Sunday Photo Fun - July 5th, 2020

[SCL618]

I've never started one of these off, so here we go. Hopefully y'all aren't recovering from a glut of hamburgers, hotdogs and tater salad. Here are some images of passenger car projects constructed from Branchline and Walthers deconstructed RTR models. I'm hoping to get some SDP35 images uploaded soon which will ultimately be the next power project for a Seaboard Air Line era "Palmland" train. Not much attention has been paid to the Southeastern passenger trains which were so popular during the winter seasons from New York, Boston, and other cold locales. Once the power project is completed, work will begin on a Union Station Products sleeper, the Boca Grande, a Pullman built 5 double bedroom, 2 compartment, 2 drawing room sleeper.

I am modeling passenger, freight, and phosphate operations around the Boca Grande, Florida which is being documented on my blog - bocagrandeterminal.blogspot.com/

[valenciajim]

Those cars look great! I especially like the roof weathering on the Alabama River car.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July.

[nsc39d8]

Well it has taken me awhile to finish some stuff butt here are my latest projects.

First up is a matched pair of FP7's. Both are on Athearn Genesis drives I cobbled together with the new Highliners "one piece" FP shell.
At the Southern and N&W merger the FP7's were a group that had to be renumbered. Their numbers matched N&W SD40-2's.
Southern kept four for excursion service. Here are 3498 and 3499.







Next is a GP38-2 which is a P2K shell on an Atlas chassis. Southern's last order used trade in truck from older F's and GP's.

[fr8kar]

Those passenger cars are killer! Always love your models, too James. That was a good move putting that shell on an Atlas drive.

This week has been busier than most for me. Vehicle trains are back in full force and they haven't gotten any easier to flat switch, especially with new guys from the extra board who have just been recalled from furlough. We've been getting 12 hour days (sometimes longer) in the yard the past two weeks, so I haven't had much time to work on the GP39-2.

Fortunately, the work I have left do isn't very taxing and can be done a little at a time. I got the handrails bent and installed over four days and got it all painted. I need to add some details all around but especially on the front pilot, do some detail painting and of course add the decals. I think just rolling the model around in weathering powders would be a good start to getting it as dirty as the real thing, but that's a ways off yet. So far just some Tamiya panel accent in the grilles.

[SantaFeSammy]

Hi Gang! I haven't posted in a good long while and I don't really have any recent photos ready but I did shoot a video a while back - not long after the quarantine started.
It shows every train that typically runs during one of my op sessions.

[fr8kar]

Loved the video, Sammy. You got an upvote from me!

I really like all the equipment you have, especially those trailers. What's the story behind the ex North American trailer? I could certainly use a few of those myself. And the Martrac trailers are nicely done, too. It's really hard to pick a favorite out of any of your models.

The 9-198 was a treat! Those SD75Ms are mostly yard transfer power these days. The power on the Qs we'd get here in the late 80s looked more like your McCook vehicle train.

[SantaFeSammy]

Thank ya sir! I’ve made my own decals for a lot of my intermodal stuff.
The AXXA’s, IMEX, Alliance, and other various one offs - such as REAZ patch outs, and the mentioned NSZ ex NAVL 48’s. I used to see all that stuff back in the mid 90’s on the Santa Fe so I had to have it on mine, too.

[packer]

Added the last bits to one of the two intermountain cars with accurail end cages. I think it turned out pretty good.



Finished up this U30B. Added a gyralight in the nose, beacon, firecracker antenna, new cut levers (from atlas B23-7), a new horn, and a loksound 5:



Found two of these for a good price. One needs repairs so that’ll be fun:

[dti406]

Got a couple of new cars done this last week!



Atlas FMC 5077CF Boxcar Kit, painted with Scalecoat II Silver, White and a mixture of Big Sky Blue & ATSF Red Paints and lettered with Herald King Decals. Car was built in May of 1976 and was one of the infamous IPD boxcar fleet with many various colors and many unknown shortline railroads leasing them to rebuild the shrunken boxcar pool of the late 70's. Don't know how long this car stayed in this scheme as that light green lettering would sure fade in the sun.



Eastern Car Works kit of the PRR G26 65' Mill Gon, painted with Scalecoat II PRR Freight Car Red paint and lettered with Champ Decals. Car was built in 1931, one of 1,650 built and they lasted hauling steel products from the mills into the PC and Conrail days.



We were finally able to go back to the club last week, but with only limited attendance for each period that we were assigned to, as there is limited space for social distancing in the layout room. I took my new Rapido Ann Arbor FA-2's to try out with a number of the Ann Arbor, DT&I and Green Bay and Western cars that I just finshed to populate the train.

Thanks for looking!

Rick Jesionowski

[ChessieFan1978]

Here's a Bicentennial locomotive since yesterday was Independence Day

20180308_231805_wm by Matthew Fisher, on Flickr

[nebrzephyr]

Sammy, always love seeing your layout and operations. Wondering if you could elaborate on the construction of the slug mated to 1329.

Thanks. Bob

[valenciajim]

Jul 5, 2020 16:34:37 GMT -8 SantaFeSammy said:

Hi Gang! I haven't posted in a good long while and I don't really have any recent photos ready but I did shoot a video a while back - not long after the quarantine started.
It shows every train that typically runs during one of my op sessions.

Loved the video and have missed your posts. Thanks for sharing!

[SantaFeSammy]

Hello Bob!

Sure – that slug is a one of a kind rebuild by the Santa Fe Cleburne, TX shops – It was built from a wreck / retired UP GP20 so when I found a beat up P2K GP20 at a train show several years back for $15, I decided to see if I could give it a go. The build was relatively straight forward – and I added just enough parts to make it look right.
Prototypically, these two stay coupled together so I went the same route, by using dummy knuckle couplers that are glued together between the pair..
The GP7u slug “mother” is a modified Atlas Classic unit and it has the decoder and speaker in it with very minimal amount of loss of the factory weight, so it maintains its heavy pulling power.
The non motorized slug houses the extra large current keeper and also has LED’s for headlights. This is accomplished by 4 small wires that run between the units that look like MU cables.

[fr8kar]

Jul 5, 2020 19:10:04 GMT -8 packer said:

Added the last bits to one of the two intermountain cars with accurail end cages. I think it turned out pretty good.

I agree. Nice work!

[tom]

Completed a Penn Central 60' PS boxcar using an Intermountain undecorated kit. These were originally purchased by the New York Central but it took a long time to find a photo of one repainted into PC colors. Finally found one and when PC repainted the car they also removed the running board, and lowered the ladders and brake wheel which made modeling the car a lot easier. The Intermountain car also required that the sidesills be modified to match the NYC/PC car.

I painted it Scalecote PC green and lettered it with Microscale decals plus PCRRHS decals for more accurate numbers.



Since the car was repainted late in the PC era I kept the weathering light. I also replaced the Intermountain cars with Accurail trucks.



The roof received a little more grime.

[riogrande]

Nice. Is there a prototype photo we can see?

[tom]

Jul 6, 2020 18:31:11 GMT -8 riogrande said:

Nice. Is there a prototype photo we can see?

Thanks. I harvested the photo off of Ebay and do not have a copy of the photo. Here is a photo of one of the cars still painted in NYC colors though:

www.canadasouthern.com/caso/images/nyc-56508.jpg

[riogrande]

Thanks Tom. I like the PC worm logo scheme.

[nebrzephyr]

Sammy, thanks for the construction details and the "in progress" photos. As a Santa Fe/BN model, I appreciate the info.

Bob

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Nice set of pictures everyone, belated Happy Birthday USA!

[sou2601]

Love those Southern FP-7s. Nice work!