Weekend Update 2/15/26

[up1950s]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C92O8aXtGVP/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/suggestions-please-what-are-these-structures.139968/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/145717167489

https://www.gettyimages.com/videos/old-train-tracks

https://www.gettyimages.com/videos/railroad-switch

[chessie system fan]

Here are some recent acquisitions.  What do you do if you want an SD35 but it's the 1990s and not much is available?  You kitbash!  A friend of mine made these from an SD40 on an SD9 chassis.  The short hoods are resin castings, I think.

[davefoxx]

In less than eight hours, including time for paint and glue to dry, I tore out and replaced this turnout, due to cars intermittently riding over the point rail when heading into the diverging route.  Two feeders connected to the old turnout fed a major portion of a reversing section, so I had to spend some time under the layout replacing the feeders.



With the ballasting complete, it’s like it even never happened!  (Which makes me happy considering this attempt was on a Friday the 13th! 🤣)

More on The Carolina Sandhills Lines thread in the Layout Engineering forum.

DFF

[nkalanaga]

Aaron:  And I'll bet the couplers are at the right height as well.

[Iain]

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Made a Dover and Southbound coach.

[arx nakanishi]

I used the iPhone app level to lay flexible rails to my diorama, not so far from the guys above...
Let me share with you another cut from my N-scale Cisco, Utah diorama: the D&RGW stockyards.







Most of the cattle and sheep/lambs grazed in the Grand County were shipped east by rail from Cisco and Thompson to Kansas City, or to Omaha, or as far as to Chicago. Cattle shipped on Saturday afternoon arrived at Kansas City on Monday night and were sold on Tuesday morning market.
Some sheep that grazed in the high ranges of the Colorado Rocky Mountains were also shipped by rail to Cisco to spend the winter in the low ranges of Grand County.

However, livestock became to be shipped by trucks by 1956, and the facilities at Cisco were demolished in 1972.



The structure is made from the D&RGW Standard Plans. The 1919 ICC valuation map has the overall shape and dimensions of the facilities.

I used very thin (0.2mm thick) wood called kyo-gi(経木) for the structure. I tripled the woods, turning 90 degrees from each other with the white bond, and made a sheet of wood. I thought it would avoid warping. I cut it into scale six, eight, and twelve inches width to make lumber.

The videos with trains are embedded below.

Thanks for watching!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Was doing a little JFRTM last night with my new Bluford dented gons. I was excited I found all six of em at a shop last weekend.

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[InterurbanModels]

One, two, three ... it is rollout day for 3 variations of the same car, almost the same.

Pacific Great Eastern had a specialty in recycling Interurban trailers, where they looked slightly undersized, but got diaphragm and would finally fit well into the red mainline compositions.

Before that, those trailers were classic Interurbans at Oregon Electric Railway, they had train doors, radial couplers but no diaphragm. And they wore Pullman green with light green trucks.

The third version is just an orange/yellow free lance livery that I had assigned to the very first test car.

All models are full color printed. But I confess that I painted the roofs. It happens, sometimes.

[apudelek]

New train work bench in the new house is finally done!

Things will still get shifted around a bit over time but it's nice to finally have a dedicated area with great storage and space to work on trains.

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[BCR 570]

Pacific Great Eastern had a specialty in recycling Interurban trailers, where they looked slightly undersized, but got diaphragm and would finally fit well into the red mainline compositions.

Before that, those trailers were classic Interurbans at Oregon Electric Railway

Wow - nice to see!  The PGE had about seven of those coaches plus a few more which were cut down into open observation cars, and also some ex-OE baggage cars.  Not my era, but great to see!


Tim

[packers#1]

Continuing my theme of getting up early and working on structures, I built this house earlier this week. I painted it last Sunday and then put it together over the week. The color scheme is a pretty common one around here, and I think it will contrast with the scenery nicely. Still have some spots where I can improve but I feel that I did better than the last kit I put together.





I also came to terms with not getting the second wall anytime soon, so I added in two more industries on this shelf; they’re both trailing point but will definitely add to the operating potential. I cut both in tonight, although haven’t wired them in yet. I’ll have to add feeders to one of the turnouts and the spurs, but the rail joiners carry enough current that I was able to run the layout with all 4 and they definitely add enough extra play value and variety to really make this a much better layout overall. Here we see a future Pickens U18B switching out the box plant; they’re already swapped a plastics hopper at the spur behind the train, and dropped the green hopper onto the spur to get it in the right orientation. Once they make the connection between the GATX boxcar and empty plastics hopper, they’ll respot the WSOR boxcar before pulling forward and shoving the green hopper of dry fertilizer down the whole passing siding and into the fertilizer dealer spur. From there they’ll pull an empty boxcar from the lumber dealer (you can just see the roof of it in the foreground) before heading out of town.

[BCR 570]

After a brief break from track painting, I got back to work this week.  I am now working in Dawson Creek yard on the upper level and this is step 3 (dry brush of flat white):




I also started a new track project which is for the NMRA's Electrical Certificate.  My layout does not have a transfer table, turntable or wye but fortunately the requirements allow for one to be built separately such as on a project board as I am doing here.  Today I finished attaching feeder wires and laying the track; turnout motors and wiring are next:




Tim

[davefoxx]

I finally finished the relettering project on this old HO scale Life-Like Proto2000 Seaboard Air Line (SAL) U30B, to reflect its new ownership under the merger successor, Seaboard Coast Line (SCL).  What was SAL No. 806 is now SCL No. 1710 (same renumbering as on the prototype).

BEFORE:



AFTER:



More on The Carolina Sandhills Lines thread in the Layout Engineering forum.

DFF

[Angus Shops]

Wow - nice to see!  The PGE had about seven of those coaches plus a few more which were cut down into open observation cars, and also some ex-OE baggage cars.  Not my era, but great to see!


Tim

Didn’t they have a couple ex-interurban sleeping cars as well? Super rare to begin with, but found a second home on the PGE. Greg Kennelly, are you out there?

[altohorn25]

Operations update: