Weekend Update 5/20/18

[btrain]

Had a good ol' time at the Ohio N Scale weekend in Columbus today. It's a great show without the mountains of TYCO and 1970s Lionel that seem to clog tables at other buckeye train shows.

After emptying my wallet at all the vendor tables I took time to study some of the layouts on exhibit. For all you Chessie fans the Canington N-trak offered up the New River Gorge with popular spots like Thurmond well represented.





Of course one of the highlights is seeing the progress on the Galesburg City Job. This is the third year I've seen it at the show, and the detail and buildings are coming up nicely among the tracks. I had a good talk with @w_neal about trouble shooting some problems I've had with building my modular layout, and told me to bring it down next year.





I'm really digging the details on this GP30.


Meanwhile back at home this week, I screwed around a little bit with the layout by talking a few photos. I'll have to drag this module outside and get better photos.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ed, you're leaving that on the streets???!!!     I would not be able to sleep if I did that! 

Haha, sadly, it's all I can do at the moment.

But that's the reason for this: http://conrail1285.com/june-2018-open-house/

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Meanwhile back at home this week, I screwed around a little bit with the layout by talking a few photos. I'll have to drag this module outside and get better photos.

Let me make a quick suggestion WRT backdrops. Go to your local discount store of choice (Target, Walmart, whatever that local one you have out in Ohio is...) and grab yourself some sheets of foamcore, some wide masking tape and maybe some spring clamps.

You NOW have a portable backdrop that you can clamp on anywhere in any field of vision. Yes, it's white. Yes, that works for ME because I'm modeling crappy weather, but it ALSO makes it very easy to photoshop whatever sky you want into it.

If you want to get really fancy, you can get one of those sky prints and glue or tape it on. Or you could spray it with some blue paint.

But either way, it's a quick cheap way to get less cluttered photographs of a work-in-progress.

And now that I've said that, off to Amazon to restock my own foam stash.

[btrain]

Let me make a quick suggestion WRT backdrops. Go to your local discount store of choice (Target, Walmart, whatever that local one you have out in Ohio is...) and grab yourself some sheets of foamcore, some wide masking tape and maybe some spring clamps.

You NOW have a portable backdrop that you can clamp on anywhere in any field of vision. Yes, it's white. Yes, that works for ME because I'm modeling crappy weather, but it ALSO makes it very easy to photoshop whatever sky you want into it.

If you want to get really fancy, you can get one of those sky prints and glue or tape it on. Or you could spray it with some blue paint.

But either way, it's a quick cheap way to get less cluttered photographs of a work-in-progress.

And now that I've said that, off to Amazon to restock my own foam stash.

Excellent point, Ed! Haha, I'm pretty sure my progress photos must look they've been taken inside a storage container. 

[Dave V]

@Ed Kapuscinski ,

Not sure what else to say except that that looks exactly like the York Live sang about:

You nailed it 100%.  That's York in all its shitty glory.

[Iain]

I am working on the Norfolk Southern owned steamship Neuse in N scale:



I've also picked up a third era, Norfolk Southern in 1905.   

The paperweight in the top left corner is a used sight glass from the steamship Virginia V.

[Spades]

It has good drainage.  Don't worry about that.

If there were leaks, it would be easy to work them in as a water feature on the layout.  I will my take ban now.

[Joetrain59]

Philip, see BLW site, for latest Cap't Blaster sale for O&W hoppers. I painted/decaled the LNE LL NE caboose. Wow, look how high it rides. Have to go back to that and lower it, or re-do it with Bman model. O&W had NW2's also. Alan Seebach, owner of the Old & Weary Car Shop in Tappan,NY, was going to do decals for the NW2, with the orange "bib" at bottom of radiator. He was to have them for the Springfield show, but not enough interest?  I bought a set of the FT A/B units from BLW as soon as I saw them.
 O&W, home of the flying F units! LOL.
 Joe D

[johnb]

[central.vermont]

Ed, your not old enough to drive one of these yet. 
You need to have one of  these first to drive it legally.   

