intermountain FP7, both with sound:
If I can make it to Tuesday's club meet, I'm going to take the 25 tonner and some freight cars to see what it can do.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Hi, Folks
Thanks for the great start to WPF, Bear!
Dave, that photo reminds me of the sketch where the progressively larger fish are about to devour the next smaller one in front of it!
I could never really "warm up" to the Alco profile.
Then back in 1973 I went out to the Delaware Water Gap and chased the D&H ex Santa Fe PAs and I had a whole new appreciation for the lumbering beasts! They begin to look graceful over 50 (MPH that is)!
Oh, to have the video equipment we have today—back then!
Model-wise, I'm getting my bench and workroom cleaned up for the coming cold-weather train season! Maybe tomorrow I'll have a photo of a clean work surface!
Regards, Ed
Ed:
That is some serious railfanning! I wonder if the video could be re-processed to lighten it up somewhat.
The FA didn't have the cachet of the PA, but there were far uglier locos out there, foretunately in modest numbers. Now I'm feeling sad because I remembered I still haven't found the missing nose door for my Rio Grande PA-PB set
Dave,
The tiny GE will be a hit. You should run it muted for a start, then sneak up on someone and honk the horn. It will be a shock to hear anything that small sounding off.
Ed,
Nice pacing pic of the PA
Finished up construction but not the detail on the Loggers Exchange. I add lights, but they're rather dim - just the way I like it. I added a ramp to allow most equipment to be unloaded off flats.
I've since got some proper bracing under the stairs at the other end.
Out on the line, the Westbound pipe train meets a Eastbound way freight at Summit.
The pipe looks better because I sourced about five different sizes of straws and turned them into "light pipe" compared to the heavy brass tubing I used to use. This allows one K-27 to power the train, with the exception of the short helper grade leaving Tefft on the Cascade.
Another pic at Summit.
Now that helper service will be a regular feat again, I decided to add a better means of coaling by scratching up a small hopper and lift. The "doors" on the lift are parts from a Walthers Ice House kit. In fact, most of the stuff built lately uses various leftovers like that.
No prototype, it was built to fit a model railroad need and restricted space. I gave it a very basic weathering and installed, adding some coal picked up alongside a ROW in Colorado years ago and crushed. All the coal talk reminds me that I updated my "Coal Sheds of the San Juans" thread: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/231943.aspx
Coals sheds are a great example of my modeling philosophy. I have a few that are prototype accurate, but most are just creative reimagining of excess parts. They're background items for the most part, so I treat them that way, while letting the repurposing of parts be a creative outlet.
Finally a pic of Crater lake showing the curved turnout I handlaid off the wye to connect to CL Junction.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Bear,
Interesting truck-toon....LOL....No comment on the square face...
BTW: That truck would be near impossible to drive/backup without any mirrors.................say! What?
ED: That sure is a lot of OrangEEEEEEEEEEE........
Mike: Everytime You post pic's of Your layout...It makes Me wish I was 20yrs. Younger. I always liked dual gauge trackage, but never ever tried to do it.
Well with all kinds of projects going on at once, I managed to complete Traintravler's cow & calf. Started out with a Athearn BB SW redone from head to toe, runs like a swiss watch and a Athearn SW dummy, that I made into a calf, with some BN livery parts that I was able to get, due to Peahrens searching help. Thanks again Paul...if You read this.
Take Care, All!
Frank
Good morning everyone from sunny and hot Northeast Ohio!
Bear, always a treat when you open up WPF, hope you can get back to some modeling soon, want to see that finished car ferry!
Dave, sure like that little 25 Tonner, how does she do on turnouts?
Mike, great use of left overs to create the many varied scenes on your layout.
Ed, one of our club members has a set of the demonstrator PA's, I had never known that they were made available.
Frank, like your cow calf, one comment though one set of steps on the calf should be covered over with sheet metal as all the prototypes were due to safety reasons.
I did not finish any cars this week, but I did get some stuff done.
Installed a Duha Plate Steel load with the hold downs on a Bowser F30a 52' Flat.
Another Duha load of nested steel pipes installed in a NKP Greenville Drop End Gondola by Proto 2000.
Thanks for looking!
