Weekend Update 9/20/09

[wm3798]

Okay Go!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

No modeling. Only working on Conrail Express stuff. Midway through the book right now... ugh. Is it October 18th yet? Then I only have to settle on a house and move...

[Puddington]

Two projects done out of a bunch on the bench............



An old (Built by Barney & Smith August 1916; AC installed June 1940; 3 cars in class - 134,600 lbs weight) steel side SOO Line first class heavyweight coach; pressed into service on the Canadian Pacific's Samuel Ridge Sub due to an acute lack of varnish due to a busy summer of rail travel. She'd been consigned to the scrap line in Calgary when she was pulled out and put back into revenue service for one last summer of local regulars......

I modified a Riverosi coach by blanking out the last pair of windows and the single window on the washroom end of the coach. I painted the coach a mixture of Wisconsin Central maroon and CPR Tuscan; I was attempting to recreate the sun darkened richness of the old steel coaches. Gold metal steps; diaphrams and window shades, plus a couple of passengers add to the effect of an "old soldier" in her last days of revenue service....

Now; the really important one................

My 6 year old son's best pal loves our trains... every chance he gets he wants to run trains. I named my "Samuel Ridge" sub after my son and have created a fictional sub for his pal; the "Andrew Junction"... a few weeks ago the boys painted cars with their livery on them.... they loved it.

Andrew's parents are good friends so after a discussion with them I decided to build him a small n scale Unitrak layout for his upcoming birthday.

Well; as that takes shape I decided he'd need some rolling stock and a locomotive; and it best be a good one so that he doesn't suffer the "oh no it's a Bachmann" pain that I did in the 1970's.... so this is what I came up with..........



Might as well start on a Kato SD 40-2....LOL

Custom painted, detailed and lettered for his own sub division, ( 2009 being the year he get's it....) this will serve the little guy well for years. Kato's are well made and he can haul it over here to run on the big layout as part of a lash up of big power....

I hope he likes it !

[wm3798]

I got my sheet of decals from Roland this week, so the Ridgely paint shop has been working overtime.


The lion's share of the work went to re-numbering the ever growing hopper car fleet.  The font is a wee bit off, and I made the numbers a half-point too big, but hell, my eyes aren't getting any younger...  In addition to changing the numbers on the 70 tonners, I also added some "wood chip loading only" markings to those six cars, and started to renumber some Atlas 55 ton cars to carry the number series of the H-29 and H-32 rebuilds that were done in the late 60's.  (All the factory numbers from Atlas so far are 1940's numbers the cars originally carried.)

Then, I went back to work on the WMRHS Challenger.  Victor repaired the motor for me, and I took it down to the club to give it a good work out on the N track rig there.  It ran for over an hour without a hiccup.  So this weekend, I added tender pickups (Thanks, Chris!) to hopefully make it run even better, and started working on the cosmetics... I replaced the snow plow which had gone missing, and added some paint and weathering.  It's still needs a few odds and ends, and I'd really like to put an all-weather cab on it.  But first, I have to figure out why I'm getting a dead short... I've checked all the obvious things, but somewhere there's a ghost in the machine...



But at least it looks good!

Finally, I went to work on a project that's been on the books for a couple of months now...  At long last, it's in the paint shop!


Have a great week, everyone!

Lee

[Caleb Austin]

I added a couple fall trees to  the forest on my layout. I kept them as subtle as possible, since I'm aiming for a late September feel...



Also started scenery on the reconstructed middle portion of the door...

[GaryHinshaw]

Nothing significant for me this week due to a California trip, an office move, and various other distractions.  The highlight of the week was a 5-hour jaunt to Cajon Pass Tuesday afternoon, prior to my flight home.  I saw no fewer than three triple meets within 40 minutes around 5 pm.  At one point two eastbound stacks were pacing each other up the mountain on parallel tracks for several miles.  Very cool.  The consist of the day was a 7-unit lashup on a BNSF manifest featuring 6 GEVO's and a Dash 8-40BW chugging up the 2.2%.  What a sound!

[bigford]

working on getting this unit finished



ran out of thinner,went to hobby shop so did they :

[DKS]

I finished installing Dot's Diner.

[James Costello]

Nothing significant for me this week due to a California trip, an office move, and various other distractions.  The highlight of the week was a 5-hour jaunt to Cajon Pass Tuesday afternoon, prior to my flight home.  I saw no fewer than three triple meets within 40 minutes around 5 pm.  At one point two eastbound stacks were pacing each other up the mountain on parallel tracks for several miles.  Very cool.  The consist of the day was a 7-unit lashup on a BNSF manifest featuring 6 GEVO's and a Dash 8-40BW chugging up the 2.2%.  What a sound!

Tease! Photos on Thursday????  

Nothing photo worthy. Got the silver down on the remaing SD70M shell and cabs, hopefully onto the colors this weekend. Also got the primer down on the two stripped down RC autoracks, so it should be a colorful weekend indeed!

[diezmon]

I've never liked how my dirt/sand turned out on my shelf layout..


So, I've been experimenting with grout.  I still need to add more brush and grass..






I also made some decals, finally.  Now I can sell this sucker. 

[oakcreekco]

Those number boards look great. I've always been amazed on how good an engine can look with the "right sized" number boards.

It takes a little extra work on a Kato or Atlas, but once completed, a loco with the tiny factory boards, or no numbers at all is almost disturbing ;D

Nice job

[seusscaboose]

Finally, I went to work on a project that's been on the books for a couple of months now...  At long last, it's in the paint shop!

looking good lee...
here is the prototype from 1979ish time frame in Moorefield, WV
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/scan0001a1.jpg

[conrail98]

I used time waiting for car work to be done to work on the upper level design for the layout. I'm not 100% done, but I've gotten close enough to feel I'll be representing the Palmyra to Lebanon portion of the line adequately,

Phil

[qantaqa]

I entered a local RR diorama contest...

I'm calling it "Waffle Jr."

[Day One]

No trains but train related at least. My layout is still covered in plastic to keep sawdust off it while I work on some woodworking projects.

I've wanted a spray booth for a while but space in my garage is at a premium so I finally built a collapsible booth that sits on folding supports. It's roughly 26 x 21 x 21 when in use and folds down to be only 5" thick minus the fan. It works great and I'll finally be able to knock out a bunch of projects that have been waiting on paint.