Weekend Update 1/5/25

[eja]

Not as rare as my D clarinet, or the basset horn next to the bass clarinet . . . 


Tim

Does your basset have long floppy ears?  I'll bet it's happy when someone wants to play the Mozart Requiem.

[jpwisc]

Finally got the roof painted on my first snow dozer
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[C855B]

Not as rare as my D clarinet, or the basset horn next to the bass clarinet . . . 

No kidding. I'm trying to recall which scores call for basset horn in a modern orchestra. R. Strauss is one I can recall who wrote for it. From the photo angle it looked like an alto clarinet, so please pass my apologies to it.

10 years ago I was seriously considering adding a contrabassoon to my arsenal, and had the funds set aside. We bought the layout building instead. 

[altohorn25]

Today's project:  Milwaukee Road storage mail car #1921.

I started with a Micro Trains baggage car.  Cut out the factory doors and built new ones from sheet styrene.  Swapped the roof with a heavyweight sleeper roof that I cut down to match the length of the car.  Added grab irons and drip rails over the doors.  Modelflex paint and Circus City decals.  Micro Trains Z scale 905 body mounted couplers.  Fox Valley (Scale Trains) 36" metal wheels.
I'm quite happy with the result.  Not an exact match to the prototype (the prototype was rebuilt from an 80' sleeper; I built this from a 70' baggage car), but it represents the car well.

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[mu26aeh]

Trains can now make it all the way to Center St yard on the CSX Hanover Subdivision.  More photos in the Layout engineering thread.



Some rehomed TRW equipment in the photo......

[robert3985]

Excellent work from all of the above as usual.

I did a little more work on the micro layout freight car fleet. It’ll probably just have these couple of boxcars, a 50 ton coal hopper, the required beer can tank car, a 40’ gon, one or two 40’ flat cars, and a caboose.

Some weathering on these, washes and weathering powders. Yes those are Z scale couplers and yes they work on 7” radius curves. You guys are killing me but thanks for the constructive criticism last week.  Waiting on parts for the caboose coupler conversion, I may try a Z scale coupler on that too.

@Kentuckian - If you're not using the Kadee Magne-Matic uncoupling, pushing the magnetic dongle down so the top of it is flush with the mounting hole, then snipping it off flush with the bottom of the coupler will give it more prototype look, although some like the dongles thinking they kinda look like brake hoses...kinda.

Personally, I cut 'em off, and when I have plastic or brass brake hoses, I apply them.

However, on micro-radii, separate body mounted brake hoses might interfere, unless they're flexible rubber or equivalent.

Photo (1) - Here's one of my cabooses with a Z-scale 903 coupler and a BLMA brake hose:


Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[brokemoto]

Brokemoto,

I believe my foobie Baldwin Passenger Sharks were built from resin shells by Father Nature.

Those are the only ones in N scale of which I am aware.  He died a several years past.  His wife tried to keep it going but she was old and her health was not the best, either.  This other guy in Pennsylvania bought out what was left for what I am guessing was a good price as he sold the stuff for good prices.  Hi prices on all of his wares always were pretty good.  Sadly, his health failed him, as well, so as far as I know, he is out of the business.

It was from him that I bought the four A units and two Bs.  I paid something like one-dollar-fifty for all of them.

Here's photos from that thread, showing the unpainted Father Nature shell, clearly sitting on a Con-Cor N scale DL-109 mechanism:

I had heard that Father Nature intended that most of his large diesel shells would fit on the C-C PA chassis.  Still, even an eyeball suggested that the PA's wheelbase was not the proper fit.  The DL-109 seemed a better fit.  I actually di what passed for a "test fit" on both chassis.  As the shell would not actually go on either chassis, it was a matter of holding the shell next to the chassis.  Yup, yip, yup, the DL-109 is better.

For wheelbase comparison for purposes of 'how much shorter is the Alco DL-109 vs. the Passenger Shark' for purposes of 'how close is the shorter N scale Con-Cor DL109 chassis vs. proper length'. 

The difference appears tolerable.  Funny, given BLI's penchant for road specific power, I am surprised that it has not issued one of these.  One or two of these would suit my purposes.  The nature of my pike is one where if the lines existed, the prototypes that run on it would assign off-brand power to it, such as something like this.  Penn converted some of these to freight and others worked New York and Long Branch commuter trains.  The Penn had to run them in pairs as they were reportedly the absolute worst of the Baldwin cab units.  I have seen some comical photographs of two of these beasts' pulling  four car commutes.  The New York and Long Branch is actually a modeller's dream road as is PRSL due to some of the equipment and combinations thereof that ran on them.


