Sunday Photo Fun -- April 26, 2015

[mlehman]

Still a few more details and a little landscaping needed, but I finished the last major structures for now in Crater Lake, the combination office, warehouse, and coal bins complex.



This pic shows the construction of the upper walls and roof of the coal bins. One side provides a drive-in door for the coal truck, perhaps a front end loader to load smaller quantities.



Here, the quarry's old dump truck is getting ready to load from the loading bin to take coal father back in the quarry for various derricks, the rock crusher, etc. I still need a ground level walk-in door for the basement of the warehouse/office.



The spur to the rock bins holds three gons under them, then another car space for the coal bins, then a fifth space for the boxcar, etc to unload at the warehouse. It was great to get back to building after concentrating on finishing up the final draft of my diss last weekend.



I used three products for the first time I found helpful. First was the plastic embossed rock sheathing for the walls. It's by Wee Scapes, apparently from the same factory that makes JTT's similar sheathing. The selection is somewhat different, but the price is even cheaper, ~$4 for two sheets. The paint if Krylon Pebble that I washed with Testors CreateFX Black acrylic wash. It really helped the stones pop visually and was easy to apply with a brush and quick wipe. Finally, the roof is made from a sheet of Midwest 0.060 plastic sheet that I bought thinking it was styrene, but it was actually PVC. Had to get out the Plastruct, but even that didn't seem to faze it much, so finally resorted to gapfilling CA. Despite that, the thickness of oit was just right for representing trim board at the eaves simply by painting them before applying the shingles. Saved a bunch of the usual cutting and fitting and looked better then my usual results when doing that.

Looking forward to what others have been up to.

[tom]

Here is my photo of a PRR X29G boxcar sitting in my yard while some PC locomotives in the background make a pickup.

[dti406]

Was not all interested in modeling this last week so I am going to the way back machine to some of my favorite style cars as a DT&I modeler!



Athearn 86' High Cube that I made look more like a Thrall by removing the grabs and installing ladders at the end of the car, also installed Details West Coupler pockets before painting with a 50-50 mixture of Floquil Signal Red and Reefer Yellow, then lettered with Herald King Decals.



Athearn car, painted with Flopaque Magenta from the old Dungeons and Dragons line, lettered with Herald King Decals.



Walthers Pullman Standard Car, painted with Scalecoat II Boxcar Red and Floquil Platinum Mist, then lettered with Oddballs Decals.



Walthers Car, painted with Floquil PC Green and Platinum Mist then lettered with Microscale Decals.



Athearn car, replaced the cast on grabs with wire grabs, painted with Scalecoat II ATSF Red and Floquil Platinum Mist, then lettered with Oddball Decals.



Walthers car, painted with Scalecoat II Armour Yellow and Floquil Platinum Mist, then lettered with Herald King Decals.

One thing I did for all the cars except the KOG was use the BRO or WSP car code which indicates the cars are to be returned to the Brownstone Stamping Plant or the Woodhaven Stamping plant on the DT&I. The KOG car was for GM use and was in service on a joint train with the B&O that served a plant in Dayton.

Thanks for looking!

Rick J

[rockisland652]

For those not on Facebook, I had the extremely unhappy news come in yesterday morning that my friend, Joe Kaminskas, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for many years, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Friday. I met Joe one afternoon in the early 90's on the platform at Joliet Union Station. I had been railfanning for a few hours there, and was confronted by a linebacker of a man whose booming voice and vast memory of Joliet as it had been in the Rock Island days were most welcome. Joe had been over to run on my layout a few times last year, always bringing something interesting along, particularly his pair of C415s. I had even been tapped to sound them up when an appropriate decoder came along. Joe later would bring his son. Joe, Jr., to the house and they spent some time running an Iowa Interstate flavored train on the layout. We all got a kick out of the Iowa playing among the ghosts of the Rock Island.

I dedicate this post to Joe Kaminskas, Sr., 1963-2015. Gone way too soon.

There is never a good time for the good ones to leave us. Joe was one of the good ones, and I have a hard time referring to him in the past tense.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Joe's C415s at Tinley.


...and at Joliet


A solo unit at Joliet. Joe would have loved to have these sounded up. I can't disagree.


Joe's IAIS units caught at Tinley Park...


Joe's IAIS units at Joliet. Of course it was a chase! Joe and his son had a blast that night.


And, a classic. The meet shot at Tinley. Captures the mood quite well.


And the behind the scenes shot. That's Joe to the left. He had to remain still for eight seconds and he nailed it.


Knowing Joe, I can envision him joking that he'd have no trouble remaining still for eight seconds now, followed by his huge laugh.

I will miss him. God be with his family.

