Weekend Update 3/23/25

[Jesse6669]

You'd never know it if I didn't tell you, and I WILL be telling everyone all the time now, but my photo (and SDs) are in the April MR.

https://conrail1285.com/look-ma-im-in-model-railroader/

Now that you're famous, remember the little people along the way!   

By that I mean you should add some N-scale figures.

[randgust]

McCabe got past one of the things I was really dreading - figuring out and building all the mill runways.   Before forklifts, cart on light rails moved everything from green chain out to air drying - this was standard practice.  Man, that's finished.  It's like it's all downhill from here.  A whole lot of stripwood gave up its life this weekend.

I couldn't figure out how to use all the real estate until I remembered how my fathers mill worked, he had the neatest little transfer table between the green line and the dry kilns, lasted up until the 1960's.  So I built one for the green line to the drying runways.   Lumber will be stacked solid in that area, fresh stuff.

Note the immense size difference between boxcars parked beside the mill on narrow gauge and standard gauge dual-gauge track!



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/McCabe10.jpg



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/McCabe11.jpg

The 'giant hole' tunnel will be hidden behind trees, the entire hillside will be  trees over all that leaf cover.

[jpwisc]

Prepped another batch of mow equipment and got it primed up. Mostly Silver Spike kits from Baldylox with a few randos I grabbed off eBay. The quality of those is lacking compared to the Silver Spike.
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[Ed Kapuscinski]

Nice! Good job Ed! That shot has big Bernard Kempinski vibes too!

Fun fact, Scott's mill actually sprang from Bermies coke plant.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jSwkeopkDhgqTnfF6

[BCR 570]

Just returned from an enjoyable weekend in Squamish where members of our PGE-BCR Modellers Group in N Scale mounted a display with operating Unitrak loop:




I displayed a small wayfreight, several engines, and my Prince George Auxiliary:




This show also saw the debut of my Provincial Museum Train display board and the train as it currently stands:




This is the summer 1975 consist comprising Consolidation 3716 (future project), water car 991936 (in progress), flatcars 4902 and 4901 with Donkey and Climax (nearing completion), power car CHEAKAMUS RIVER (completed), display coaches SKEENA RIVER, KOOTENAY RIVER and COWICHAN RIVER (completed), and official car PEACE RIVER (future project).  Behind are the later additions:  fuel tank car CGTX 14087 (in progress), stores car NANAIMO RIVER (completed), and the staff cars ADVENTURE, ENDEAVOUR and BRITANNIA (future projects):




More work on the tank cars and flatcars this coming week.

Tim

[bman]

I managed to steal some time away from table top gaming, house stuff, and working on the club layout to get the table frame for the layout finished. No photos as it's still chaos in the layout room. I also managed to patch out some hoppers for my Wheeling and Lake Erie hopper train. Thanks to Atlas for producing these last year and the logo and reporting marks were very easy to remove using Microscale MicroSol and soaking some paper towel laid on the printing you wish to not be there.

Painted up several more to model the ex-CSX hoppers they also have in service now mainly in stone trains. Hope to get them decaled this week.
I've too many hobbies it seems.

[Sumner]

Continuing on with the scenery on the upper level going to the track elevator ……...

 

The areas on the end still need to be built up higher. I’m pretty happy with the center area but want to add a little more height there to a couple of the mesa tops there.

 

I’m lucky that the layout is in a large area (shop is 27’x40’ with 10 &12 foot ceilings). With the large air volume lingering fumes aren’t much of a problem. Still at times the smoke/fumes when using the hot knife seem to find me. I’ll then use the 5v USB fan to move the air away from where I’m cutting the foam. It has 3 speeds and usually the lowest does the trick.

When roughing the foam is finished there will be a lot of final cutting of the rock faces and then Spackle will be applied followed by the painting.



There is only a little over 10” (254 mm) between the upper and lower levels. With N scale it appears to be more. The rock faces don’t look near as tall until you place a loco near them for perspective.

 

To be continued…....

A link to this whole build ( HERE ) and on Railwire ( HERE )

Sumner

[kiwi_al]

Santa Fe FM H12-44TS x 3 nowhere near finished