|
Post by mlehman on May 25, 2014 6:07:51 GMT -8
I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend. The big project this week was building up the Crystal River Rio Grande Section Town group. It was a group of CR's kits that allowed you to build various support structures commonly found along the narrowgauge. This is the section house, along with a tool and motor car shed, which I located in Silverton. I used the bunkhouse and coal shed, along with the official Rio Grande loo, at Tefft. I also painted some figures, which came out well and was more fun than I thought it would be. I dug out some pics of European railways taken when dad was stationed in Germany in the early 70s, back when I had hair... This pic is taken from the auto ferry train that operates through the Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland from the window of our 64' Belair station wagon as we exited the north portal. Lots of cool stuff in Switzerland, gotta go back some day. Finally, a pic of the train that's virtually in my backyard...
|
|
|
Post by dti406 on May 25, 2014 8:04:49 GMT -8
Good morning from Northeast Ohio, I have only managed to finish two cars this week but I have some more in progress photos of my IMRC Pflauder Milk Car. Undec IMRC 5077 CF PS Boxcar, painted with Orange/Red Floquil Mixture and Platinum Mist, lettered with Islington Stations Products decals for latter Saint Mary's Railroad scheme. Athearn 4 Door 86' Hi-Cube Kit, removed the cast on grabs and replaced with wire grabs, painted with Scalecoat II ATSF Red and Floquil Platinum Mist, then lettered with Oddballs Decals. End shot with brake gear, airlines and grabs. Side shot with all but one of the grabs installed (sent the wrong size grabs for the one under the door). Thanks for looking! Rick J
|
|
|
Post by TBird1958 on May 25, 2014 8:28:40 GMT -8
Nice work guys! Rick, I really like that MKT auto parts car! I've been busy with work, family and a road trip with my band, finally I've managed to get all my Genesis F's finished up. Here's a few pics. Before and after......Some parts, a bit of masking and a lot of weathering with chalks and the airbrush. Here, on a cloudy day....Note the color difference between the 4 stripe EMD painted units and the more yellow orange single stripe ones painted by D&RGW, the silver paint is beggining to peel off of the lower flanks of this unit, exposing the Mineral Red primer underneath. If you're modeling the Rio Grande you really can't escape owning 5771 and the two B units, generally these were pretty well kept. A few wire parts and some fairly light weathering here. Here's a shot the "before" unit in the first pic, by the mid to late '60s the F's were showing their age and years of hard service on the railroad's mountainous profile.
|
|
|
Post by Mark R. on May 25, 2014 14:19:14 GMT -8
Finally, a pic of the train that's virtually in my backyard... Virtually ? .... Looks pretty real to me ! Mark.
|
|
|
Post by riogrande on May 25, 2014 15:33:07 GMT -8
Love the photo's for the D&RGW F units of the 60's; thats my favorite F unit time frame on the Grande. From the photo's in Rio Grande Diesels Vol 1, the roofs of the 4-stripe F's was totally black, maybe by soot. I think the firemans side is the best for seeing the 60's details, the toe creep-way and grab irons etc.
|
|
|
Post by TBird1958 on May 25, 2014 15:59:22 GMT -8
I think it was mostly that the wash rack couldn't clean them Jim, they just let them turn sooty black - The Single Stripe repaints addressed the issue by being painted black from this. Here's a little down on shot, plenty dirty
|
|
|
Post by mlehman on May 25, 2014 16:11:08 GMT -8
Rick, I really like the big Katy box, too. And that Pfaudler car is coming along nicely. Tbird, Outstanding work! Finally, a pic of the train that's virtually in my backyard... Virtually ? .... Looks pretty real to me ! Mark. Well, I didn't elaborate, but the NS tracks are only two blocks away. That's actually on a stub of the old P&EI. I think NS uses the CN/IC to access it from the south up from Tolono. It does go on west to cross the old Wabash line to Chicago, but that's slow going and I'm not sure all of it's in service. The track is pulled up from just east of here in Urbana all the way to Danville. They just got the funding to make a rail trail out of that segment, so we're looking forward to that. The river crossing by Kickapoo State Park near Danville is spectacular. But wait, there's more. This is actually the third way that the NS gets into town since about 1980. That's when they took most of the old Wabash branch that came in from Sidney on the Wabash as it came diagonally through east Urbana, shortcutting to an alignment that came up next to the Solo Cup plant, the main customer in Urbana, then connecting with the old P&EI/PC/Conrail yard just north of their on the alignment this pic was taken on. They took that line across town, allowing NS to retire this parallel alignment that also had some IT ownership (which the N&W bought out the other partners in that time frame, too. The original Wabash branch land closed out in ~1980 was then divided up to adjacent landowners, who paid a pro-rated fee to cover the costs of surveying, leveling, etc. When I bought the house here, the previous owner had not followed through on completing the land purchase, even though it amounted to a big diagonal divot out of the back yard. So I ended up buying that little segment of the Wabash for just over $200 IIRC. No more trains on it, though, until I get my G scale stuff out there.
