One of the easiest ways for a load is to take a small wooden block(could be square, rectangle, or odd shaped) and cover it with a piece of a plastic bag from the grocery store. Glue at the bottoms and then use small styrene strips(or wire) as straps securing the "tarp" to the load. JMS
No problem. Here is a pic(upper left corner). I also have some wood blocks glued underneath and a couple of chains to secure the load to the car. JMS
Work bench work load. I have quite a few things on my work bench. I have about 18 RTR DRGW SD40T-2's to weather up, and I am always building my fleet up for my freelance road.
That's quite an investment in motive power! It's funny how those thing accumulate! In just the new Locos I have here, it's above $1500.00 now, and I have a very modest roster! I'll bet they will be impressive when all are done!
Did some work on freight cars this last week! Intermountain Milk Car, with all the underbody detail including the extra air tanks for inclusion in a passenger train, piping, rods and rod guides. Tichy Anderson's Car complete with all airlines, grabs etc. All complete and ready for painting. Rick J
Do you bend your own grabs? If so, how do you get them to come out so uniform? No matter how I try, even with a jig, I can never get a set all the same.
No I don't bend my own grabs unless I lose one of the odd length ones, the Tichy kit comes with their grabs included, all I have to do is clip off the extra length and install. The long grabs on the opposite side I bend with needle nose pliers in place as I put them in. The Intermountain kit also comes with all the piping pre-bent and cut along with all the grabs, except the Chinese can't seem to tell the difference in grab lengths on some of the special grabs and I bent them in place also. The Rail Yard models kits requires me to bend and cut most all the piping and grabs. If you need grabs, Tichy sells there straight and drop grabs at 50 pcs for $3.50 and I use a lot of them where I remove the cast on grabs and replace with wire ones. They also sell their phosphor bronze wire in 10" lengths in a number of different sizes which I use for piping where needed. Rick J
Hello all! Hope everyone is well. So, a month or so ago, TB member Keith sold me a BN and a ATSF covered hoppers he found. They are Athearn BB and still had the old XF2 couplers. I replaced the couplers with Kadee couplers and weathered them up some. The BN cars had a stir up broken off and some scratches in the paint. To me, this is no problem. I made a new stir up out of styrene. Attached it and then painted the stir up and the surrounding area with primer grey. I also patched out the scratches with primer grey. It now looks like it has just come from a repair shop. I still need to do a little bit more weathering... and maybe I will add a "tag" to one of the hoppers. Enjoy! JMS
Hi John, those look great. Some graffitti would look good on the BN Hopper. No pictures yet, but I am working through my stack train bringing all the cars and containers up to show standard. This means dirty! I have also put a Tsunami Sound Car in one set, I plant to put a couple more in as I can. I have also started working on poerations on the Port Railroad, we have been operating some after a fashion but I have started a way-bill and car card system for the layout. As soon as I can get all the cards done we will start regular operations. I'm sure I'm like the rest of you all, I seem to have 10 different projects in various stages of work! Maybe someday I will complete some of them. Dale
A recent thread showing a gas station garage with a truck being repaired inspired me to build a scene on my 1915-1925 era layout, the Zalma Branch, depicting truck repair in the backwoods of Southeast Missouri. I built the Jordan truck last night and decided to model the engine being pulled. The wiring on the firewall is fairly close to prototype but the engine hoist is pure hillbilly. I have the hood and radiator sitting on the crate in the background. I just threw this together for a quick fun photo but I plan to build a more detailed permanent scene eventually. I get too many projects eating me alive.
Tonight I finished my Frisco caboose. It's a backdated AMB Laser kit with Tomar LED marker lamps. I used Athearn/Roundhouse all wheel pick up trucks to power the marker lamps.
