Weekend Update 11/16/25

[up1950s]

http://www.caritasrailcar.com/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/05/29/private-rail-cars-will-soon-become-the-ultimate-social-distancing-escape/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-look-inside-luxurious-private-railcars-1521727201

https://southbayrailroadnews.weebly.com/private-railcars-archive.html

https://robbreport.com/travel/hotels/private-railcars-across-states-1234828857/

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https://www.larail.com/our-rail-cars/tioga-pass-business-car/#normtrips

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-tuscumbia-courtland-decatur-railroad-transportation-during-the-cherokee-removal-1837-1839.htm

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzEQqmOpfCl/

[BCR 570]

Apologies in advance for the long post, but this was a productive week for me.  It began with a start on painting the yard tracks in Chetwynd.  I applied a primer coat of Tamiya Medium Grey:






While working in Chetwynd Yard, I also began work on creating an isolating track for storing motive power.  This is to fulfill one of the requirements for the NMRA's Electrical Certificate.  I designated a portion of the shop track in Chetwynd which was long enough to store two locomotives, and cut gaps at either end:






I will next cut the feeders to one of the rails within this section and run them out to a toggle switch on the fascia.


With my scratchbuilt turnout and crossover now complete, I require several lengths of adjoining straight track so that I can run a locomotive completely through all routes.  Like the turnout and crossover, these were assembled on paper templates:






I also returned to work on my scratchbuilt 30 degree crossing, completing the outer guard rail assemblies.  These are made up of three short sections of rail with different angles at either end, and they go inside the approach tracks:




With all of the rail components for the crossing now complete, I placed them into the fixture and rolled a truck through each route to test for smooth operation:

I can now proceed with permanent installation of the rail components onto the PC ties knowing that the crossing should work well in either direction.


Finally, the past few weeks saw some new additions to the rolling stock and motive power fleets.  I purchased four UNPX rotary gondolas in the Procor wordmark scheme to complement the eight I already have in the Flying P scheme.  The wordmark scheme was introduced on these cars by Procor in 1975.  These will need a touch of weathering before entering sulphur service on my layout:




And I have taken delivery of my Rapido Budd RDC-1.  I am very pleased to finally have a Phase II Budd car in N Scale.  This model will be detailed and completed in the British Columbia Railway's two tone green paint scheme:




The model runs smoothly over Atlas Code 55 and ME Code 40 flex track and sounds good.  The lighting is at an appropriate level and is flicker-free thanks to the onboard capacitance.  I performed a short test run:

Thanks for looking,

Tim

[arx nakanishi]

I need 18 more posts to upload pics. So please enjoy YouTube videos for the time being. Here is another cut from my N scale Cisco, Utah, diorama.

Cisco was located in the middle of nowhere, along the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad mainline between Grand Junction, CO, and Green River, UT.

This Phillips 66 station, located along the US 50/6, was established in 1934 by Bill and Eppie Capansky. Marmaduke Woods long operated the station by the name Duke's Service. Bill's son Ted succeeded the business in 1970, but it went out of business in 1972.





Hiroshi Nakanishi/Boxcar Red Collection
https://riogrande.blog.jp/

[John]

Nice videos.   You can always link to externally hosted pictures as well. 

[John]

WM SD35 crossing over dual bridge near Finksburg MD

[Lemosteam]

Might be hard to see, but I installed the power poles into the scrap yard and string the fine ezline. Also finished a couple more dragline buckets, one that is ready for transport after the scrapyard was done using it, seen here wiring the the trust 44 tonner to arrive before driving onto the flatcar., and a second for the aggregate yard scooping up some sand.

[Scottl]

Jasper West bridge is in and traffic to the Albreda Subdivision is now flowing.

[Sumner]

Finishing up this stage of the scenery work for the area that will be the sawmill scene.

 

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Think I'll take a scenery break for a bit and work on the track for this area. Have a crossing, a number of curved and straight turnouts and some 3 way turnouts that have to be built (have some but not all that I need).

A couple more images on Railwire ( HERE ) and a link to this whole build ( HERE ).

Sumner

[peteski]

I need 18 more posts to upload pics. So please enjoy YouTube videos for the time being. Here is another cut from my N scale Cisco, Utah, diorama.

Hello Hiroshi-san,
an easy way to increase your post count quickly is to post praises (or other comments) for other member's models. There are plenty examples of quality modeling  on the forum. All you have to do is post even something simple like "Very nice modeling" and you post count is increased. It is perfectly acceptable to make such posts.