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
As always, Good stuff posted everyone! There is so many interesting things that get me thinking.. and for that I thank you all :)
Here is a couple of pics from the other day. One thing that puzzzled me a bit was the loco headlight looks more yellow than it actually is. I will try to solve that one another day.. Have a great weekend!
Tony
EK Sub in HO Scale
Bear... Alco's ugly ? ?? ... Kidding of course, right ? ... I like the photo.
Dave... I definately like the classic original Canadian Pacific paint shceme.
Ed... The Alco PA demonstrators look great, and the video was fun to watch.
Mike L ..... You certainly have a lot of nice looking buildings and structures on your layout.
Frank .... The ATSF cow & calf switchers look terrific.
Rick.... The loaded gon and flat car look outstanding.
Tony ... I like your photo with the CSX GP40 at work. Headlight looked good to me....
___
EMD vs. Alco.....
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Wow! Lots of great modeling on display, this week. Just another yard shot featuring Alcos.
zstripeMike: Everytime You post pic's of Your layout...It makes Me wish I was 20yrs. Younger. I always liked dual gauge trackage, but never ever tried to do it.
Frank,
Thanks! Truth be told, everytime I take pics I wish I was 20 years younger -- and am very glad I started in seriously well before two decades back. The infrastructure took a looong time, but once critical mass was achieved the layout provides a very satisfying base for expressions of prototype modeling and creative scratchbuilding and kit bashing. There's room enough for both.
Love those cow-calf units. Now I'm thinking I may one day do a narrowgauge cow-calf set (he says as the prototype police chase themselves into a frenzy like in an old silent movie...)
Rick,
Thanks, too. I should note that the drag chain, etc that's the bottom of the coal loader is a leftover from the Walthers Icing Dock with some added "wipers" along with more scraps from the Durango Depot I've been using recently. Likely NOT OSHA approved but it's supposed to be circa 1920s. Budget is tight right now, but am looking forward to more proto builds in the future. I've got 4 RailLine 3000-serie Rio Grande box car kits and a LaBelle SG&N kits on deck for builds once the weather turns cool. We can't count on Blackstone to do everything for us.
Those DuHa loads are the cat's pajamas.
Tony,
Nice action shots. Maybe the yellow headlight is due to the spectrum shift from your improved room lighting?
Garry,
Thanks for your always kind comments. That passenger power sure looks sharp.
Grampys,
Always love your excellent low angle pics. Do you use anything special to "get down" in the dirt to get those prime angles?
Thanks, Mike. No, I just set the camera on the tracks.
I should do that more and get a smaller camera. Do have access to iPhones, since I use them as throttles and if you orient them right, they can go low, too. I may have to make a point of working down on the tracks more.
Mike, if you want to take great trackside photos, get yourself a high quality point and shoot camera that you can control the depth of field on. A cell phone will give you a photo with one focus point and the rest out of focus. All my photos are made with a Canon Digital Rebel with some expensive glass. Photography is my second hobby so I have accumulated ... ah.... Way too much good glass, and process the photos using Photoshop.... I have had that since I was in the recording business and did the artwork for CDs. But, a decent camera is a nessessity if you really want photos that are top shelf.
Some great work this weekend as always folks!
I have gotten a bit of time to work on the pasture near Milo Mills on the layout. Last week it looked like this:
The area is now almost finished. Cows are now grazing in the pasture (need a couple more sets to complete it) and more trees and bushes have magically appeared.
I have also removed the newspaper and tape protecting the tracks behind the pasture now.
Fence still is not quite finished where the gate will be crossing the tracks...
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Mike:
I like the new coal shed and conveyer tower. Very creative!
mlehmanDave, The tiny GE will be a hit. You should run it muted for a start, then sneak up on someone and honk the horn. It will be a shock to hear anything that small sounding off.
You are a devious thinker aren't you! That would be hilarious! I will take the 25 tonner to the club and do exactly that. I'll let you know the reactions. The layout will be in transit for a couple of weeks so I'll have to wait until it is set up again at the club.
dti406Dave, sure like that little 25 Tonner, how does she do on turnouts?
