Weekend Update 1/12/25

[up1950s]

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ive-been-working-on-the-railroad-lorraine-baum.html

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/my-fantasy-railroad-paint-schemes-please-share-yours-12614827?trail=50

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2397572437251773&set=gm.1563194817666972&idorvanity=1034277623892030

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/269090146460479075/

https://www.lsrha.org/?page_id=1104

[bbussey]

A few projects in progress, including L&NE and NYO&W cabooses to pair with recently completed Maybrook interchange motive power. The NYO&W cabooses will have full illumination, including the marker lanterns and stove flicker.

[garethashenden]

What is involved in making the marker lights work?

[Jesse6669]

Brian, that isn't just NE caboose.  Oh wait..

[bbussey]

What is involved in making the marker lights work?

0201 SMLEDs inside the lanterns connected to a function-only decoder or directly to track power with resistors, and a keep-alive circuit.  Krystal Kleer tinted with transparent paint for the lenses.  I'm using the ESU decoder because there will be interior lights in the main cabin and the cupola as well as orange flicker from the stove.

Brian, that isn't just NE caboose.  Oh wait..

New 3d-printed floor/underframe to accept FVM leafspring trucks and MTL couplers, 3d-printed window awnings, MTL smokestack.  Ladder modifications and ladder kick plates after assembly.

[BCR 570]

Bryan:  Nice work on the cabooses!  I am hoping to have working electric marker lights, track inspection lights and interior lights in the two cabooses I completed last week.

2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the Provincial Museum Train here in British Columbia, so I wanted to return to my project of building the train in hopes of being able to display it at a few shows this year.  I had previously completed the service boxcars, display flatcars and exhibit coaches.  Next on the list were the two tank cars, so I started on them this week.

The auxiliary water tender was a former BCR fire protection tank car of 8,000 gals capacity, so I selected the Intermountain 8,000 gal tank car as the most suitable model to start from.  I mounted it on Micro-Trains Bettendorf trucks with Intermountain steel wheels and installed MT 905 couplers.

The auxiliary fuel tender was a former CGTX insulated tank car of 10,000 gals capacity, so I went with the Atlas 11,000 gal tank car as it is close to the correct size and has the correct ends.  I mounted it on Atlas/BLMA trucks and fitted MT 905 couplers.

Here are the two cars after this initial work:




Both cars will require replacement domes.  These are likely best achieved with 3DP replacements, so if anyone out there could possibly help with drawing and printing them I would love to hear from you!


I also wanted to go back to the three display coaches and solve their tendency to derail on curves.  I dont have a lot of experience with passenger equipment, but I surmised that this likely had something to do with the coupler location and/or the diaphragms.  I move the couplers outboard on the first and third coaches and it made all the difference - they now negotiate the upper deck on my layout fairly well. 

Here is the train on its test run passing through Tremblay, led by RS-18 No. 613 (which incidentally was the helper engine during the train's visit to Fort St. John in 1975):




And here are the three coaches rounding the 18" radius curve through Progress:




The coaches are former CP Rail 2200 series day coaches and the models are resin castings by fellow RW member Geoff Gooderham.  They run on Panamint Models trucks with BLMA 36" wheels.

My next efforts for this project will be to continue work on the tank cars and get the flatcar loads secured in place, and it will then be on to the official car for the end of the train, and the steam locomotive.


Tim

[davefoxx]

Does anyone have any advice on this YouTube woe?  I’ve noticed that the videos are choppy, so that trains in my recordings look like they’re suffering from the same slinky movement you folks in N scale suffer from.  However, this is only on the YouTube video.  The live train actually runs smooth, and the video recording on my iPhone doesn’t do this.  Suggestions?

I wanted to just leave this video here to show off the Gyra Light, but that slinky (or pogo for you rocket scientists) is troubling.

Thanks,
DFF

[Dave V]

@davefoxx ,

One option you have is to make it look like an old film; then it fits!

[atsf_arizona]

Does anyone have any advice on this YouTube woe?  I’ve noticed that the videos are choppy, so that trains in my recordings look like they’re suffering from the same slinky movement you folks in N scale suffer from.  However, this is only on the YouTube video.  The live train actually runs smooth, and the video recording on my iPhone doesn’t do this.  Suggestions?

I wanted to just leave this video here to show off the Gyra Light, but that slinky (or pogo for you rocket scientists) is troubling.

Thanks,
DFF

@davefoxx, I noticed the same "jerking" issue with my video upload in last week's Weekend Update (1/5/25) of the Baldwin Passenger Sharks, which also run smoothly in real life.   

 
I also noticed the same issue (to a smaller degree), on my YouTube below of the Con-Cor SP Bloody Nose PA's.

