The Canal Line

[peteski]

Today I finished up this SW1. I have wanted to model one of these in their weathered state, nearing the end of it's life, showing the maroon having worn off exosing the gold undercoat/stripe color, and it's replaced blue headlight..anywho, here it is:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm1128adp.jpg

Very nice!  I have never seen a photo of this loco (in that condition).  Funny that the your model's imitation gold in the photo looks more on the orange side.  Maybe because it lacks the maroon color around it.  Yet, it is different than the color of the steps (Chinese Red?).

[milw12]

I have been very happy with the Accumates, the biggest reason I prefer them is they don't do the "slinky", but still work well for switching unlike the TSCs.  Most of the cars I've been using have body mounts, and usually they drop right in place of the original MT or clones. I also have some which are truck mounted, and for the most part everything plays nice ove my 11 inch radius S-curve bridge.I have heard some reports they start to fail in long trains, but I won't be having that problem. Sometimes, if the inner "nub" gets damaged they won't work well, and should be replaced, but it's not common if you're reasonably gentle with them.I use a simple wire pick tool for them, I have a hole it sits in next to the control panel.They also work well with MTs , even the Z scale ones, which is a nice bonus, I use those on my SW1s as the pilots are only big enough for those. I hope this helps!

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I almost think standardizing couplers is more important that the brand. Like most I had a mix of Accumates and MT to start, but when I went full MT 1015's it was an immediately noticeable improvement. Slinky drives me nuts too, my stock caboose is the worst offender. I overwieghed all my other cars, they are hardly low friction anymore, and it seemed to help a bit. I probably wouldn't pull a twenty car train from my fleet around a large layout all day, but works for my needs 

Another question... how do you power your frogs in DC? From tortoises or other style switch machines..? I found a wiring diagram to do it from an SPST for a manually thrown turnout, but seemed like an easy way to cause a short with a moment's inattention. Not that it would be impossible to run a locomotive through a frog with the wrong polarity (backwards, thrown wrong for instance), but a motorized turnout but seems like better insurance.

I love little switchers shoving around oversize boxcars but I can only get GP's to run reliably through frogs at slow speeds ...mostly. On ME turnouts fwiw.

-Lucas

[coosvalley]

Very nice!  I have never seen a photo of this loco (in that condition).  Funny that the your model's imitation gold in the photo looks more on the orange side.  Maybe because it lacks the maroon color around it.  Yet, it is different than the color of the steps (Chinese Red?).

Interestingly, I've had this loco sitting next to some painted, not-yet-decaled MEC harvest gold locos, and this imitation gold is fairly close to that too! The underframe is actually painted by Arnold(B&M blue 1115), I added the extra orange outside the stepwells using Guilford orange, but it should be international orange. The weathering helps blend it together. I really like the "orange stepwell era", which seems to have occured during 78/79, and was over by 1980(though many locos still carried the orange for a few years). Of the 5 photos I found of 1128 in this condition, none showed the hood end, so I used a sister for inspiration. Decals for this scheme, in as delivered condition, are not available, so I had to ignore a few lettering details, hopefully someday we'll get decals for SW1 in maroon and gold.

Another question... how do you power your frogs in DC? From tortoises or other style switch machines..? I found a wiring diagram to do it from an SPST for a manually thrown turnout, but seemed like an easy way to cause a short with a moment's inattention. Not that it would be impossible to run a locomotive through a frog with the wrong polarity (backwards, thrown wrong for instance), but a motorized turnout but seems like better insurance.

I love little switchers shoving around oversize boxcars but I can only get GP's to run reliably through frogs at slow speeds ...mostly. On ME turnouts fwiw.

-Lucas

I used Atlas C55 turnout motors, which have the power routing relay built in. I chose them over other options for a few reasons, the first being I already had a bunch from my previous Coos Valley layout. The second reason is their extremely low profile, and my last reason is that the "snap" sound reminds me of my fathers layout.

A short on DC isn't a big deal, and the locos just stop when I try to run through them when they are lined for the other route. I actually like this, as it tells me the frogs are live with power!

[coosvalley]

Here's a quick and dirty version of possible layout expansion, this would be to the right of my current layout. I drew it as a 6 x 6 foot corner, as it seems like it won't be as crowded this way. It's hard to see but the yard area is about an inch higher, which makes the curved lead on a grade, which I think will be cool to model, even if it's not prototypical. None of this is set in stone, but it gives an idea of where I'd like to go with this..

Anywho, here is a basic idea of how it might look..

[OldEastRR]

Here are a couple cars I painted up for B&M. The 50 footer still needs some stirrups, and it's own frame, as I stole this from another car being worked on. The 40 footer is one of 2 cars stranded in Cambridge, Ma., which have since been scrapped. The 50 footer is the same number as a car on display and restored at the RR Mueseum of New England.

Looks like MTL used these guys for their May Weathered cars.

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/search&tag=nwthrd0518

[coosvalley]

Looks like MTL used these guys for their May Weathered cars.

