HOn3 Rio Grande Southern First District 1938-1945

[wm3798]

I'm not jealous of the modeling, or really that upset about the paint color of the legs, or even the absence of an enclosure.  I'm just gobsmacked that you don't have a dogpile of crap stashed under the layout!  When I finally dismantled the WM, it was amazing the stuff I found!

Lee

[Dave V]

I'm not jealous of the modeling, or really that upset about the paint color of the legs, or even the absence of an enclosure.  I'm just gobsmacked that you don't have a dogpile of crap stashed under the layout!  When I finally dismantled the WM, it was amazing the stuff I found!

Lee

That's because the adjacent bedroom--former home of the Juniata Division and current home of the Colorado Midland and my as-yet unshared HOn3 Scotch Creek Module--looks like a landfill.

Landfill remediation is on the to-do list starting this afternoon.

[wm3798]

Ah.  The round up and migration of all the things!  I could have a full time job for the next 10 years dealing with that kind of crap.

Have fun, though.  And remember, if you stop and fondly remember a story about every individual thing before you throw it away or pack it up, it will take longer.

Lee

[narrowminded]

As part of my functioning critter efforts I actually attempted some online research to find if Fairmont narrow gauge speeders were just regauged wheels or actually built narrower.  My guess is they did not have narrowed bodies as the needed space for engine, seats, and all of the related components would become special in many regards whereas the wheels could be easily gauged for a 1- 10 piece order but I did not find anything at all on the topic, other than they existed.  I suspect that the shells were one size varying only by model and gauging only was adjusted per order but I don't have anything conclusive on this.

[Dave V]

[Rich_S]

Dave, Great update. The layout looks fantastic, thanks for sharing the video.

[Dave V]

Now that the layout is fairly far along, I've turned my attention toward my backlog of car kits.

First up, I had two old and incomplete versions of the same kit (one by Wheel Works and one by Clear Creek Models) for a D&RGW high side gondola.  It's a very, very detailed kit with amazing wood grain.  Hard to believe it's from the 70s!  Anyway, between the two kits I had enough parts to complete one gon, which I finished to match a photo taken in Sapinero, CO (on the Black Canyon line) in 1939:



Then I busted out a pair of Grandt Line steel-underframe C&S stock cars.  10 of them went to the Rio Grande Southern in 1938.  These kits are also very well detailed.  They're slow going...lots of holes to drill for gab irons you have to bend yourself (at one point I broke down and bought about 300 Tichy pre-bent grabs, LOL)...but they create exceptionally accurate models that roll like a dream:



Then I decided to go old school...



I acquired a few LaBelle wood kits.  New stock but the old design.  Thankfully the newer kits come with some injection-molded details...but the majority of the kits are wood sticks, blocks, wood sheets, wire, stamped brass, and soft metal.  They're fun to build, actually...but I think I do prefer working in styrene.

Anyway, the reason I got the LaBelle kits is that I've been working on a consist representing the narrow gauge railroads that served Silverton at the turn of the last century.

At Windy Point on the RGS:



On Bridge 45A at Ophir on the RGS:



At Lizard Head Pass on the RGS:



Blackstone class 70 as Silverton RR #100, the "Ouray:"



D&RG 3000-series from the Rail Line kit. Yes, it's the post-rebuild body, but I think it looks good in the as-built paint scheme:



Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly gondola #2007 from a LaBelle kit:



Silverton Northern boxcar #2006 (formerly Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly 1006) from a Labelle kit:



Silverton Northern caboose #1005 (formerly Silverton RR #17). Brass caboose, manufacturer lost to history...repainted and hand-lettered by yours truly:



So that's what I've been up to.

[Dave V]

With that I think this thread is at an end.  If you want to follow more of my RGS layout, please visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HOn3RGS/.

Thanks for the ride, guys.

[DKS]

With that I think this thread is at an end.  If you want to follow more of my RGS layout, please visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HOn3RGS/.

Thanks for the ride, guys.

Why???

Call me lazy, but I stick around Railwire because of posts like yours. Now I need to visit (ugh!) Facecrook too?

[Dave V]

Why???

Call me lazy, but I stick around Railwire because of posts like yours. Now I need to visit (ugh!) Facecrook too?

Because I'm tired of swimming upstream.  I appreciate that you like following my modeling work, but it's pretty much lost in the noise these days, so I don't feel the need to keep bothering with it.

[tom mann]

@Dave V  if you think a few Crew Lounge posts are bad, I'm not sure why you're ok with Facebook.

[nuno81291]

Perhaps because it’s not his duty to moderate all of FB and can easily block/filter content you don’t want on it?

Either way a big loss for this forum of a prolific modeler! Get outside and enjoy the front range! 

[Dave V]

@Dave V  if you think a few Crew Lounge posts are bad, I'm not sure why you're ok with Facebook.

Because on Facebook at this point I primarily stay on model railroading and railroading pages where the content is actually...wait for it...trains.  At this point I know exactly how every one of my Facebook friends sits politically and what they've had for dinner, so now I use it as a great big train forum.  The "Crew Lounge" is the larger bit full of virtue-signaling and political rants that I avoid.

Which is to say maybe I do need to stick around here but just stay the hell out of the Crew Lounge, LOL...   

[DKS]

Because I'm tired of swimming upstream.  I appreciate that you like following my modeling work, but it's pretty much lost in the noise these days, so I don't feel the need to keep bothering with it.

I'm calling a (friendly!) bullsh!t on that, buddy. Just look at the respect each of your posts earn, then try to tell me it's "lost in the noise"...

I understand getting burned out by the Crew Lounge. And yes, avoiding it might be a good start to lower the blood pressure. But "punishing" your friends by ending your modeling posts! That's just over-the-top.

I've been where you're at, trust me. I just take a break (yeah, one time it was, like, two years), then come back and find comfort in sharing what Railwire is all about: modeling. Please reconsider bailing out on us in favor of Facecrook--jeez, I could start a flame war over that alone...

[Dave V]

I'm calling a (friendly!) bullsh!t on that, buddy. Just look at the respect each of your posts earn, then try to tell me it's "lost in the noise"...

Well, I appreciate that.  I'm not after the respect posts so much as I'm trying my best to keep the Railwire a Forum for Modelers.  I know we've lost some greats along the way and I'm hardly the man to fill those shoes, but the reasons I come back are:

1)  Amazing modeling...especially yours, @DKS , but plenty of others.
2)  A concentration of corporate knowledge from DCC to manufacturing to prototype I've found nowhere else in such concentration.
3)  Old friends--some real-life, some virtual--with whom I've been on this modeling journey these many years.
4)  The challenge to do better and to be better.
5)  And...some lighthearted screwing around in the Crew Lounge every now and again.

So maybe I'm in haste in considering closing this thread.  I dunno.  I've been depressed lately at the casual cruelty I see all around me.  To see it spill into the Railwire--a place I once considered a refuge--has been heartbreaking.  I think I've grown entirely too sensitive.

I mentioned elsewhere that brain chemistry is stupid...whereas as a younger man I could keep my sh!t together downrange in hairy situations, these days it only takes a model railroad forum post to disassemble my sh!t.

Maybe the problem is me.