Sunday photo fun 12-27-15

[tankcarsrule]

My third Railwhale

[dti406]

Managed to finish a few cars this week!



First up is a Kadee PS 2003CF Covered Hopper, painted with Scalecoat II MofW Gray and lettered with Champ Decals.



Atlas 3 Bay ACF Cylindrical Covered Hopper kit, painted with Scalecoat II MofW Gray and lettered with Islington Station Products decals. Leased and Anheiser-Busch to haul grain to their breweries.



Grand Trunk Western Rebuilt 50' Boxcar, with roofwalk removed and lowered brake gear. Started with a Front Range ACF 50' Boxcar Kit, substituted a much better looking Branchline Models Diagonal Panel Roof and a 10' Accural Youngstown Steel Door and A-Line Sill Steps. Painted car with Floquil GTW Blue paint and lettered with Microscale Decals.

This car ended up as my Christmas gift exchange car at the Model Railroad Club this year.

See you all later!

Rick Jesionowski

[ssw]

I spent the last couple weeks working on an A/B set of Stewart FT's that were already in Cotton Belt black widow. In the late 1950's, Cotton Belt rebuilt their FTA units with Farr intake grilles, angled numberboards on the nose, and removed the side number boxes. The B units also got Farr grilles. The A's and B's received new 567AC prime movers, but kept the lower-capacity generators, and were still rated at 1350 HP. I shaved the number boxes off, and filled with styrene, then filled the seams with Bondo spot putty, and sanded smooth. I then chiseled off the straight nose number boards, and filled the holes with styrene, and body filler. The number boards are a Details West part, the grilles are Plano Proto 2000 E unit grilles cut to fit, and the grabs are from a Walthers diesel dress-up kit. Paint is the original stewart, with some touch up where needed. Not entirely accurate as the yellow circles on the nose should be silver, something I didn't catch until after the dullcoat was dry, and I'm now told the number I picked for the B unit was from the 1944 order without the 5th porthole, however there is a grainy photo in a Steve Goen's Cotton Belt color pictorial that looks like it's 914, with a 5th porthole.

Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out, but I may fix the nose color issues one day.

Bradley Linda
Waco, TX

[mlehman]

Bobby,
I just love that big ol' placard that says "Caution - Heavy Load."

Rick,
Lots of eye appeal, even for relatively plain Jane cars.

Bradley,
Your Fs look pretty darn good, despite the small details being not quite where you want them.

The big news from this corner is that after suitable mods and trackwork adjustments, six-axle diesels are now allowed on the Cascade Branch.



This set out some brainstorming. The runs of two passenger trains that formerly terminated in Silverton now run through to Crater Lake on the updated schedule. Freights will also be scheduled to pass through Silverton and onto the Cascade Branch. I also plan to install an interlocking (very roughly the most appropriate term) that allows trains from Durango to enter Silverton and do the short backtrack move to Tefft to begin the run up the Cascade Branch -- and keep everyone happy I'm not violating some rule book in the process. Maybe I'll have something to share on that next week, as I'm still figuring out the circuits to do that.

There are also some capacity improvements coming due to Xmas $$. The grading is already down at Summit, where a new siding is going in.





And Black Cat Junction will finally get track to finish it out.



2016 is going to be a great year.

[kcjones]

By golly, I knew you could do it! Now let's see some narrow gauge tunnel motors up there!
JL

[TBird1958]

Nice work this week gentlemen!
Stunning tank car Bobby, your craftsmanship is simply amazing.

Here's some U.P. models that I've weathered for a friend, it involved matching the faded Kenefick green and repainting the decks......





One of two Accurail 4600cf cars, this is simply a stock model about half done. It started with some Yellow Ochre oil paint that I let set up for about a week then dullcoted with two colors of chalk applied with a stiff brush over the top. This is way out of my era, but kind of fun making a "pig".

Happy New Year guys!

Best,
Mark

[oldmuley]

I pre-ordered several of the Atlas PS-2 covered hoppers a while back, and I've always been unhappy with the clunkiness of the details. The grab-irons have the scale dimensions of 2x4 and other cast-on details are just as chunky. Over the past few weeks I've been shaving off the original parts and replacing them with ladders from Detail Associates, Plano walkways and brass grab irons on the ends. I'll still need to paint everything and reapply unit number decals- still it's been fun to get back in the workshop!





 

[mako]

I'm working on an Athearn shortend to 40' MAXI III 5-unit wellcar. The Plano parts are installed, next step will be painting the Units.