Man, that bums me out. Why can't MT retire/retool their "smished" cars?..Atlas noticed their "original" PS1 needed improvement, and so they came out with an excellent replacement.. If MT were to do this, I would consider purchasing those cars, but, I actually got rid of ALL of my mis-proportioned MicroTrains cars, and personally I think my layout looks better because of it.

Unfortunately, lipstick on a pig doesn't make the pig any prettier..

Their weathering is excellent, now if only they would put it on properly scaled rolling stock 

[OldEastRR]

I was going to dump all my MTL 40'ers but decided to keep the ones from my era. There were only 4-5, but I liked the paint scheme and/or homemade weathering. With some experimentation I found I could cut off the roof right at the edge, sand the walls down a bit, replace the overthick door guides with .010"x.020" strip styrene (the doors are correct size) and grind down the bolsters as needed to get a correctly proportioned car once the roof was back on. The ends are little funky but you don't lose any ribs or their placement because MTL put the extra height above the pattern. The fix is hardly noticeable and the cars now match heights and dimensions with the Atlas Ps-1s. It's not hard to do if you're careful. The really hard part is trying to match the paint that MTL used -- especially that weird light brown on all their early cars. With weathered cars you can hide that easily.

[coosvalley]

OK gang, I'm getting there with the large mill complex. This week I painted the main structure, gave it washes to bring out the brick detail, and then hand painted all of the windowsills a concrete color.I then installed the windows. I used the "blanks" on the rail side to add interest, and had to make brick plugs for the basement windows under those. These were painted in a contrasting color to help them stand out. I gave the "office area" some 4-pane windows to help them stick out as different, and to see what's inside , and 3 rooms of the complex will be lit too.
Still to do is chimneys, gutters to help hide kitbashing seams, window glass, more weathering,and installing the floors and ceilings (with pre added lights) . Also to do is the loading docks, more about that in a minute. First, where I am now:












A little office mischief . A friend of mine thought these were funny enough she grabbed a set off ebay while we were having a laugh about them..





 




OK, about those loading docks....Here is a photo of what's there. There will definitely be loading docks against the long walls, but I cannot decide about the short wall. I also wonder if I should add loading dock down the middle, between the tracks, or add a little structure, more like the prototype..Also to decide-- real concrete, or styrene?

Which brings me to another decision that has to be made soon, add a road along the right edge of the layout, or model the building up against the edge, which will keep the tracks longer.






Here is what a the road would add, scene-wise (imagine a mill on the left)


You can see here I have space to move the structure to the left, and not lose much parking lot, but I will lose some, and I like this open space to pack with trailers and other industrial details...




I am curious what you guys think...

[peteski]

A little office mischief . A friend of mine thought these were funny enough she grabbed a set off ebay while we were having a laugh about them..


I am curious what you guys think...

Looks great! Living in New England I can say that you are definitely capturing the flavor of the old mill towns.  One thing that does bug me is that IMO the smoke stack should be taller than the tallest surrounding structures.  So I would either find a taller stack (Walthers Modulars maybe?) or cut down the height of the gray modern addition on the roof.

As far as the copulating set goes, was that the "sexy scenes" by NOCH?  They have several different ones available. 

[wazzou]

RE: the smokestack, I bought the Walthers HO ones to supplement for the N Scale versions.

[coosvalley]

Yea, don't sweat the stack, it's just a stand in, I have a taller one but it likes to tip over ...That whole structure is far from finished.

And yes, that is a Noch "sexy scene"...

[Cajonpassfan]

Looking good, a great composition!
One of the (many) advantages of N scale is to be able to build something like this that's actually doing justice to large industries.
For what it's worth,  I would probably wrap the dock along all three sides and perhaps provide a roof cover for the short side against the office portion? As to the road along the right edge, I'd say probably not. Where would the side backdrop go and wouldn't you need the other side of the street somehow represented? Also, it would start crowding the rest of the module, further cutting down the two spurs...
Perhaps if you ever expand the layout, the road (and another bridge?) should go on that module?
Of course, there are lots of ways to do this well and I'm sure you'll find one.
I'm enjoying this thread!
Otto K.

[coosvalley]

I would probably wrap the dock along all three sides and perhaps provide a roof cover for the short side against the office portion?

I actually want to make small roof for the long sides of the loading dock, so this could be be included. There's not a lot of room to attach it between floors, so it will be small, probably with a corrugated roofing..

As to the road along the right edge, I'd say probably not. Where would the side backdrop go and wouldn't you need the other side of the street somehow represented? Also, it would start crowding the rest of the module, further cutting down the two spurs...
Perhaps if you ever expand the layout, the road (and another bridge?) should go on that module?

Actually, the road/bridge would be the perfect way to hide a module joint, so I'm leaning towards modeling the sidewalk against the mill, and let that lead up to the layout edge.

Looking good, a great composition!
I'm enjoying this thread!
Otto K.

Thanks!..I'm having fun doing this, and I hope I can keep moving fast enough to keep it interesting!

[GaryHinshaw]

This is fantastic modelling.  The weedy tracks look right at home in this setting.

[coosvalley]

Thanks Gary!

Some interior details. Ignore the loading docks, that's just what came with the kits, it works for now, until I get something else built..