Weekend Update 6/14/20

[CRL]

Can I ask that we chose a slightly less politically charged, or less time deaf, image?

There are lots of people who think the militarization of the civilian police force is not a great thing, and I have a feeling a nicer of them are on the forum here.

They’re just posing in their party clothes. Trains carry some highly targeted or sensitive cargo and they need to be prepared to repel boarders... so to speak. You can thank the North Hollywood shootout in 1997 for the significant upgrade in police armaments as well as earlier events going back to the University of Texas tower sniper in the 1960’s for the upgrade in police armaments. 9/11 just magnified the trend. When the bad guys are packing heavy, the police need to be able to counter the threat.

[Chris333]

In the old days they kept money in the railcars and payed employees direct from the car.

[Nick Lorusso]

Moved on the the next projects.... BNSF track cleaner and a MTL 3D printed tie crane.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Moved on the the next projects.... BNSF track cleaner and a MTL 3D printed tie crane.

Those tie cranes are fun. You might want to check out my thread on my build. I fixed some of the bugs in it that really helped with it. One of my biggest issues was the arm being somewhat misfigured, but I fixed that with redoing the one hydraulic cylinder, slightly breaking it and CAing it into place. Made a big difference.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=49110.0

[Ed Kapuscinski]

'Rona's gotten me in gear working on more stuff.

I installed a bunch of the Keystone Details parts to an SD40-2. The frame rails make a HUGE difference and the truck swap was so incredibly painless.



Then the week of GP9s continued. I installed the sunshades here. After looking at the photo here I realized it needs some more flat finish applied to get it to look like canvas, but it's coming along.





And lastly, I ran these guys around the layout a bunch to get them broken in. The damn short hood end pilots keep catching on almost ANY high spot though (guard rails, tiny rail head height misalignments). It's driving me nuts. I guess I need to either find some GP30/35 trucks to swap in (which fixes the issue for some unknown reason) or to just sand down the bottom of the pilots some. It never ends... lol.





I've also done two big non modeling things:
1. I've been editing a TON of photos for the upcoming Conrail caboose book. It's going to be awesome: https://store.garbelypublishing.com/conrailcabooses
2. I'm not helping organize the CRHS's online meeting next month. If you know of anyone with an online presence that would be interested in presenting something Conrail related, please let me know!

[jpec]

Sometimes those pilots have a small tab along the bottom edge. They disappear quickly with a pair of nippers...

[SP-Wolf]

Well - I stopped procrastinating and got to work on the end rails

Step one is done they are soldered on. Next is to clean up the solder joints.




Thanks,
Wolf

[dougnelson]

Improvements to the set of BLI P70s:  started installing the Keystone Details steps and coupler pocket to reduce car spacing.  These Shapeways parts work very well and you can actually space the cars to any distance, but this is a big improvement.  I may also install American Limited diaphragms.  Not sure what BLI was thinking on this coupler length on these otherwise excellent cars.

Now what to do about the super-nova lighting??



 

[davefoxx]

A little decaling and a lot of heavy tweaking to the couplers on my passenger car fleet, and my period correct Amtrak Silver Star (New York to Florida and return) is in service:



DFF

[peteski]

Improvements to the set of BLI P70s:  started installing the Keystone Details steps and coupler pocket to reduce car spacing.  These Shapeways parts work very well and you can actually space the cars to any distance, but this is a big improvement.  I may also install American Limited diaphragms.  Not sure what BLI was thinking on this coupler length on these otherwise excellent cars.

Now what to do about the super-nova lighting??

I have one of those cars on my workbench, and a solution ready, but it has been on a back burner (the writeup which will offer either fixed-lowered or adjustable brightness with better deflicker circuit).  In the meantime, Lemosteam came up with another solution (it is documented on TRW).

[dougnelson]

Before I get my ee degree and attempt to change out the resistors, I decided to try a low tech approach. I covered the LEDs with a heavy paper to diffuse the light. It seems to work pretty well. There are still hotspots at the four LED locations. I might try some other ways to disperse the light.

[dnhouston]

Working on a deck truss bridge.  Got the first side panel finished and almost done with the other.

[SkipGear]

Just a fun little project to get my son working on 3d drawing and to make something actually useful for the train with the 3d printer.

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[peteski]

Just a fun little project to get my son working on 3d drawing and to make something actually useful for the train with the 3d printer.

Nice! Are those N scale?

[SkipGear]

Yes, N scale and cones to go with them. Don't have them painted yet. These were the test run so I just spray bombed them to see how they would look. I will be modifying the barrel handles to be slightly taller so they are just a bit more visible and softening the tops of the cones, the first batch came out like a bed of nails. I had to sand the tops of them down a bit and now they are too short.

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