First accomplishments of the year! Hope you all had a happy and safe New Year. Lets pray for a better 2012! On ward! My weekend was extremely productive. Sunday, I called the care taker and historian who over sees the Potter Place stations, general store and all the artifacts. My brother, dad and I got the final measurements I needed, then we met with Pat. Not only did she have pictures of what PP looked like during the era in which I modeled, but she had pictures that showed the town at the turn of the last century. She has been nice enough to scan these and has already emailed them to me. She spent over three hours showing us the pictures, original survey maps and even blue prints for the station. That will make scratch building easier! Monday, I spent the day with my parents researching the Concord & Montreal line of the former B&M, now Pan Am, New England Southern and Hobo RR. The line is still used and is in good shape. I found a lot of stations and cool artifacts, so some time this week I need to upload all of those. No trains unfortunately, but a fun weekend none the less. So how about you? How is the start of your 2012 going? We got a big show coming up here in the North east in a few weeks. The Amherst Society is hosting their BIG Train Show in Springfield MA. If your within 8 hours of this show, you should make plans. Next to Galesburg RR Days, this is my favorite. Leave your responses below, pictures if you have them and we'll do it all over again on Friday the 6th. High Greens & Happy New Year!
looks great. i always considered building a winter layout but thought (and still think) it is way more than what my skills allow.
That's what I once thought Sandro. Mike Dannemann's method in Jan/Feb 07 NSR mag is super easy. I find that the snow allows the scenery work to be very basic, and the detailing minimal. The rocks only need to look good on the vertical surfaces the snow wouldn't accumulate on. As paraphrased in the mag article, it's hard to mess something up in scenery that cannot be corrected or reversed.
Took about two years to accumulate parts and do a low-priority job, but I finally moved this off the back of the workbench. Easy would have been to just dump an Intermountain SD45-2 out of the box. 'close enough'. But as I have a relatively small roster and time to lavish on individual units, this one got the full treatment as a designated lead unit, heavy utilization: 1) Trade the Intermountain SD45-2 mechanism for a Kato SD40-2, grind the frame to fit, so that it MU's flawlessly with my other vintage Kato SD45's and U-boats. (and made another forum member equally happy for the swap!) 2) Tear the body apart, removing handrails and stripping paint off. 3) Repaint in Floquil, and Microscale decals 4) Put on BLMA drop grabs 5) Replace all handrails with brass wire 6) Redo all windows, add crew 7) Put in a Richmond Controls lighting package with Stratolite strobe Pretty much took the Easy Button and smashed it to pieces.... but to me, it's worth it, as this is a signature locomotive and the 'Queen of the Fleet' if you are modeling summer of '72, these were just delivered, and are one of three locomotive types that I have in semi-gloss finish - unweathered!
This weekend, I mostly cleaned up the storage area and work bench. I had kits strewn all over every flat place and the floor, so that it was even hard to walk in the area. I placed everything back on a shelve and re-arranged the workbench so I had room to work. Unfortunately a lot of stuff ended up in the spray booth area, and I will have to clean that before doing any more painting. I also prioritized a number of ongoing projects for completion and did put new wheels and couplers on a Bowser H21 Hopper and worked on completing some old MDC C&O hoppers. Rick J
I assembled another section of the DCC buss I am installing on the facia of my clubs HO layout. One more coat of Polyurethane and it will be ready to install Wednesday evening.
My big accomplishment for the weekend Hemi already added to the "Modeling photos of the week" thread. But it is cool, so here it is again (getting my Gulf Station all wired up) And, I create a New Years video showcasing the accomplishments of the year [video=youtube_share;rB50JsIxnhE]http://youtu.be/rB50JsIxnhE[/video]
Modutrak ran our first ever ops session on the modules, Sunday. Highlight of the day was the three Hiawathas all meeting at New Lisbon.
Lets see. Well, Saturday morning I finished off the second half of Dirt and Grass rows for the Vinyard scene at the club. Then I was pretty quiet on the modelling front till last night when I put together an old E&C shops Golden West Smooth side Wood Chip car. I also did some surgery on 2 McKean 62' centerbeam flats. One needed it's couplers remounted correctly. The other had been assembled with no weights. So I sliced some of the bottom detail and slid some small steel planks in. The unweighted Centerbeam and the Woodchip car were part of the haul I got using my year end Bonus. I also got a New Old Stock Kato SD45 in Southern Pacific Paint (I wanted one in Kodachrome, but $75 for a Kato beats $90 for an Athearn) and an assembled MDC 62' Bulkhead flat in BC Rail paint. I am absolutely thrilled to get that car, because, in addition to being assembled and with Kadees, It is the exact paint I need to put log bunk modifications on just like PNWR currently uses. I also managed to start doing some organizing of the tool chest in the garage which needed to be done, since I couldn't find anything. The upshot of this was that I found a few model pieces floating around in the "Junk Drawer." and all the Airbrush and Air attachment pieces I'd been looking for for months. All that's left is to sort out all the random hardware I have floating around and then I'll move on to cleaning up the modelling supplies.
Ballasted about 4' of track and cut down the plaster castings for the bridge supports... other than that... nothing!
Added a shelf extension to add two tracks to my yard, and installed a shelf to hold my Zephyr and what-not. I also put down some additional ballast on the mainline, painted some more rail & tie, and started terraforming the WS risers on the left end of the layout. For me, a pretty busy, productive weekend! Untitled by BGTwinDad, on Flickr
I'm continuing with the Mooseport corner of my layout where the carfloat terminal will be. I had to finish the old mill canal that cuts across the port area, so that I could begin work on the cobblestone streets and girder-rail track that will run down to the dock. The canal is surfaced with Gypsolite and painted, but I won't be adding Envirotex for the water until much later. I'm off this week, too, so I'll have a couple of more days to measure out the car float itself, the apron and the approach tracks, so that I can start with the Proto 87 "Electric Avenue" girder rail and cobblestone street installation.
I've finally completed the installation of the front door on the Cab of my SD45X project. It swivels reasonably well. I then shot a little primer gray on for the photo shoot. All doors still swivel and closes flush. I'm quite pleased with the turnout of this so far despite braking the delicate lil' door twice. The rear door will be installed after the cab interior is done.
Do tell, how did you make the cab doors openable? I have seen static cab doors, but never ones that would operate. What scale?
