Weekend Update 2/18/18

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Have never seen a shot of the Red River so this shot is a bit of a treat.  Being a "one-off" car (a lot like SP&S' two sleeper - buffet lounge cars) finding anything on such is quite rare in the real world.  Definitely a beautiful car!!!  I'd of loved riding this one!!!  Behind the windowless wall adjacent to the door was a lunch counter that sat 9 and their was table seating for 12 at the front of the car.  It was rebuilt to a 68-seat coach not long before Amtrak took over the nation's trains.

Looking forward to seeing it finished... I know Puddy would be proud!!!

[BCRail_FSJ]

Fabricated a hinged LED lighting canopy out of some cheap artists canvasses and 2 rolls of LED strip lights, all from the local Bunnings Warehouse (our version of Home Depot).   I wish these LED lights had been available for some of my previous layouts.  They are cheap ($50 for a 15ft roll), easy to install (self-adhesive backing), bright and they do not generate any heat.

[nickelplate759]

A little sneak peak at the next project.

I'd like to know more about how you built this. I recognize a Con-Cor observation roof and what I suspect are some Kato details.  Did you use an entire Con-Cor observation body as well? If so, you made a bunch of enhancements - skirts at the vestibule, changes to windows, etc.

It's beautiful.

[hegstad1]

I'd like to know more about how you built this. I recognize a Con-Cor observation roof and what I suspect are some Kato details.  Did you use an entire Con-Cor observation body as well? If so, you made a bunch of enhancements - skirts at the vestibule, changes to windows, etc.

It's beautiful.

I have to admit this is only partly my work.  My friend Joe Valerio started this "Red River" project years ago.  He had detailed and applied paint to the five car consist but no decals and no locomotive.  To do this car, he indeed started with the Concor car, shorted the tall windows on the obs end and filled in others as needed.  He added Kato vents to the roof and fabricated end skirts.  I applied the decals to the car as well as grabs and side door details.  It will ride on Rapido trucks and be pulled by a custom detailed and painted BLI E7 which I am just about done with.  Thanks for the compliments.  I am honored to be able to finish up this great project started by Joe.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

My buddy asked if someone could make a 3D body for his loco if I would put a chassis under it. I ended up doing the whole thing in Sketchup. About a year ago I couldn't do a thing with Sketchup. The real loco was an odd 23" gauge used at a steel mill. He re-gauged it to 24" so he could run it elsewhere if he had the chance.  Here is the 3D model:

And the real thing the day I dropped the model off to him.


He said about a month to get the boiler back, they are putting tubes in it now. The saddle tank is in his garage at home waiting. He said it will be steamed up by June.

Here is the builders photo:

Oh *****. Be careful. If the model is anywhere near as dense as the prototype she's gonna punch right through your layout.

But seriously, that's an awesome model of an equally awesome project.

Please give Rick a high five for me.

[Chris333]

Naa it isn't that heavy. There is a little tungsten in the tender though 

The chassis is a Minitrains (USA) 0-4-0 that was narrowed each side .060".
https://www.walthers.com/h-k-porter-0-4-0t-standard-dc-minitrains-union-railroad-co
Then I replaced the cylinders with 3D. The drivers were swapped out with a Bachmann 0-6-0. And the tender has a Kato Amtrak material handling car truck under it to pick-up power.

[bnsfdash8]

A unique car I've been working on. It started as a kit that I assembled, mixed up a close enough green to match the prototypes, and got the decals from Circus City Decals. It sure will be an attention getter on the future layout.

[Lemosteam]

Dyna-mite! This has been a fun project @draskouasshat !

[peteski]

A unique car I've been working on. It started as a kit that I assembled, mixed up a close enough green to match the prototypes, and got the decals from Circus City Decals. It sure will be an attention getter on the future layout.

LOL!  Another of my future decal projects was done by someone else.  I even have the car already (but was not able to find the one with the exclamation point).   Looks good!

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes, that does look very good. Car's nice too.
But it gives a whole new meaning to "freezing one's *ss off"
Otto K.