Speaking of praises, you have also done some very nice modeling.

[wm3798]

Project night!
I have one of those old resin Pennsy B60B Baggage/Express cars I picked up on the cheap at N Scale weekend a few years ago, along with a sister RPO, which now resides with the Hickory Creek fleet of @randgust . 
I had lent him the baggage car to run on the TTrak rig, but it turned out to be problematic.
It turned out the old resin cast floor had warped badly, affecting coupler height, truck alignment, and overall ability to serve its useful purpose.

This week I endeavoured to correct the problem.


Naturally, my first stop was to the junk box.  Not in the train room, mind you, but the plumbing supplies.
I found a bracket on an old shower faucet we discarded, and as a fairly heavy gaug perforated steel bracket, was perfect for the task at hand.

I drilled a couple of holes in the floor, rummaged around for a couple of suitable screws, and thus was able to draw the ends of the frame into near level alignment.



After robbing some MicroTrains trucks from another car, it is now gliding along flawlessly behind my Atlantic, which as I recall, was purchased at the same show.



I may not be completely back in the saddle, but I think I can see the horse over there somewhere...

Lee

[wm3798]

Hiroshi Nakanishi/Boxcar Red Collection
https://riogrande.blog.jp/

That last image brought this immediately to mind.

Great modeling, Hiroshi!  Welcome to the Thunder Dome.
Lee

[randgust]

Well, the Porter 0-6-4 project is officially done, very happy with that, it's really a joint success with Chris333 and his magic frame printer.

These are taken on the "Ross Run" logging module that many of you saw in the 2024 Altoona N Scale Weekend



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/HVR3026.jpg

And this was fun.   I had no idea I got a reflection off this shot until I unloaded the camera, but that's a first for me.



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/HVR3030.jpg

That's the bridge that the prototype Porter collapsed into the log pond, by the way.

And, just for fun, I had to try something.... let's backdate that first shot:



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/HVR3026BW.jpg


I've posted this video over on the Porter thread, but to prove it works to those that haven't been following an 'old steam engine' thread:

And to assure those that are going 'How the crap did he get sound in that thing?" I didn't, it's a tape sound playing as I was video recording....!

[chuck geiger]

I need 18 more posts to upload pics. So please enjoy YouTube videos for the time being. Here is another cut from my N scale Cisco, Utah, diorama.

Cisco was located in the middle of nowhere, along the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad mainline between Grand Junction, CO, and Green River, UT.

This Phillips 66 station, located along the US 50/6, was established in 1934 by Bill and Eppie Capansky. Marmaduke Woods long operated the station by the name Duke's Service. Bill's son Ted succeeded the business in 1970, but it went out of business in 1972.





Hiroshi Nakanishi/Boxcar Red Collection
https://riogrande.blog.jp/

I quit, trains for sale!

[arx nakanishi]

Thank you, John, peteski, and wm3798! I'll do my best to accommodate all the visitors here.
I researched the prototype more than ten years ago. Google Maps Street View may show how it is today.
The photo below shows how the gas station I posted at Weekend Update 10/26/25 looked like in 2014.





Hiroshi Nakanishi/Boxcar Red Collection
https://riogrande.blog.jp/

[Sumner]

The gas station at Cisco, Ut.  ( HERE ).

The station  was complete until they filmed Thelma & Louise and knocked the west wall out so they could shoot inside/outside from the outside.  I lived in Moab at the time and was driving to Grand Junction and went by when they were filming there.  They had all the cop cars for the chase scenes there along with the stainless semi fuel tanker.  I thought they were using the tanker to fill up the cars when they were out on remote shoots.   Wrong the tanker was there so they could blow it up.

I rented a storage unit from the guy who did all the cop cars for the movie.  The paint jobs were OK if you were at least 30-40 feet from the cars.  He also located a lot of the scene locations for the movie as he had worked on other movies and commercials shot in the area.

We now live 70 miles south of Moab but drove past Cisco two weeks ago going to a doctor appointment in Grand Junction.  Also last spring took some visitors out to Selma & Louise Point (where they shot the cars off into the Colorado River).

Cisco is an interesting place now.  Go to the street view above.  I could of bought a lot there for $75 in the 90's for back taxes.  Should of done it just because.

Sumner