Have a good week.

Marcus

[mlehman]

Dec 27, 2015 9:45:16 GMT -8 kcjones said:

By golly, I knew you could do it! Now let's see some narrow gauge tunnel motors up there!
JL

Too long, too wide, too tall. The San Juans don't have the elbow room that Brazil does -- or at least my version sure doesn't. 20" min R is the best I could do. I may try some of my small stable of big K's up there next (K-27s are OK), but I suspect that will fizzle over vertical transitions if the 20" curves don't derail the notion first.

[atsfan]

Slowly working on train room renovation.
Workbench coming out.
Cabinets are empty.

[keystonecrossings]

Completed my double-ended staging on the PRR Middle Division in HO Scale. Twenty tracks wide, 15-22 feet long, and lit by LED rope lights with "daylight" color.

See more at my model railroad site

[valenciajim]

Here is a covered hopper with a combination of hand painted weathering, Microscale graffiti decals and some weathering solutions decals.

[stevef45]

Building a SD60E, will be painted and decalled in NS 911 colors.
Unit started out as a Athearn BN SD60. Shapeways SD60E cab is being used, i've since sanded it smooth along with the extended range inertial intake's and intercooler hatch.



I have some overland detail parts mesh stock that i think will fit and work perfectly for those openings.
Shapeways PTC antenna


I need to cut down the front nose weight area to get the cab to sit properly. I trimemed the long hood portion so it will fit good. I will install etched steps tomorrow if I can and will do some other minor things.

[keiffer47]

Steve would you happen to have a photo and part number for the screens you will be using? I need to track down something to use on mine and I can't find any good overhead shots as a reference.

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Good work all. Bobbie, another masterpiece.

[markfj]

Hello Group,

Well, I finally found the time to put some paint on my F&C X29B boxcar kit. Today I applied the first coat of Pollyscale Mineral Red. I know there are many formulas out there for Pennsy FCC, but I didn’t have those paints and was eager to get some color on the model. The Pollyscale paint sprayed pretty well at about 25 psi and diluted with alcohol (75% paint to 25% alcohol). Again, I know distilled water would have been a better thinner than alcohol, but I didn’t have any on hand. (The photos were taken at an ISO of 800, so the images make the finish look grainy.) My only issue with the spray job is that there are some noticeable “streaks” from my spray passes across the side of the car that show up in the light. I’m hopeful that they’ll disappear when I spray the final coats.




Another thing I wanted to show was how I addressed the problem of attaching the floor/frame assembly to the main body of the car. The instructions provided with the kit basically call for the floor to be glued in place, which is fine but I didn’t like the fact that the area where the screws for the couplers pass through the floor was very thin. This meant that future servicing of the couplers could easily result in the few threads in the resin being stripped out. So, to solve this problem and make the floor removable, I used epoxy and glued in a Lego block at each end. Those little nubs on the block tops were removed leaving a nice pattern of holes for the epoxy to pass through; this really holds the blocks solid to the inside of the body! On top of the block, I glued a .060” styrene plate. Now, the coupler screws thread into the floor, a piece of styrene AND a Lego block. This make for a super strong assemble and little chance of stripping out the screw threads when I service the couplers in the future.



One more thing; the resin stirrups supplied in the kit were replaced with Yarmouth Model Works 12” double angled leg stirrups (YMW#213). These are etched metal and way more durable than the resin parts. I’m really pleased with how they look too!

Thanks, Mark

[valenciajim]

I spent some time installing a freight depot to the layout. Here is what it looks like so far. I have to install the lighting and the remainder of the parking lot at the left end of the building.

[stevef45]

Dec 28, 2015 5:09:14 GMT -8 keiffer47 said:

Steve would you happen to have a photo and part number for the screens you will be using? I need to track down something to use on mine and I can't find any good overhead shots as a reference.

I'll have to dig it up.

[Gary P]

Wow, I am always blown away at the skill levels of our members! Love to see all of these great examples every week. THANKS for sharing!

[riogrande]

Was out of town during this weeks SFF. Great job and agree with Gary - excellent contributions.

I'll have to compare markfj's box car to the Rio Grande Pressed Steel box car to see if those would make a decent stand-in. The D&RGW Press Steel box cars had straight side sills like the example shown.

[danpik]

Finally got around to decaling the Bethlehem car Shops passenger cars I have been working on.

[12bridge]

Been getting lots done on the layout, such as this scratchbuilt Bobtail swing bridge.  Lots yet to do, but a major step.