Weekend Update 11/18/07

[wm3798]

Okay, the last couple weeks have been kind of light.  Let's see what you all have been up to.

The WM hosted a Customer Appreciation Special this weekend for it's connecting line, the Laurel Valley Railway.  A consist of LRV passenger equipment was pulled by WM 761, a carefully preserved H-8 Consolidation.


More views of the trip are available at the web gallery. http://www.wmrywesternlines.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=60

Enjoy the trip!
Lee

[Bob Bufkin]

Lee:

Are those old Lima passenger cars?
Bob

[atsf_arizona]

SNFF 2007 11 16 N

Some beautiful N scale modeling by German modeler Heinz-Ulrich Grumpe,
and his 1955 Linden, Indiana layout.  This was one of the layouts presented
at the 1st US-themed Model RR Convention in Rodgau, Germany (near Frankfurt),
on October 6-7, 2007.  Thank you again to Horst Meier and all the Europeans
who were so kind to me during my visit there, while having to layover in
Frankfurt while on a two-week business trip.









Great modeling of USA by our European N scale colleagues.... enjoy. 

[atsf_arizona]

And just so I don't bore everybody by posting the same thing over and over again on the
various boards, here is a recycled photo from Jan 29, 2006 Foto Fun just for us here on TheRailwire.net:

Journeying back in time......

A miniature model railfan caught a shot of Santa Fe 2-8-8-2 1790 working
a reefer extra uphill on Raton Pass in 1945: 



Looking forward to getting a sound version of one of these when Walthers ships it in 1Q08.

Have a good week, all!

[central.vermont]

Wow that's some nice rural modeling!  Kinda what I
hope to achieve on my layout.
Love that shot of the "Customer Appreciation Special" Lee!! Very nice. 

Only thing from me is a couple of NW2's in B&M garb that I've
been working on. The 1203 was remotored by the B&M with
an engine from E7 3803 when retired. Hence the unusual
exhaust stacks. The 1213 will have handrails applied the next
time it is seen and has been painted in a bicentennial
scheme. I think I may even try my hand at some weathering
with these when done.

Jon

[wm3798]

Great shots, John...  That Monon rig is phenomenal!
Yes, Bob, those are ancient and venerable Lima cars...  Needless to say, passenger service doesn't get a lot of attention on my layout!

Lee

[John Burkush]

Wow that's some nice rural modeling!  Kinda what I
hope to achieve on my layout.
Love that shot of the "Customer Appreciation Special" Lee!! Very nice. 

Only thing from me is a couple of NW2's in B&M garb that I've
been working on. The 1203 was remotored by the B&M with
an engine from E7 3803 when retired. Hence the unusual
exhaust stacks. The 1213 will have handrails applied the next
time it is seen and has been painted in a bicentennial
scheme. I think I may even try my hand at some weathering
with these when done.
Where did you get the decals ???
I want to redec my NW2's in the black scheme

Jon

[Puddington]

Been a week of continuing to build the Canadian National Green and Gold passenger consist. First we finished a 6-6-4 Duplex sleeper, the "Elizabeth"....



Not an exact match, I can live wih one window difference and, short of a brass side project will have to live with it. The other issue is the fixed steps - I tried Gold Metal heavyweight steps but they have to stick out way too far - I'll leave them for now but have to scratchbuild them myself... I have to add shades too....



Next I began to build an RPO - the Atlas smoothside car was a decent match - I added a belt rail to simulate a heavyweight car; again the three foot rule applies....



The car's were old in the 50's so I tried a faded version of the CN # 11 green - I added blues and whites... The car is old and grimy - good thing too cause there was a repair to a side needed that didn't come out as well as one might have liked.....



Next we moved on to a 76' baggage express car - I don't have photo of the one I built, it has blunt ends not a turtleback roof like the picture below.....



The car started life as a Kato baggae car, as seen by it's "twin" above. The car was diassembled; stripped and a 8 foot door was cut into the 6 foot doors. The double door was added on both sides. Gold Metal steps were added.

The roof needed to have vents and a smoke jack added; the vents were cut from stryene stock. The car was weathered moderately as baggage cars were never really too clean... in my world anyway......



So; that's nine cars done - the Gold Metal steps will come this week and we can complete a couple of heavyweight coaches; another heavyweight sleeper and then attack the lightweight obervation lounge car "Pacific"... until then we're working on a heavyweight diner for the consist...... till then !

[engineshop]

As a joint venture with N Scale Kits, I am designing the decals for his upcoming articulated trash spine car and containers.
Peter from N Scale Kits designed the spine car with Fine N Scale sludge container in mind but I noticed a more common container (MHF Logistical Solution) for this spine car is not available. So I decided to go beyond the decals.
So far I have produced the master and I am hoping the casting will be done soon.











For more information on the spine cars and the containers, check http://www.nscalekits.co.uk/trashspine.html and http://usloki.tripod.com/container.htm

[SquirrelHollow]

The only train related work done by me, would consist of finding 4 Texas and Pacific LL SW8's.  I had honestly forgotten about buying them.  It took about 5 minutes for me to remember that the T&P black/orange paint job was intended for a logo removal and re-decal into my freelance road.  I still don't remember buying them, but I have a feeling it was back in June/July (?) when Walthers had them for dirt cheap. ($28 apiece if I remember correctly.)

What kept me busy this weekend?
I had to fix the windshield wiper system on a recently bartered-for S-10 Blazer.  ($65, case of beer, and 4 tropical fish)  It took me 2.5 days to completely rewire the system from the wiper motor, all the way to the control switches.  Nothing in between was reused, and I had to remove 2 control circuit boards.

*Removed the image link.  It was the wrong one*

[Mark5]

only train related stuff I did this weekend is stop in Hagerstown on Saturday on my way back to the homestead and took some pics real quick like after refueling.

will post some somewhere here as soon as I get around to setting up a picasso thingy.

[John]

I spent the weekend finishing up layout cleanup.

I got rid of all the junk (well most of it) laying on the layout.

I wired a new section I redid last weekend, and started testing all the locomotives on the layout. Since none had run in almost a year, about 25 of them need to be lubed, cleaned, and reprogrammed. I got 3 of them done.

I replaced the weels on a LL SW with some new low pros, and fixed the electrical pickup.

I determined that I need to get a new decoder for my P42, since I somehow fried it ..

I watched my Ravens loose, and my Cowboys Kick Butt on the Deadskins ..  ;D

[tom mann]

On Saturday, I spent a long time getting decals to print.  I design my work at 1200dpi, which results in big files (300MB for 1/2 sheet).  Usually, its a 10 minute process to send the document to the printer, but for some reason, it took hours to get a printout.  Instead of my artwork, I was getting diagnostic garbage; and weird error messages on the computer.  So instead of having decals by 10 am, I had them at 2:30pm. >

[Chris333]

I spent all week reading the 0-8-0 thread on Atlas 

[Mark5]

I spent all week reading the 0-8-0 thread on Atlas 

I decided to boycott the Atlas forum for the rest of the year. Not because I don't like it, just that I waste too much time there reading re-hash threads ...