 

Father Nature shell.  Reasonably close, especially given the other approximations the shell has, to prototype fidelity:

Father Nature's shells always were crude.  They needed more than a little work to clean up everything.  Still, you could not get everything quite the way that you would prefer.  He did offer items available nowhere else.  These are two of his drover's cabooses.  The smaller appears to be a cross between an MDC nineteenth century combine and an MT caboose roof and cupola. It even has the slots to accommodate the MT roof ladder handrailings (which I added, especially considering that the poriginal end railings were broken).   It fit right on to an MDC chassis.  Some of the decals are chipped but once i actually "dirty up" the thing, chipped and peeling paint and lettering will be right in place.  The larger appears to be a cross between and Arnold wood combine and a B-mann ATSF steel caboose and cupola.  The roofwalk already was on it  when I acquired it.  It fit right onto the Arnold wood passenger car chassis.  One end railing was broken (what do you want for five dollars?) so I replaced it with one like on the B-mann WDTs.  The original was alright but I did add a ladder.  I just noticed that I did forget to pain the side grab irons yellow.

I never could get them cleaned up to what I would prefer but they are passable.  I do not run livestock trains.  I use them to provide passenger service where there would be a small demand but not enough even to add a coach or combine to a mixed train.  There would be more demand than the space in a usual caboose coud provide.  The baggage section accommodates both mail and the express shipments of parts from the small engine plant.

Brokemoto, if you would like me to post some close-up photos showing the mechanism or inside of the shells of my models, so that you/we can determine how much modification was necessary, I am happy to do that.  Let me know if interested.

Thank you.  Yes, please, I would be interested.

[altohorn25]

Today's project:  Milwaukee Road 60' Railway Post Office car #2124.

Micro Trains car stripped and repainted with Modelflex paint.  Circus City Decals.  Fox Valley (Scale Trains) 36" metal wheels.  Micro Trains body mounted Z scale 905 couplers.
I gave it a different road number than the prototype photo since the window patterns are different.

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

Just a few railfanning shots from this weekend.

Caught a V&O unit over in Emory Grove.

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Then a beat a$$ NW2 up near York.

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[davefoxx]

JFRTM.  An ACWR turn has made up its train after interchanging in Aberdeen, North Carolina, and is ready to return to Star.



I worked on weathering the ex-C&O GP9 yesterday but was dissatisfied with my efforts.  I washed the majority off.  I think I’ll only get the results I desire by finally breaking down and purchasing an airbrush and all the equipment that goes with that.  Oh, boy.

DFF

[Scottl]

This week I went further down the 3D printing rabbit hole.  I designed a 100T roller bearing truck and the first prints look good but black resin and some tweaks to the axle spacing are needed.  I have various bolster heights to adjust for ride height of the final install.

[Jesse6669]

Some really great stuff this week! 

I'm about ready to say "done" with the design and testing phase of my Z scale 52' mill gondola.  I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.  I drew up some decals and they are off at the printer, due back in a week or so, so phase 2 (in which gons get decorated) is nearly at hand.   I also got the urge to update my T-scale roller bearing trucks to Z, adding some detail because trucks seem to be rather hard to find in the usual Z scale outlets, and I'll need some with long draft gear anyway--for the 89' X67 boxcar, possibly an open-air autorack and TOFC flat. 
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I also got some painting and lighting done on the East Norwood layout.  It's nearly ready for track but I want to make sure the backdrop and lighting is good before I start down that road.  I played around with background images in Photoscape a little.. 
 

[davefoxx]

UPDATE: I made a thing!  I was switching out some cars in the Aberdeen yard when I noticed that the sofa that I cobbled together from scrap styrene was lonely.  So, I whittled up a derelict washing machine from some styrene parts and a piece of wire.  The sub-parts include the cabinet, the drum with agitator, and the lid.  The drum was hacked out from a scrap of a RIX highway bridge pier that I squared up to fit within the washer cabinet. 🤣



The parts roughly assembled:



And the washing machine chucked to the side of the road.  Just needs paint and weathering:



DFF

[Slim Rail Mike]

A loco purchased off ebay needing repair arrived this weekend. It’s a newer release of B’mans 0-6-0. The issue is a broken eccentric on the engineers side. I lucked out, with just a tiny bit of butchery, an eccentric from an old B’mann with split gears, was made to fit. The replacement pin wasn't shouldered like the original, the hole in the driver needed to be slightly enlarged. If/when it comes loose I'll glue it in.  On the test track with a 9V battery as power supply the engine runs pretty smooth.   After a repaint and a decoder install it well be put to work on the waterfront.

The replacement crank pin and eccentric.


Tape holds a pin in place, and the paper insures the joint won't be pressed to tight.


On the test track, some paper still needs to be worked out of the eccentric.

[C855B]

UPDATE: I made a thing!  I was switching out some cars in the Aberdeen yard when I noticed that the sofa that I cobbled together from scrap styrene was lonely.  So, I whittled up a derelict washing machine from some styrene parts and a piece of wire.  The sub-parts include the cabinet, the drum with agitator, and the lid.  The drum was hacked out from a scrap of a RIX highway bridge pier that I squared up to fit within the washer cabinet. 🤣
...
And the washing machine chucked to the side of the road.  Just needs paint and weathering:

Oh! The wanton liability! For shame!

 .