Weekend Update 2/28/16

[up1950s]

[hegstad1]

I've been on a boxcar kick lately.  My most recent project is a 40' double door boxcar that the NP leased from A.A. Morrison in 1962.  These cars were originally built by American Car and Foundry in 1941 for the Erie Railroad and are basically a modified 1937 AAR design.  They have dreadnaught ends, rectangular panel roof, and Youngstown doors on riveted sides.  I found that the Atlas Trainman double door car was very close and a good starting point for this project.  The paint and lettering isn't bad on the car and I decided to try and preserve it.  The biggest chore was replacing the roof with the correct one from an Intermountain kit.  I also scraped off the ladders and replaced them with eight rung ladders also from intermountain.  I altered the side sill to match the prototype, masked off the sides and touched up the paint.  I added Z scale couplers and the prototype rode on National B1 trucks which I have yet to replace.   

[craigolio1]

I started  scratch building a caboose this week.



I wrote a thread on it here:


https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=38361.0

Craig

[Mike Madonna]

I've been on a boxcar kick lately.  My most recent project is a 40' double door boxcar that the NP leased from A.A. Morrison in 1962.  These cars were originally built by American Car and Foundry in 1941 for the Erie Railroad and are basically a modified 1937 AAR design.  They have dreadnaught ends, rectangular panel roof, and Youngstown doors on riveted sides.  I found that the Atlas Trainman double door car was very close and a good starting point for this project.  The paint and lettering isn't bad on the car and I decided to try and preserve it.  The biggest chore was replacing the roof with the correct one from an Intermountain kit.  I also scraped off the ladders and replaced them with eight rung ladders also from intermountain.  I altered the side sill to match the prototype, masked off the sides and touched up the paint.  I added Z scale couplers and the prototype rode on National B1 trucks which I have yet to replace.   

Andrew, very nice. I just did about the same thing to Atlas 40' Steel rebuilds (SP). Removed the roof, added an IMR diagonal panel roof, steel roof walk and MTL Youngstown doors.

[tehachapifan]

Finished my second SP SW1500 kitbash, shown here coupled to the original bash....

[wazzou]

That looks good Andrew.  I've been building mine the hard way.  I had hoped to be up to 6 by this point but have only built 2, so far and haven't painted either one.  I guess one advantage is I was able to come up with the 13' door opening.



@tehachapifan -
Those SW-1500's are superb.  Really, really nice work.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Finished my second SP SW1500 kitbash, shown here coupled to the original bash....

So much great detail!
Love the lightboards, handgrabs, & vent mesh details.
Just wondering why, given all the amazing detail you installed, you left the trip pins in couplers, & didn't swap to Z scale MTL 905s.

No value judgement, just curious about thought / practical process.

[hegstad1]

That looks good Andrew.  I've been building mine the hard way.  I had hoped to be up to 6 by this point but have only built 2, so far and haven't painted either one.  I guess one advantage is I was able to come up with the 13' door opening.



@tehachapifan -
Those SW-1500's are superb.  Really, really nice work.

You're doing it the right way Bryan and I will probably go that route too someday.  I literally did mine in about two hours in one sitting.  Tell me this.  Where are you getting your info?  I have the Mainstreeter article that Chris did but is there more out there somewhere?  Thanks and great work!

[SkipGear]

Two weeks ago, our Ntrak club set up at a small swap met we attend every year. It's not a very long show, about 6 hours so I left the train running to my son and sat down to build a small building for the corner module I am in charge of for the club.

It started as a pile of leftover Walther modular parts.....


By the end of the show, the walls and floor were done. Another evening or two at home and I ended up with this....




The roof is not attached yet as I am not happy with the color. I miss grimy black in a rattle can. I have found no other color even remotely close yet. It was my goto for steel bridges and roofing. Everything I have tried is just too gray and flat black is too black. I also need to add some landscaping between the sidewalk and the building and some signage. It's going to be a machine shop for a small engine service area.

[Dave V]

Been working on the Midland...

[BCR 570]

I do not think that I have seen one of the BC Hydro Railway cabooses modelled in N Scale before - good work Craig.

Not many free evenings during the last two weeks, but I have completed fabrication of the low side walls for the flatdeck end of crane idler BCOL 6502, and the rectangular fuel tanks which sit inside them:




This is a test fit of those parts to the deck:




Tim

[tehachapifan]

So much great detail!
Love the lightboards, handgrabs, & vent mesh details.
Just wondering why, given all the amazing detail you installed, you left the trip pins in couplers, & didn't swap to Z scale MTL 905s.

No value judgement, just curious about thought / practical process.

Operations, mainly. These do local industry-type switching with magnet un-couplers requiring the trip pins. Never installed Z scale couplers on anything yet....no reason other than I just haven't tried it yet.

Thanks for the comments!

[Puddington]

Quick and dirty cell grabs.... Work continues on the mill - the paper machine buildings are next after completing the shiping...



The Technical Lab and Innovation Center - named for my father who was an award winning technical pioneer in corrugated containers - he always loved being in the lab.... this one is a spoof on a West Virginia mill's board room - they built a "mod" control tower on their tech center which looked a bit like this.... couldn't resist.... there's actually a board table, chairs, people and elevator in there....



and what city is complete without a food truck....? Named for a very good friend who's an award winning chef and just bought a retirement gift for himself.. a red food truck..... hey Jimmy... "Fugget-a-aboutit".....

[jereising]

Finally finished my wind turbine train thanks to talented Shapeways designer David McConnell who created the masts, nacelles, and hubs.  Here's the whole train:



A closer shot of just the masts, hubs, and nacelles:



The neat thing is, you could build a complete turbine with the loads on this train - David designed the parts to fit Mark Watson's blades.  You could even power it, I suspect!  Here's a shot of the base and middle mast sections:



And finally the hubs and nacelles on heavy duty flats, also available from shapeways (David also included the shipping fixtures):

[chuck geiger]

Wow tip of the iceberg with some great modeling - MORE MORE MORE