|
|
|
Post by tankcarsrule on May 25, 2014 17:45:00 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by fr8kar on May 25, 2014 18:51:09 GMT -8
I've had other irons in the fire this week, but I managed to get another set of triple clasp sideframes made and installed on an Athearn RTR SD40-2: In the second photo you can see how short the long hood handrail is. Another candidate for brass handrails... And in other news, I finally completed the conversion to Sergent couplers (well, other than my coal gondolas; most of those have dummy couplers). Here's a Katy SD40-2 with Type F couplers:
|
|
|
Post by TBird1958 on May 25, 2014 19:07:44 GMT -8
Cool stuff guys, love those tank cars Bobby!
|
|
|
Post by ChessieFan1978 on May 27, 2014 18:10:22 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by TBird1958 on May 27, 2014 20:14:25 GMT -8
Great looking locomotives and layout!
|
|
|
Post by fr8kar on May 28, 2014 0:27:51 GMT -8
I couldn't agree more, TBird.
|
|
|
Post by mlehman on May 28, 2014 0:28:25 GMT -8
I agree. Matt's pics are sure tasty
|
|
|
Post by railthunder on May 29, 2014 14:16:11 GMT -8
I think it was mostly that the wash rack couldn't clean them Jim, they just let them turn sooty black - The Single Stripe repaints addressed the issue by being painted black from this. Here's a little down on shot, plenty dirty Very nice work on the F units! What colors/techniques did you use to paint your track. I've always shied away from rail brown and you've also captured that look very well too.
|
|
|
Post by buffalobill on May 30, 2014 13:20:46 GMT -8
T-Bird really nice job on the Rio Grande F's nicely weathered. Matt like the Chessie units. Bill
|
|
|
Post by riogrande on May 31, 2014 7:13:30 GMT -8
It looks like Tbird used hand laid track.
His F's are the best I've ever seen in HO - they really do justice to the many photo's I have seen in Rio Grande Diesels and other books over and over. I dreamed for years of having a model railroad with 60's era D&RGW F's that looked as good as those.
I have picked up an ABBA set of the modernized Proto 2000 F7's as well as one of the Genesis F7's #5764, which pulled the California Zephyr... I wish I would have gotten a couple of the other moderized Genesis single stripe F7's like Tbird has in the photo - 5711. A treasure hunt.
If those are Genesis F7's, where did you get the MU receptical for the nose - back in the 1980's I was trying to model the RGZ F9A from an Athearn bb F7, and had applied grab irons to the nose, the eyebrow grabs over the windshield but never could find a part from DW or DA for the MU housing. I think it would have to have been a scratch build with the caps from commercial products back then. Now Athearn Genesis offered the modernized F7's which did pretty good justice to the nose details, the only annoyance is the "eyebrow" grab irons are way to high up on the roof. Proto 2000 offered their F7's with a similar 60's detail package.
|
|
|
Post by TBird1958 on May 31, 2014 11:58:01 GMT -8
Thank you Jim! I got that diorama from a buddy, he was moving away from Seattle and couldn't take it along. The track is hand laid, if I recall it was done with RailCraft. The F's are all Genesis from several different runs, the Four Stripe ones are pretty early editions with very few factory parts (nothing Road specific) even the chassis casting has changed a lot on the newer releases. Awhile back I posted the question about the nose MU plug here on the forum, several members were quite helpful - the plug along with some other useful parts are from Details West as a set. I made a little template to keep the grab irons straight and evenly spaced up the side of the nose, the anti-glare panel was masked off freehand with some very thin tape, keeping it similar from one side to the other was the challenge. Since finishing them up I've been taking them to a friend's layout to test and run them in, so far I'm impressed, they're heavy and pull well, I'm very happy with them. Here's the other four stripe A
|
|
|
Post by markfj on Jun 1, 2014 11:00:44 GMT -8
Nice work everyone!
It great to see a former PC geep looking so clean in NS black and white!
Is it fair to say that NS takes better care of its equipment than its predecessors did?
Frookar: Doesn’t Atlas make a triple clasp sideframe? Yours look great!
|
|