 It would be good if we figured out what's causing it, and what options are available to smooth out the YouTube.

Anyone have any ideas how to resolve this on our YouTube videos?   I tried High-Def, that didn't help.  Maybe I need to increase the frame rate on the video I upload?  Maybe the default YouTube processing ends up reducing the frame rate of their "processed" video?

[atsf_arizona]

Dating myself.  I was on a recent "kick" to work on old classic Con-Cor PA mechanisms... this was brought on by last week's Baldwin Passenger Sharks, which used the Con-Cor DL-109 mechanisms (which were based on the Con-Cor PA mechanism).

Thus this week, I'm sharing:   

These Southern Pacific N scale Con-Cor PA1s in Bloody Nose, which were built, detailed and painted by Mike Komosinski, excellent N scale modeler who at the time I purchased these several years ago, was in Southern California. His excellent blog about his layout here: https://needlesdivisionsantaferrnscale.blogspot.com/

I purchased the original SP Bloody Nose A-B-A PA set from Mike Komosinski via eBay in August 2021; I tuned up the mechanisms; I painted and added an additional PB-1. These are the Con-Cor 2nd generation PA's - one of the classic N scale locomotive mechanisms!  Considering these N scale locomotives have a heritage going back 50 years in N scale ( http://www.spookshow.net/loco/ccpa.html ), even the old school truck-mounted pilot/coupler isn't really noticeable, when you see that they still look good and run excellent, even today.











See a YouTube of them running, here:

 (this YouTube also may seem to display the jerkiness that @davefoxx and I experience, even though in real life the models run smooth).

Everyone have a good week!

[wcfn100]

  The live train actually runs smooth, and the video recording on my iPhone doesn’t do this.  Suggestions?

What recording settings are you using?

Is Auto FPS on? I've seen some issues with that in the past.

Jason

[atsf_arizona]

What recording settings are you using?

Is Auto FPS on? I've seen some issues with that in the past.

Jason

I am using whatever is the default on my iPhone Pro 14, to make my videos.    Is there a way to increase the frame rate?   Got a link to iPhone movie settings tutorial? 

I will go and check out "Auto FPS"....

[wcfn100]

I am using whatever is the default on my iPhone Pro 14, to make my videos.    Is there a way to increase the frame rate?   Got a link to iPhone movie settings tutorial? 

I will go and check out "Auto FPS"....

In settings under camera you can change the recording settings.

With my son's YT channel he settled on 1080p 60. Part of that is not being able to shoot 4k 60 on a lot of devices but even then I wouldn't want to try and store 5000+ 4k 60 videos.

Jason

[NtheBasement]

Does anyone have any advice on this YouTube woe?  I’ve noticed that the videos are choppy, so that trains in my recordings look like they’re suffering from the same slinky movement you folks in N scale suffer from.  However, this is only on the YouTube video.  The live train actually runs smooth, and the video recording on my iPhone doesn’t do this.  Suggestions?

I wanted to just leave this video here to show off the Gyra Light, but that slinky (or pogo for you rocket scientists) is troubling.

Thanks,
DFF

I see the engine surging.  Bypass Youtube to prove that they are the problem if you haven't done so already - upload the video from your camera device directly to to a laptop and view it there.  If the surging only shows up on Youtube then a possible source of the problem is Youtube's compression algorithm that saves on storage and streaming bandwith.   But from the periodicity of the surging my best wag would be that you have a slightly higher framerate than what they store videos at.

[mkearns]

It's been pretty snowy here in WV, good weather to hunker down inside. I've packed away the Christmas micro layout but got the urge to JFRTM.

I set up a tabletop Inglenook switching puzzle using Kato Unitrack. About 6" x 48" is all you need using two #6 switches. I'm normally a staunch C&O and Chessie fan, but Trainz was blowing out some MicroTrains boxcars recently and it was hard to resist creating a fun Conrail fallen flag theme for this puzzle. I'll also practice weathering the crap out of these before moving on to my "primary" stuff.



I'm thinking of mounting it permanently on a piece of wood, like Steve's Trains did:
https://www.steves-trains.com/post/the-executive-switching-layout

I don't know how well Inglenooks or other switching puzzles are received around here. I know they aren't super prototypical. But it gets me moving a locomotive around and using the old noggin. Each puzzle takes about 10-15 minutes to complete at a slow speed. I use the caboose for a shoving platform and it helps with the coupling on the #6 curves, especially with the transition from the body mount coupler on the loco to the truck mounted couplers on the MT boxcars.

More info on Inglenook puzzles is available here for anyone that wants to take a look:
http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/sw-inglenook.html