Weekend Update 10/6/13

[up1950s]

[Philip H]

Ritchie,
That's the sexist track work you've snagged yet!  Hubba, hubba.

[jnevis]

Ritchie,
That's the sexist track work you've snagged yet!  Hubba, hubba.

Not compatible with MTL wheelsets
 

[Mark W]

Well I'm excited to see how the Ammonia Trailers turn out!
Finally got the design ready for the first print.

[kelticsylk]

Track laid through Bennington, just this side of Gallitzin...


Mainline almost complete.

[davefoxx]

Wow!  Moving right along, Frank.  I can't wait to see the first train run.  Please post pics or, even better, video, when you get to that point.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've got a fridge full of beer and a shopping list for Lowes tomorrow.

Bench work is getting DONE this weekend (by asshats who know what they're doing).

[VonRyan]

On Thursday, the FedEx man brought me a nice big package from the UK.
It contained:
A Great Western Railway First Aid Outfit (First Aid Kit)


Shipping was one heck of a wallop ($64), and the thing only weighs 6kg. Apparently Royal Mail has a weight limit so FedEx was the cheapest option, and the carboard box arrived somewhat flattened and cocooned in shiny brown tape, but no damage done to the contents (all I really cared about anyhow).
I hardly has much of its original contents, mostly just some absorbent stuffs, the splint/tourniquet boards, hand-etched measuring glass, and first aid instructions.
However, the smell is quite interesting (an odd mix, hard to really describe).
The kit is from pre-1948 as in 1948 the railways of Britain (called the "Big Four") were nationalized to form British Railways.
The coin in the second picture is an English Pound coin.

I also did some digging as to the red number since it has to be an engine number (no two engines would carry the same number), and I found a picture of the engine (albeit post-1948, and carrying BR lined-green livery).

The engine was torched in 1964 (torched meaning cut up for scrap).


Hope to see some excellent work this weekend!



-Cody F.

[davefoxx]

I slapped the first coat of paint on the cassette tonight to help blend it in with the rest of the layout.  Once scenery is farther along, I plan to lightly sand all of the layout's fascia and apply the final top coat of paint.  Fortunately, the paint I bought provides decent coverage on just the first coat.  As you can see, I borrowed from Marty McGuirk's staging area idea on the Carolina Central and painted the inside of the cassette flat black to represent offstage.



I also got my new FVM ATSF GP60M up and running.  Sweet.  It's been working overtime on the point of the Juice Train.

DFF

[mark dance]

Pushing forward progress on all those projects I have on the go...First, finished my cadre of flagmen.  I should really paint one of their lanterns up as a Jack o' Lantern for Halowe'en!



Second I fabricated the upper frames for the next two bridges to be built.  The frames are soldered from telescoping square brass tube so that the individual bridges can be taken apart. This will be Barr Creek bridge...



and further to the east, deep in a horseshoe canyon, McCormack Creek bridge.



I am really looking forward to getting these in so I can finish the scenery in this area and add more tall trees.

Next up was more work on the Troup junction area to the East of Nelson.  I made up and painted about 40 line poles with the correct number of cross arms and insulator pairs.  These now take the phone lines from Nelson station to Cranbrook staging.



And installed them along with a whole bunch more Super trees and Super bushes in the 3' deep corner right next to Nelson yard.









The line along Kootenay Lake is nearly complete.  The last remaining thing is to scratchbuild the small telephone shack at Troup.

Have a great weekend!

md

[peteski]

On Thursday, the FedEx man brought me a nice big package from the UK.
It contained:
A Great Western Railway First Aid Outfit (First Aid Kit)

Nice find Cody!  No wonder you have no funds left for model trains! 

[Sokramiketes]

Had the pleasure to work on a pair of DD40's that Bob Gilmore used to own: 


Bob did a beautiful job tweaking these Overland models.  I installed DCC and sound for the new owner.  First up was to clear the lead weight in the fuel tank and clearance for a speaker and Tsunami decoder:


And then button up the wiring and lighting.  On the lead unit I tried to replace Bob's beacon with a Sunrise beacon... but I couldn't get enough light into the appropriate Sunrise beacon from below.  So I ended up turning a new beacon out of clear acrylic rod and gluing a SMD orange LED to the bottom of it.  It lights up much better, and I had to use a 1k resistor to cut the current in half to keep it from being obnoxious.  I also threw a yellow-white LED in the nose light to finish things off.

[johnhale]

Next up was more work on the Troup junction area to the East of Nelson.  I made up and painted about 40 line poles with the correct number of cross arms and insulator pairs.  These now take the phone lines from Nelson station to Cranbrook staging.

Mark,  how do you construct your poles, cross arms and insulators?

John

[mark dance]

Mark,  how do you construct your poles, cross arms and insulators?

John

Hi John...

The poles all start from the 3 cross-armed Atlas telephone poles. I just prune away and/or shorten any cross arms that aren't needed and add additional insulators which have been "harvested" from other Atlas poles.  For example, for those forty poles, most had the lower cross-arm removed and then 6 insulators added to each of the remaining two cross arms.  Then I airbrush all of them, spot paint the rusty steel struts and successively paint from black to white highlights the insulators.  The odd insulator gets a dab of metallic green paint to simulate the green insulators that showed up randomly on the poles on my prototype.

Hope that helps.

md

[BCRail_FSJ]

Finished the second approach span for the Beatton River bridge and gave them both a coat of paint today.   They are a bit rough round the edges but heavy tree cover will hide most of their shortcomings.

Hope to start work on all the bridge towers this week