Weekend Update 5/13/12

[Wardie]

Either the designer or carpenter mst have felt inspired on that one Dick, that roof certainly has some interesting Geometry in it.

[up1950s]

Nice job on the tower . Looks almost like a lighthouse . If there is a lighthouse in N , it might be able to be cut down to size if needed , or the top section could be atop a girder structure with a stairway to a railfans heaven . If to big it could be a major yard tower .

[absnut]

Wardie, I saved the roof til last and its construction elicited a lot of colorful metaphors!

[wazzou]

Cougar Gold Cheese manufactured at the Washington State University Dairy is World renowned.

[bbussey]

Another auto rack, Whitehead & Kales tri-level "Safe Pak" decorated for ATSF.  Milled brass floor/underframe and rack supports, etched brass sides and end doors, wire stirrups, styrene decks, Red Caboose roof, ladders and brake ratchet, MTL trucks/couplers with FVM wheelsets.  Originally built with etched brass tri-fold doors in error, later replaced with new etched clamshell tri-level doors based on the RC bi-level doors.

[James Costello]

^ HAWT. Nicely done BB.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Very groovy photos and modeling, peoples!
Thanks for sharing.

I've been installing Bullfrog turnout controls on my N scale Free-moN Staging Yard module:



Don't worry, the knobs are protected by a slanted shelf that runs along the side of the module:





I've also been improving the Atlas C55 turnouts I used by shimming the throwbar under the stock rails:

Simple fix that improves performance 101%.

Back to building Bullfrogs!
(before heading out to run a 5K with my daughter as her "running buddy" )

Happy Mother's Day!

[Vince Gortner]

This is why my scenery experiment is working for me.  I can just decide that some aspect of the work I've done already looks like junk and take a knife to it and start over.  Do overs are important for me at this stage...  and since I haven't glued down the Unitrack yet I don't have to worry about making a mess of the track.  This is going to be a rural two-lane blacktop grade crossing with a gravel road leading away to the right. 

carve:



fix:



Slight adjustments to landform, and scenery now comes in a convenient spray can:



Tons of rainy day fun here!

[w neal]

Gee Brian, I hope nobody who has a business making N scale cars produces autoracks like you create. I'm sure nobody would buy them. 

[conrail98]

Went to National Train Day at 30th Street. Wife is not opposed to taking the train out to Minnesota this year for our vacation. Now to just figure out how to get out to Chicago from Philly the easiest,

Phil

[BCR 570]

I took a break from layout construction this week and spent some time getting some non-revenue equipment ready for painting.

BCOL 993454 was an outfit service diesel fuel tank car.  This was the only photograph I had to work from, which was shot in haste out a car window years ago by my friend Trevor Mills:




My model is an Arnold tank mounted on a Micro-Trains tank underframe with Gold Medal Models fittings.  The decals were printed on a laser printer by my friend Jeff Briggs and I was very pleased with the results:




Next up are two outfit cars I have been working on for a while.  The last step prior to painting was to add some Archer rivet decals:






PGE 991130 was the Chetwynd emergency rail flat - a former Pacific Great Eastern 41' flatcar:




BCOL 994016 was a tie car:




Off to the paint shop!

Tim

[Dave V]

Conrail is back on the Juniata Division.  Playing a little with Instagram.

[mark dance]

Most of my hobby time this week was spent restaging the C&W for next week's ops session.  Still a bit of cleaning and prep to do but was able to get a couple of projects started by the end of the week.

First I put the safety railing around Cottonwood creek which runs through Nelson yard.  Then this morning, before the family got up, I got a start on transformer station beside the Diesel house.







Boy those code 55 rails look huge, even when painted, before they are ballasted.

Have a great weekend and mother's day everyone.

md

[Bsklarski]

It looks good mark, I like the flow of the track, and once ballasted, ect. it will look very nice.

[Pennsy]

I've been making steady progress on my Intermountain N scale tank car kits. I finally decided to use modeling clay to weigh the cars down. I fill the tank body with it, and it provides much-needed heft to the cars.

Is that enough weight? Have you checked them against the NMRA standard?

Pennsy