Jon

[Spades]

Probably drone.  The womp womp was percussion reverb on the music.  Took off way to close to the overhead wires for an actual helicopter, although, the camera is fairly high off the ground.

It's been years but if that's near the depot it is inside the class D airspace and less than 5 miles from the airport. Helicopter would be okay as long as in touch with the tower hopefully, the drone needs prior permission.

[brokemoto]

Philip, see BLW site, for latest Cap't Blaster sale for O&W hoppers.

I painted/decaled the LNE LL NE caboose. Wow, look how high it rides. Have to go back to that and lower it, or re-do it with Bman model.

O&W had NW2's also. Alan Seebach, owner of the Old & Weary Car Shop in Tappan,NY, was going to do decals for the NW2, with the orange "bib" at bottom of radiator.

I went to the site and did not see Captain Blaster any more.   As Pete has retired and his brother is simply liquidating everything (at least that is what I understand), I was guessing that Captain Blaster has disappeared.  I did Google it just to see what would happen and did get something, but there were no Old and Weary items there.  I did see the blue hopper three pack on the "Special Run" page, but it showed "Sold Out".

The LLs always did ride high.  The Bachpersonn is quite the improvement.  It just looks better all over.  When LL upgraded its power, it did not do the same for its rolling stock.  In fact, either WKW or LL (before the sale to WKW) sold off the rolling stock line to  someone else, who now sells at shows (and I would guess on-line, but I do not know).  It is called "Industrial" or something such as that.

The Kato NW-2 is far better than the LL SWs.  Every LL SW that I have likes to pick B-mann, Atlas and Kato turnouts, unless you run them in pairs.  If someone did the decals, I might buy a pair of Kato NW-2s and paint them.  Of course, at that point, Kato would issue them in Old and Weary with a nose thumbing comment to those who accuse it of only doing Western roads.

The Old and Weary car shop guy used to come to the Timonium, Maryland shows, but I have not seen him lately.  I am guessing that he was one of the vendors who became angry after the Snowmageddon debacle and swore that he never would return.  More than one vendor has not shown up at that show since that happened.  The show has suffered because of that.  It is under new ownership and management, but the many of the vendors who left still have not returned.

In fact, I bought those FTs from that guy at a Timonium show.  I saw them out of the corner of my eye and grabbed them.  It was his last pair.  That was why I lettered the Kato caboose.   It was that pair that caused me to discover a problem with the first two or three runs of IM FTs:  overgreasing at the factory in China.  I had bought a B&O pair from the second run.  The B-unit kept stalling, and, the only way to address it was to pop off the shell and hardwire it to the A.  I posted the problem on the Atlas forum and a guy from IM told me to send it back and that they would address the problem.  They did, and promptly, mind you, and did a little extra for me for my trouble.  IM's customer service is top-drawer.  When these showed the same problem, this time in both units, I opened them up and saw grease oozing from the chassis.  I took apart the whole thing and there was grease EVERYWHERE.  I gave an alcohol bath to some parts, others I simply wiped with an alcohol soaked rag.  I did use a dry rag on the shells, though.  I put them back together, gave both the tiniest  bit of Labelle 106 and everything was fine.  I posted my results.  An IM official commented to it that IM had just become aware of the problem and that he was going to China in a few days.  He assured all of us that he would give those people in charge of the factory a good and proper blessing out over the overgreasing.

To this day, I still prefer the MT FTs over the IMs.  IM does offer more varieties of F-units, though, and will adjust the details for the prototypes.  As far as I know, IM is the only manufacturer in N scale that sells late phase F-3s (chicken wire but low fans).  That must please the SPFs, especially.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ed, your not old enough to drive one of these yet. 
You need to have one of  these first to drive it legally.   

Jon

Haha. Like I've said elsewhere, the morning after I bought it I saw the first VERY gray hair in my beard. It was like it was calling out to me.

[SecretWeapon]

Good luck with the car Ed.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Good luck with the car Ed.

Thanks!
So far my only complaint has been with Android Auto. C'mon Google. I expect better.