[mlehman]

Tom,
Sorry to hear of your friend Joe's passing. He looked like he was enjoying life big-time watching his units run. They're beautiful and something Joe's son, presuming he'd the one who end up getting them in the long run, will surely appreciate memories of with his father putting them through their paces.

[ssw]

The model railroad club I belong to in Temple, TX had a custom run of boxcars run by Accurail. A few of us gathered at the clubhouse, the former GC&SF Moody, TX depot to assemble and renumber the boxcars. The club railroad is the Ft. Worth, Temple and Gulf, a proto-freelanced road that runs between...well.. Ft. Worth, Temple and the Gulf of Mexico.
We began by setting up our table in an appropriate location in the clubhouse- namely the freight door overlooking BNSF's Ft. Worth Subdivision and the Temple engine facility. Outside of the shop sits a Smurf, BNSF 2049 - which one of these days I may model. I don't model modern, or BNSF, but dang, that'd be a neat one to do.

 
After we got the club's cars assembled, we set a few out for pictures. Now if we can just sell the rest of them!



Here's a video of why we like the clubhouse so much - the grain hoppers are another Accurail custom run, with FWTG power and crummy.
1722989_10202967217804240_1455956124_n.mp4 (1.65 MB)


Bradley

[Great-Northern-Willmar Div]

Apr 26, 2015 9:33:32 GMT -8 ssw said:

The model railroad club I belong to in Temple, TX had a custom run of boxcars run by Accurail. A few of us gathered at the clubhouse, the former GC&SF Moody, TX depot to assemble and renumber the boxcars. The club railroad is the Ft. Worth, Temple and Gulf, a proto-freelanced road that runs between...well.. Ft. Worth, Temple and the Gulf of Mexico.
We began by setting up our table in an appropriate location in the clubhouse- namely the freight door overlooking BNSF's Ft. Worth Subdivision and the Temple engine facility. Outside of the shop sits a Smurf, BNSF 2049 - which one of these days I may model. I don't model modern, or BNSF, but dang, that'd be a neat one to do.

 
After we got the club's cars assembled, we set a few out for pictures. Now if we can just sell the rest of them!



Here's a video of why we like the clubhouse so much - the grain hoppers are another Accurail custom run, with FWTG power and crummy.



Bradley

Interesting Smurf BNSF GP38-2 in the background.

[bdhicks]

A word of warning on modeling smurfs: people will just think you're making stuff up. At WPM I forgot to bring prototype photos for my smurf and GN 1914
(photos from the Sacramento club layout, not WPM):



I got a lot more people questioning if the smurf was prototypical, despite the fact that GN 1914 is a unique patch job that spent its few months of existence in hump service, while there are 10x as many smurfs who have served all over for 10x as long.

[TBird1958]

As always nice work Gentlemen!


Didn't get anything finished this week, lots of stuff in process tho......

Here's my OMI Russell plow......On a rare trip outside of Colorado.

 On my to Costco I managed to get a little railfanning in........Here's an ex MRS 60' car

 

 

[riogrande]

Nice photo's all. Having lived in Sacramento in my college years and later on coming back, I visited the Sacramento MRR club when it was in it's early days of construction getting started - must be 20 years ago now (where does time go!).

I've seen photo's with those MRS box cars at the head end of D&RGW freight trains and always wanted one - but don't think there are any models out there in HO that match. They look a lot like the Eel River or ExactRail beer cars but with non-terminating ends rather than the "washboard" ends.

[tankcarsrule]

This car was built in the 60s though it could be from the 50s. I built it from an article in RMC.

Thanks, Bobby

[upcsx]

Apr 26, 2015 13:41:24 GMT -8 tankcarsrule said:

This car was built in the 60s though it could be from the 50s. I built it from an article in RMC. View Attachment

Thanks, Bobby

Bobby you too cool another great.

[TBird1958]

Apr 26, 2015 13:41:24 GMT -8 tankcarsrule said:

This car was built in the 60s though it could be from the 50s. I built it from an article in RMC.

Thanks, Bobby

Beautiful! It certainly has a lot of character too.

[tankcarsrule]

Upcsx and Mark, I thank you both.

Regards, Bobby

[lnrrfan]

Tom,

I am sorry to hear of the loss of your friend.
I can't think of a nicer way for a model railroader to be remembered,than what you posted.

You are truly a good friend.




Thanks for sharing

[GP40P-2]

Apr 26, 2015 13:41:24 GMT -8 tankcarsrule said:

This car was built in the 60s though it could be from the 50s. I built it from an article in RMC. View Attachment

Thanks, Bobby

Awesome car Bobby. This is the kind of car that I could easily switch on a small layout. I think I have that article somewhere, you just inspired me to dig it out!

Jim L

[tankcarsrule]

Thank you Jim. I hope you build one.

Regards, Bobby