Hi Rick:
The wee beast actually has a Loksound Power Pack keep alive in it so it will crawl through non-powered turnout frogs just fine. I had to remove the brass flywheel from the BullAnt drive in order to make enough space for the keep alive, but the switcher works much better with the keep alive even without the flywheel. Interestingly, Geoff at Hollywood Foundries (the maker) cautioned against removing the flywheel, but I don't think he had had a lot of experience with keep alives at the time. That was a couple of years ago.
Ray,
I use a Canon Powershot SX100 mostly. It's a decent little camera still hanging in there after something like 30,000 pics. I do fiddle with things to try to get greater depth of field, mostly by using the aperture priority mode. Can't do much with the manual focus, as the screen is too small and my eyes too weak. I probably just need to concentrate on getting some low shots this week. I've done them before.
hon30critterYou are a devious thinker aren't youDevil! That would be hilarious!
Heh-heh, I like to enjoy the hobby. No hair shirt jumpsuits emblazoned with Prototype Police for me. Looking forward to a report on the results
mlehmanRay, I use a Canon Powershot SX100 mostly. It's a decent little camera still hanging in there after something like 30,000 pics. I do fiddle with things to try to get greater depth of field, mostly by using the aperture priority mode. Can't do much with the manual focus, as the screen is too small and my eyes too weak. I probably just need to concentrate on getting some low shots this week. I've done them before.
Good stuff everyone. Thanks for sharing.
In keeping with the ALCO PA theme (sort of) here are a couple of shots of my NYC consist from the BRVRR archives. The locos are all Athearn BB kits with a few added details. The B-unit is equipped with a Soundtraxx DSX decoder and two 1-inch speakers.
Above: Three unit New York Central PA/B/A consist rounding the curve at the east end of the layout.
Below: NYC PA/B consist at the west end of the layout.
Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. Thanks to you WPF is always the best thread of the week.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
Bear, Thanks for the humorous start to WPF, the FA's face kinda reminds me of a "Cars" movie character.
Calendar says fall and yet to complete all the summer household chores, but still making some time for the hobby.
Thanks to all and regards, Peter
Packed everything up and went to the Reading Modelers Meet in Hamburg PA today, snagged some pictures of my set up (I was the only one actually running anything). But lots of other great models there though I mostly tethered to my tables.
Ended up sweeping the steam vote of the show, just a fun popular vote for the event.
First place Q-1d 2-6-4 suburban tank engine unveiled at the event.
Second place K-1 2-10-2
and Third is the N-1 2-8-8-0
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60361449@N02/
Anthracite Modeler - YouTube
RDG CaseyEnded up sweeping the steam vote of the show, just a fun popular vote for the event.
Congrats, nice work on those locos, they deserved recognition
Nice photo Bear!
Congratulations Casey.
RDG Casey:
Congratulations!
With the amount of work and detail that you put into your models you deserve to be at the head of the crowd!
I am finishing up a On30 rail truck for a friend of mine. I'm waiting on a new set of gears since the original ones are all cracked before I can finish it. It started as an undecorated Bachmann rail truck but I did a lot of kitbashing.
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
Renegade1C:
That looks great. Excellent detail.
Finally got around to renumbering one of my Amtrak locomotives:
Six years ago, #123 was the lead on the Capitol Limited that brought me to DC on a "fact finding" trip to see if I wanted to move here or not. I did, about three months later, so #123 has always been special to me since then.
I'd had a bear of a time finding a single door (I have no idea what they're called) baggage car, so I had to paint and decal one myself. The camera shows me that my red sill stripes aren't nearly as straight as they looked in person and its always going to drive me insane that no one makes decals in the right typeface for the "Baggage Car" on the right. But I've never actually finished an undecorated to finished car before, so hooray there. Now I just have to have the heart to weather it.
NittanyLion:
Congratulations on finishing your first undecorated car!
Don't beat yourself up. Stripes are hard to get straight! The stripe on your baggage car doesn't look too bad, and like you said, the camera shows more than your naked eye. When the car is running down the track behind #123 nobody will notice. Funny how that works.
For future reference, to get a better idea of how straight your stripes are, sight down the side of the car from the end, like you are checking a section of track. The minor deflections that aren't easy to see when you look at the car straight on will be much more evident.
Regards,