N scale vintage box cars are a blast from the past

[wm3798]

This is probably the oldest member of my fleet.  A Rapido FA? by Arnold. 


Point of clarification.  If your early set was made by Arnold, it was probably imported by Revell.  Aurora/Postage Stamp trains were mostly built by Minitrix in Germany... or rather "Western Germany" as it was then known!
For more fun, and mostly accurate facts, I invite you sacrifice a few precious minutes of your life with my N Scale Hi Rail series on the YouTubes.

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And this one in particular.

Lee

[nickelplate759]

This is probably the oldest member of my fleet.  A Rapido FA? by Arnold. 
...

Mine too!

Thread here:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=45378.60#:~:text=Respect%3A%20%2B468-,Re%3A%20Arnold%2DRapido%20FA2%20Resurrection,-%C2%AB%20Reply%20%2372%20on

[peteski]

Sorry about the above photo - I clearly don’t know how to post/manipulate images.  Apologies.

Likely you're not at fault.

Probably taken with a smart phone, and the forum software (and Microsoft PC world in general), do not play well with those photos.

This problem has existed (for several years) since Apple (and later other smart phone brands) OS started using the orientation tag in the JPG EXIF metadate to properly orient displayed photos.

Here is an older explanation (it still applies).
https://www.howtogeek.com/254830/why-your-photos-dont-always-appear-correctly-rotated/

[Dwight in Toronto]

Thanks Peteski. Yes, it was a pic taken with my iPhone. Thanks for the explanatory link. Sheesh, you know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff!

[peteski]

Thanks Peteski. Yes, it was a pic taken with my iPhone. Thanks for the explanatory link. Sheesh, you know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff!

Thanks!  I've been around . . .
Also, being a very curious person I pick up info here and there.  I'm the guy who gets a brand new $400 N scale loco and the first thing I do is to take it apart.    Sometimes I'm so eager to look inside that I don't even test run it first! 

[wm3798]

It would be nice if there was a more intuitive way to correct it in the forum.  I've tried editing after the fact and either I'm stupid, or there just isn't a clear path to fixing it.  (Probably a little of both).  As it is, I no longer bother.  If the picture is upside down, it's a reminder to the admins that their technology could use some fixing.  This is the only site where I have the problem.

It would be less of an issue if Samsung left the damn camera lens in the center of the body.  When they moved it to the top, it screwed up the angles I can shoot without a problem compared to my older phone (which sadly has gone teets up)  That means that what used to be this shot...



Has turned into this:


Unless I flip the phone over which ends up like this



(Notice the vintage rolling stock in the pictures.... wanted to stay on topic!)
Lee

[peteski]

It would be nice if there was a more intuitive way to correct it in the forum.  I've tried editing after the fact and either I'm stupid, or there just isn't a clear path to fixing it.  (Probably a little of both).  As it is, I no longer bother.  If the picture is upside down, it's a reminder to the admins that their technology could use some fixing.  This is the only site where I have the problem.

Your last photo does not show up.  This problem with wrong photo orientation (as explained in the link I  posted earlier) is not as much with the way you hold the phone, but it is in the way the phone saves the pixels in the JPG file.  Instead of storing the pixels in the same orientation as they were captured by the image sensor, they store all the pixels in a fixed orientation (whatever it is) regardless of what the image sensor captured, then they add a tag in the EXIF part of the JPG file, instructing whatever rendering program is being used to view them, to rotate the stored pixels if needed. 

The old way (which worked for many years) was to have the pixel data stored in the same orientation as they were captured by the image sensor, and not use any EXIF tags.  Another example of making things more complicated than they should be.  Just use the KISS principle dammit!  Yes I'm yelling at the clouds.

This problem is not just on this forum -- I have seen it elsewhere too.  And as far as editing (rotating) the photos goes, if you attached them to your post, nothing can be done. If you stored them in your TRW photo album, then can be edited and rotated, but IIRC, that doesn't seem to always work.

[wm3798]

As an experiment, I have rotated the last image in the phone's editor and saved it.  It now appears upside down in the gallery app.  Let's see what it looks like here...


So the problem is not between the chair and the keyboard.
That is all.

[Doc Frankenfield]

any chance the A&P might be available for trade?  I have a lot of the old Kadee MTL boxcars in plastic from my early days!
A&P was a big customer at NYSW's north Hawthorne yard / Station, which I am modeling as a historic park.

[peteski]

As an experiment, I have rotated the last image in the phone's editor and saved it.  It now appears upside down in the gallery app.  Let's see what it looks like here...


So the problem is not between the chair and the keyboard.
That is all.

Again, rotating the image on your phone probably just edits the EXIF tag (does not actually rotate or rearrange the way the image pixels are strored in the JPG file).  You would have to rotate the photo in some "real" photo editing program which rearranges the pixels inside the file. 

[wm3798]

Okay, another experiment.
Loaded into the desk top, opened and rotated in a "real" photo editing program, and uploaded here...



Looks like those few shots where I have to make a correction will have to go through a multi step process.
I suppose it will be worth the effort in order meet the insatiable needs of my adoring public.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled topic.
Lee

[Albert in N]

PM sent to Doc Frankenfield.

[peteski]

Using a PC with a "real" image editing program?  Good job Lee!   We do adore you, and can't get enough of your retro N modeling!  Keep 'em coming! 

[randgust]

Started N in '72 after a basement full of Tyco HO, and if it weren't for the Minitrix F, would have concluded the entire scale was garbage.  I bought a Yugo GP40, got hold of a used Atlas FM, and an Atlas RSC2 or whatever that was, and only the Trix stuff was reliable.

So for years it was all Rapido and Trix.   

I always liked the Trix cars, and Atlas.  Heck, I've still got a few of those carbodies in service.   I just took one of those Atlas 40' boxcars and took the roofwalk off of it and replaced it with etched brass.   Like two weeks ago.   And if you're a Santa Fe guy, their version of the ATSF Ce-1 caboose was the best until Centralia came out with theirs.    You just have to honestly look at each car and the paint, hold your nose sometimes, but open your eyes.

I've modified and weathered so many of my old cars most are unrecognizable.  But the basic body castings - minus roofwalks, brake wheels, stirrups,  are often not all that bad, and some of the paint schemes are still pretty good.    I still chuckle that the P-S 50' covered hopper (white box Bachmann) has the most accurate ATSF pre-'72 paint scheme on it with the square herald, and if you want a whole lot of covered hoppers for grain service, is darn hard to beat for the price.

There's two schools here, those that take these and try to put lipstick on the pig and consider them raw material at a low price, and those that preserve them as a loving tribute to how far we've come.   I have no quarrel, even if I'm sure some of the stuff I've done will find 'collectors' cringing.   The only time I've ever felt mild remorse was modifying and weathering the very first MT boxcar I got, the SP 40' double door, which was like the second car Kadee ever issued.

My customer that does European N and wanted Rapido couplers put me in an interesting situation to 'load test' his locomotive, I had to rummage around and find every car I still had with Rapido couplers.   I managed to find six operable cars, and a real journey into the past, as one of them was the MT Model Railroader 40th anniversary red boxcar.....

[peteski]

My customer that does European N and wanted Rapido couplers put me in an interesting situation to 'load test' his locomotive, I had to rummage around and find every car I still had with Rapido couplers.   I managed to find six operable cars, and a real journey into the past, as one of them was the MT Model Railroader 40th anniversary red boxcar.....

Randy, all you really needed was a "converter" car with MTL coupler on one end and a Rapido coupler equipped truck on the other end.  Then you could have easily strung bunch of MTL coupled cars to test that European loco.