Weekend Update - June 8, 2008

[3rdrail]

Whassup?? What have y'all accomplished, if anything, in the past week? Since "a picture is worth a thousand words", please pad the word count with some if you have 'em.

I did not take any photos, but have completed the swampgrass islands in my bay and started to work on the Plastruct swing bridge "kit". Most of the parts have to be carved out of four sheets of 4"x12"x.080" plastic. I have discovered using the Micro-Mark tool for cutting grooves in plastic repeatedly and them snapping is the best way to make these parts. Haven't assembled anything yet, but have made quite a few parts.

The kit must be 20 years old and I can't find the square tubing I assume is for the "A" frame. Since the bag with the smaller shapes was still stapled shut, I guess it was never there... Was able to get .100"x.100" and .080"x.080" square Evergreen styrene at Kirkland Hobby in Panama City yesterday. I'll bet the gas cost twice what the styrene did!

Ordered a "helix humper" motor from Alliance Motors for my Atlas/Rivarossi Mikado last Tuesday, not here yet. Then again, everyone isn't Chulvis.

Your turn.

[DKS]

The heat has given me an excuse to hide in the basement most of the day. Save for the platform, the Z scale station is now done. The roof is made of brick walls from an N scale brass kit. The chimney is made from eight individual bits of etched brass cut from leftover Z scale kit parts, plus two lengths of square telescoping brass tube.



Trackside view:



Birdseye view:



It's interesting how well the N scale brick simulates Z scale shingles. I wasn't expecting it to work as well as it does. I was stuck using it because I didn't have any wall parts without windows or doors from Z scale kits that were big enough.



Here it is posing roughly where it will go on the layout:



I'm also wrapping up the coal trestle, which is located right in front of the station (just below the caboose in this view). Should have pics by bedtime.

[tom mann]

probably the best Z structure ever.

[wm3798]

Following the mirth and mayhem of yesterday's run n' gun, I finally got around to shooting some more or less finished shots of the new track alignment at Ohiopyle.
Here's the view looking east.

I thought this shot looked enough like a languid August afternoon to be appropriate on this hot weekend.

Here's a series of a short freight making its way through the new works coming in from the west.

The train appears from the portal of the tunnel, and passes the new industrial track at the west end of Ohiopyle.


Slowing down from road speeds to pass through the switching area, the train approaches the crossover.


The dispatcher in Cumberland is moving him over to the wrong rail to allow him to pass a MOW gang working on the track up ahead.


The train clatters through the trackwork as it heads east toward Meyersdale and Sandpatch.


The train picks up speed as caboose 1891 clears the switch.

Meanwhile, the local, which was holding on the siding of the G.A. Smith Baking Company, gets ready to finish it's switching duties.


And just in time, the counter monkey at 84 Lumber finishes pulling the last hack of lumber from the WM bulkhead flat, that is due to be picked up and returned to Ridgely.


Lee

[seusscaboose]

Railfanned the NKP in Northern Ohio... Saw some old friends, and the like....  highlight was a push between seeing the old NKP roundhouse in Bellevue, Oh (still being used as MOW by NS) or seeing some of the old (and new) equip. @ the Mad River RR Museum ...  Best part was being hanging out with Dad as he downloaded the info to me turn by turn....

[John]

Saturday I spent over at WM3798s place running trains .. and I also managed to get about 20 feet of mainline laid on the new layout expansion ..

[Puddington]

Looking very good Lee !

I finished de Kato-izing and almost "Canadian-izing" the "Imperial", a CPR stainless steel diner that ran on the "Canadian".



After removing the skirts and modifying the ends I then began covering a couple of unwanted windows. I re-did the underside with more prototypical applicances and painted the underside black; then weathered it. I added a small window on this side of the car at the end, covered another on the other side and changed the car's name to Imperial using my new homemade CPR passenger car name decals.



I added working diaphrams; window shades in the same colour the CPR used and a few lunch patrons make it complete.

"Would you like the salmon or the chops today Mrs Hogginfossal..and yes madam, another martini coming right up....."

[Allentown Hump]

Gotta love Lee's attention to detail. Did anyone catch the car w/ camper's progression in the three shots of the F unit making its way towards the camera?

[RockGp40]

Gotta love Lee's attention to detail. Did anyone catch the car w/ camper's progression in the three shots of the F unit making its way towards the camera?

Yes, its four shots actually. Look closely, you will see it headed layout north on the street.

[Dave V]

I've been working 14-16 hours a day on my PhD dissertation revisions...  I defend on Friday and want to get as much corrected as possible before then so my committee will sign the dissertation on that day instead of the "conditional" pass.

So choo-choos (and family, food, and sleep) have been placed on hold.

...with one exception:  I managed to wrangle me some hopper cars on eBay.  I won a total of 7 Atlas 90 tonners from the same guy.  4 are Conrail (all pre-Q-logo, some have Crapidos that will need to be replaced), 2 are Erie Lackawanna, and one is Reading, all different road numbers.  All told it came to $45 plus whatever the combined shipping works out to.

Not bad!  Seven cars is hardly a coal train, but it's a step in the right direction!

Now I need some Pennsy and PC hoppers to weather up...

[wcfn100]

Gotta love Lee's attention to detail. Did anyone catch the car w/ camper's progression in the three shots of the F unit making its way towards the camera?

I wonder if that car still has any suspension left after going over that grade crossing.

Jason

[Kisatchie]

I'll be putting some Dimi-Trains sugar beet cars up for sale tonight in the Trading Post forum, if anyone is interested.

[wm3798]

The "moving" car is to distract you from noticing that in one shot the train is only one car long, and the caboose doesn't appear until the final shot...  I guess my plan worked!

Oh, I also want to thank Bufkin for the major contribution he made to the WM Westernlines Library... Track charts of almost the entire WM from 1955!  Awesome!

Lee

[davefoxx]

After the trip to the Western Maryland Ry. and the honor of hauling the local from Ridgely Yard (Ridgely, WV) to Ohiopyle, PA, C&O GP38 nos. 4823 and 4825 returned to C&O rails this evening:



In addition to the road trip and ops session on Lee's excellent layout, I was finally able to finish body-mounting the couplers on my new camp cars (I broke a tap on the first car last week and had to order a replacement).  The huge gap between the diaphragms are long gone, and the cars will still operate on curves at least as sharp as a 12" radius and through a no. 5 crossover.  Big improvement, I believe, although I admit that automatic coupling has been hampered because of the diaphragms.  This is not a problem for me as I do not plan to switch these cars.  They will become part of a work train that will probably always remain together.



One of my planned projects for the near future will be the purchase of a Bachmann C&O Vanderbuilt Tender to become a Water Car for the work train.

Dave Foxx
Rising Sun, Maryland

[DKS]

Hot off the press, the glue holding the thing in place isn't even dry yet... a disused Z scale coal trestle, still lacking a bumper at the end of the track.









It's not as tall as it appears in the images--the ground will be filled in even with the bottoms of the concrete braces on the left.

Edit: I realized after posting the images above that it's easy to lose sight of the relative sizes of things, so I shot this image to place things in perspective: