Sunday Photo Fun 6-2-24

[packer]

Guess I’ll start. Better late than never?


Managed to get some decals on this car. Need to get a clear over them, but the weather has not been permitting (rainy season in Florida). Also need to weather it a bit more. The real ones were pretty wore out.




Pulled the tape from this after weather and clearing a couple times. I’m happy with how the step wells I printed a while ago came out.

[simulatortrain]

Continuing on my Russian decapod backdate, the locomotive is coming along nicely. I just soldered the handrails and they're cooling as I type this. It's amazing how much it now looks like a real Russian and not like a Bachmann!

I was also happy to definitively solve the question of what color they were under USRA control, thanks to the Baldwin order books being online. Black with gold USA lettering.

[hudsonyard]

bench time has crawled to its usual summertime pace, I am less motivated to be downstairs but I did manage to get some fleet cars finished this week:







I like to line work up during the summer months to blitz through in the fall and winter, with some big projects looming at work theres gonna be lots of overtime $$$ to delegate to various projects.

Last weekend around a flurry of operating sessions I made my way to Allentown, PA to do some research on the Lehigh Valleys Linden Street Freighthouse and the West End Branch, RJ corman still operates a pretty busy transload out of Linden Street, while the LV passenger main and West End Branch (exiting the photo through the flat spot to the left of the tank cars) is completely abandoned.



Downstairs room that holds my workbench and a storage area for equipment would provide a nice space (roughly 10x16 with a 2x7 space over my bench) for a layout modeling both the freight house and the branch. The West End branch had between 12-15 customers still active in 1970 and was switched on two different shifts by the east penn drill, it could keep a two man crew very busy for a few hours and will give me a nice achievable prototype to model. I've designed a million freelance layouts for the space and they all leave me feeling very "eh" about the prospects of spending time and money on something pulled out of my ass. The prototype gives you direction and focus and I think i've found a suitable one for this space.

I have a great deal of information and reference photos and maps already because of an EXCELLENT thread on railfan.net covering the LVs branches inside the city of Allentown, and I already have a small fleet of LV switchers and era appropriate equipment. HOPEFULLY see some kind of construction (i am going to begin by building Linden Street first) by the end of the year.

[tom]

Bangor and Aroostook boxcar. Branchline 40' boxcar that had its factory paint removed and then painted and decaled with Highball Graphics decals. Replaced the factory trucks with Kato ones, lowered the ladders and added Plano running board supports. Hard to miss this car in a train.

[dti406]

Good morning from sunny and warm Northeast Ohio!

Got some cars done this week!

First up, and old Bev-Bel hopper car already prepainted, just dull coated and installed Kadee couplers. Only problem Bev-Bel numbered and lettered the car as a GLa class hopper, the Athearn ribbed side hopper more closely fills in for an H31 class hopper.



Next another kitbash of a Stewart 3 bay 12 panel hopper into a 2 bay 65Ton NYC rebuilt hopper. The NYC in the mid 60's had too many of the old 50 Ton hoppers to easily use servicing their industrial customers, so they rebuilt the hoppers with higher sides to hold 65 tons of coal versus the common 70 ton 3 bay hoppers. The NYC rebuilt 4725 of these hoppers in the mid 60's.



Finally a Walthers NACC RBL, North American car assembled several thousand RBL's using assorted parts from Pullman Standard, Stanray and others so each car was somewhat different depending on what lot it came out of. They were sold or leased to various private owners and railroads. This one was leased to the Hershey's Chocolate company for moving finished chocolate products from their various plants.



A trio of Rapido RS-11's running with a coal drag on the Strongsville Club layout.



Thanks for looking!

Rick Jesionowski

[wagnersteve]

June 3, 2024, gettting close to noon, EDT

Beautiful modeling, guys! Better late than never, indeed.

[jacksong1218]

A few days late on my part as usual. 

Wrapped up this Atlas Guilford (ex B&M) GP40 this weekend. Weathered to late 80s appearance, Loksound v5 with a scalesoundsystems speaker and Inventive Models couplers. 






Started and completed this Athearn Genesis CR PC&F box. My boxcar knowledge isn't great, so I'm not sure if CR ever had this exact prototype. But I think it will look good on the layout. 

[unittrain]

I like that NYC rebuilt hopper, we need these in HO, Bluford Shops does them in N, C&O had hoppers like these too.

[ncrc5315]

Jackson1218, how did you paint the coupler?

[jacksong1218]

Jun 5, 2024 13:15:01 GMT -8 ncrc5315 said:

Jackson1218, how did you paint the coupler?

I laid them out flat and airbrushed a mixture of brown Tamiya paints on them. I then assembled them and touched up the few areas that didn't get hit when they got sprayed. 

[hudsonyard]

Jun 5, 2024 8:47:54 GMT -8 unittrain said:

I like that NYC rebuilt hopper, we need these in HO, Bluford Shops does them in N, C&O had hoppers like these too.

These lasted into early CR wearing TOC reporting marks i believe.

[dti406]

Jun 5, 2024 17:55:00 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Jun 5, 2024 8:47:54 GMT -8 unittrain said:

I like that NYC rebuilt hopper, we need these in HO, Bluford Shops does them in N, C&O had hoppers like these too.

These lasted into early CR wearing TOC reporting marks i believe.

Actually they had four reporting marks, P&E, TOC, PC and NYC into Conrail. The TOC reporting marks were I believe an financing thing, as the cars were pulled at random out of the NYC cars and relettered to TOC.

Rick Jesionowski

[ncrc5315]

Jun 5, 2024 15:16:11 GMT -8 jacksong1218 said:

Jun 5, 2024 13:15:01 GMT -8 ncrc5315 said:

Jackson1218, how did you paint the coupler?

I laid them out flat and airbrushed a mixture of brown Tamiya paints on them. I then assembled them and touched up the few areas that didn't get hit when they got sprayed. 

Thank you