Weekend Update 9/13/15

[Philip H]

Wait a minute!! That's Unitrack? That can't be Unitrack. There ain't no way you can make Unitrack THAT good. Is there?

Aw, come on. You're pulling my leg. That ain't Unitrack. Is it? Really?

Well I'll be... It is. It really, REALLY is. Gotta look close to tell. But that's Unitrack.

Damn.

The Railwire - where Unitrack bursts your bubble!

[thomasjmdavis]

I would be a whole lot more comfortable with my own modeling skill if both Scott and David had written something like "I placed my models on a green background and then used photoshop to integrate the photos of the model into scenes I photographed with a high def digital camera....."

I will second the comments that when I look at their scenes, I feel like at some point in time, I have actually been in those places for real.  Outstanding work.  You should charge admission and sell popcorn, and we'll come over and watch your trains.

And if that is Unitrack, I sure have wasted a whole lot of time trying to get code 55 to bend just so, and stretching to adjust that one joint in the back corner when it could have been click, click, click and done.

[mu26aeh]

With some of the stuff posted here weekly, I don't know why I even bother.....

[Bangorboy]

With some of the stuff posted here weekly, I don't know why I even bother.....

If it's any consolation, I'm not much better, and all of these guys were once as clueless as we are.  It's a matter of getting to Carnegie Hall --  practice, practice, practice.  Also pay attention and learn from your mistakes, and model from pictures of the prototype, not from your memory.  Memory shows you impressions, which can be quite skewed from reality!

Hang on there, brother!  You'll get good enough for the forum crowd to exclaim over your models, too.

[davidgray1974]

Wow! Thanks guys! 

@Rich_S - You are correct.  My layout is a 4 x 8 but nothing much going on yet on the other side, except for car storage.  My plans are to make this a rural country scene somewhere in KY.  At the far end I hope to add a 2' x 6' extension that will connect at a 90 degree angle.  This will house a yard and some industries for switching.

Here is a picture of the opposite side of the layout. 


Thanks again for all the kind words!

David

[peteski]

Here is a picture of the opposite side of the layout. 

It really is Unitrack!  I still had my doubts, but this side of the layout is a proof that David really used Unitrack!   

[OldEastRR]

Very good scenery. Having a waterway through a canyon is very realistic, shows how the canyon got there. To that end, you have steep rock walls along the back of the scene, and the start of steep rock walls in the RH front corner of the layout. Have you thought about making a steep section like the RH front corner in the LH corner, across the road from the general store? Nothing very tall, something like the RH corner... more like the foot of the rock cliffs that presumably tower over the scene except the front edge of the layout cuts off the higher sections. They could end very realistically at the edge of the creek flowing off the LH corner. By doing that and sculpting the bank of the creek closer to that section of rail you'd get a narrow shelf of track hemmed in by rock walls and water, like scenes in many mountain railroads. This would hide the track from the front for a short distance but the view from above or the end of the layout would be pretty neat.
The "town" would be in a small flat space among the hills carved out by a tiny creek.

[wm3798]

Rails up to a man's knees... spike heads as big as a man's shoes...  I wasn't fooled.  Well, not until I put my eyes back in my head after oggling the whole scene!  Nicely played, sir.  Now go replace that track with something that looks like track.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

With some of the stuff posted here weekly, I don't know why I even bother.....

Because we like to show off how to do it too.

[chicken45]

Thanks Josh,
You know the drill; file, JB weld, file some more, more jb weld, and then file some more. The bottom lip was filed off and replaced with a wide styrene strip and I used styrene corner bracing to help hid the gaps. For some reason I was determined not to let this one go unfinished. Now all we need is a turbo generator, know any one?

The cool thing is that you modeled this seam:

Having a seam helps normalize the geometry on the model.

[alhoop]

Rails up to a man's knees... spike heads as big as a man's shoes...  I wasn't fooled.  Well, not until I put my eyes back in my head after oggling the whole scene!  Nicely played, sir.  Now go replace that track with something that looks like track.

Whatcha talking about --- boy??
Al

[GimpLizard]

If it's any consolation, ... all of these guys were once as clueless as we are.

Yea. But they got better. Down-right good, even. I, on the other hand...

[Rich_S]

Wow! Thanks guys! 

@Rich_S - You are correct.  My layout is a 4 x 8 but nothing much going on yet on the other side, except for car storage.  My plans are to make this a rural country scene somewhere in KY.  At the far end I hope to add a 2' x 6' extension that will connect at a 90 degree angle.  This will house a yard and some industries for switching.

Thanks again for all the kind words!

David

David, With all of the great modeling you've done on the other side of the layout, I can't wait to see your progress on this side of the layout.  You should start a thread in the Layout Engineering Reports forum to keep us updated on the layout progress, just a suggestion.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

David, With all of the great modeling you've done on the other side of the layout, I can't wait to see your progress on this side of the layout.  You should start a thread in the Layout Engineering Reports forum to keep us updated on the layout progress, just a suggestion.

Yes!! Your fanclub needs to know where to send their SASEs.

[towl1996]

That's a great picture, you can get a sense of how massive this car and the loads it carried were. This is one reason why the Pennsy was so bad assed. They just built stuff when they needed it to get the job done.

Are you going to add your weathering magic to yours?