Before... After: I tinted the windows and painted the interior the correct purple color. Now the cars don't glow like a Christmas tree any more
I like it. Um, can we get an pic of the whole car? Hmm, You just gave me an idea for something I'll have to add to my "maybe some day" list.
Don't think I've posted this one here before. It's a shot from the rural portion of my layout. The setting is circa 1941 and shows a coal load being spotted at the local coal yard by an aging camelback. NYW&B
An unexpected visitor from the Island of Sodor......... I wonder if Sir Topham Hatt knows he's missing.........
Five engine lash up up leaves San Antonio past Union Livestock Yards on the west side of town. The engines are: SD9/SD7/SD7/SD40/SD9; plenty of six axles. Slightly different view with Kelly AFB in the foreground.
Bill Bittner's motivated me to get off my butt and finish the freighter Beavercove, a C-3 launched in 1947. Here's an overall view, in my kitchen: Nothing's squared nor glued up yet, so the posts might be a little cock-eyed. I'm still working on the center island, where everything curves every which way. Notice the crown on the hatch, please! Some of the hatches are going to be open. Again, nothing is really straight yet. That's a 7/64" cross-brace drilled into 3/16" posts at the left. I got tired of them always being knocked off, so went for a stronger solution.
I was at the club today and saw these units for the first time. These are unpowered (not motored) F3 units used to clean track. You can see the cleaning pads below the fuel tanks. I saw them later with track power turned on the DCC layout and they are also lighted and have sound. Pretty clever, I thought. I presume that this way they can be used in any consist without further programming.
I'm in the process of repairing/replacing scenery that was torn up when I pulled up track and replaced it with unitrack. I took the opportunity to re-align track at the throat of a small yard and add a signal tower with a kit a buddy gave me last Christmas. Here's a pic:
The old 5x8 table is now dismantled and all shelves, furniture and various junk that littered the space has now been cleared out in preparation for the new 11 x 12 'round the room layout. Before: After: Tomorrow? BENCH WORK!
You might want to sheetrock that ceiling for dust purposes. Five sheets at most. Enlist a few buddies, and it can be done in a few hours.
Over on the A-board there'd been some comments in the past about the practicality of a powered car as a booster for some of the poorer-tractive effort steamers out there. The success I've had with the Tomytec mechanisms (TM05-,6,7) in the Whitcomb 65-tonner got me expirimenting. This is a custom-built replacement frame using stock Tomytec components that will fit inside the MDC/Athearn express reefer, or the Micro-Trains express reefer body. I'm well on the way to molding the frame in resin. With two traction tires, 8-wheel drive, and 8-wheel pickup, you can load it up with weight and just pull a ton with it. It yanked 32 grams in testing! It runs significantly faster than virtually every other loco in the world, so the next challenge is to balance some resistor values with the motor and try to slow it down to match it with some common locos. Not a concern with DCC though. I should have this ready by fall.
Interesting, Randy. BTW, it's OK to post a link so we can find the thread. I couldn't find it. I've got four LL GP-20s already decodered and ready to go under cheater box cars. These were the result of my project to put Bachmann F-7 shells over the LL mechanism. Since so many better running F-3s and F-7s came out, I'm just going to use them as cheaters under a 50' box car. I'll replace the side frames with something lighter.
I've made another vid, [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyxii3tqVH4]big street running[/ame]. Wolfgang
GDRMCo will be acquiring new motive power, in the form of EMD/EDi SD70ACe's. Unit No.51 will be named Townsville, which is where the headquarters of GDRMCo is (yes its a real place, google it, and no the PowerPuff Girls dont live there...)