[brokemoto]

Brokemoto... will be interesting to see how you approach the handrailing, what with it being so much different than the stock model...

It appears that the long hood is where the changes are necessary.  The handrailings on the short hood appear to be the same as the stock. 

While building up the short hood on the Atlas shell was not beyond my capability, removing the louvers and cutting holes for the paper filters is.  This is why I am going with the Skytop shell. despite the paper filter arrangement's being somewhat different.

Similar applies to the hand railing.  Fashioning completely new handrailing is beyond my capabilities.

 It appears that the best thing to do is cut it at the second to last post on each side of the long hood..  On the engineer's side, I will need to fashion the steep steps, then fashion handrailing from the cab to the first post that I leave.   The photograph on Elwood's site of #197 suggests that on that one, at least the railing was of a different thickness than on the rest of the long hood.  Thus, I could get away with wire.  I could sand smooth the drop of Loc-Tite that would hold the wire onto the rest of the railing.  The railing on the fireman's side of #197 also appears different from the rest of it on the long hood.  In addition, there are two posts on the elevated walkway.  I could fashion those, add them and the railing.  This would leave one post too many on the fireman's side.  Re-doing the whole railing on that side would be beyond my capabilities.  I will have to settle for a slightly foobalicious WM hammerhead with incorrect paper filter arrangements and one post too many on the fireman's side.

I can not find a good shot of the top of the long hood on this one, but, common sense suggests that I will need to sand smooth the dynamic brake grilles on the long hood of the Skytop shell.  The purpose of the hammerhead, as I understand it, was to allow room for the steam generator and the dynamic brake grilles.  The water tanks were suspended under the long hood on these.  PiperguyUMD's hammerhead piece does have the dynamic brake grilles on it (he also included the high numberboards for the long hood).

I have seen top shots of these only on models.  One model shows dynamic brake grilles on both the hammerhead and the long hood.  Another one shows no dynamic brake grilles on the long hood but does show them on the short hood.  There is even one photograph of a model that shows the exhaust stack turned the other way. 

WM did add spark arrestors after they left Schenectady, but I do not know when this occurred.  My era demands fireball for these.  The only WM diesels that had speed in 1955 were the FAs and the F-3s that came back as F-7s (I have the F-3 shells for those, I just need to find some grilles).


..............now if only someone sold N scale WM passenger decals.  I did use some from the Microscale fireball sheet on a MT baggage and a baggage/mail, but the font on those is not quite correct.  It is the closest that I can get, though.  MT is going to sell a single window coach.  Perhaps it will issue a coach, baggage and baggage/mail in WM at some point.

[draskouasshat]

@Lemosteam , i can't tell you how awesome it will be to finally have my own santa fe dynamometer car. I've tried for YEARS with sub par results. Your work is fantastic!

My minuscule work  by comparison includes a Union Pacific chair car.

Time to travel home and paint it and try out the smoker i just built.

Drasko [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[CBQ Fan]

Dyna-mite! This has been a fun project @draskouasshat !

Is this a shapeways project?

[bbussey]

Been working on proof of concept for the portals of the sublevel walkway between the platforms and the station, both on the structure detail and how to decorate it.  I've settled deco-wise on a variation of the RMC web post this month on decorating/weathering brick structures.  This is the test piece with the finalized method conceptualized for the brickwork, with the upper-right area having the best results.  Even this uneven result looks good to the naked eye.  The eventual concrete areas are unpainted/unsanded and include the lower base, the window sills, the keystones and the cornice trim.  The roof indentation will be painted black and covered with fine black ballast.  I have some other copies with which to fine-tune the process before painting/detailing the four structures that will be installed on the layout.

[nkalanaga]

Andrew:  And here I thought you had done a 3D printed body of the Red River, and was going to ask if you'd do on for the Mountain series, to replace the Con-Cor model!  You and Joe have done a fine job.

Ed:  If that model steamer was the same density as the prototype, it wouldn't damage the layout at all.  Assuming it weighs 20 tons, an HO scale model would weigh one ounce - and probably couldn't pull much of a train.