About a quarter century ago I bought a number of the brand new Kato Mikados. As with most of my steam locomotives I wanted to make them more railroad specific. First up was for the Santa Fe. I kit bashed a new tender to hang behind it using an MRC Berkshire tender with Con Cor six wheel Commonwealth tender trucks and an oil bunker. This was good enough for the time but I had plans. As soon as Kato stocked parts for the Mikado I bought another mechanism and shell along with other bits in order to do a proper job of giving it a makeover to closer resemble an ATSF mike. This allowed me to work on the upgrade while still running the original engine. Well, after modifying the shell with two large sand domes the project wound up on the back burner. Fast foreword a few decades and a pandemic to when I got tired of shuffling the box of parts around and decide to revisit the project. New technology now available was added at this time like a sunny white micro LED in the headlight and a DCC decoder. Now, what to do with the original mechanism and boiler shell. Hmm I guess the original tender was used on another project. (an ATSF Atlantic) I had a left over Bachmann Consolidation tender that I had replaced with a cylindrical tender on an SP locomotive. To the Bachmann tender I added Kato tender trucks and draw bar as well as an oil bunker and dog house. Voilà, a MoPac USRA heavy Mikado. Another of my first Mikados got the Southern Pacific treatment to look like a T&NO MK5. I added a cylindrical tender and changed some details. This one got a different tender, a kit bashed boiler shell and an extra driver set making it a 2-10-2. And finally, a pretty much stock Mikado with a few details changed and an oil bunker on the tender.
Working on the wheels of my Praxair truck. And a steam shot of my Athearn Genesis 2-8-2 with wooden caboose.
Good morning from cloudy and cold Northeast Ohio! Rain then rain and snow mix coming later today. I managed to finish up some cars this week: IMRC 1937 Mod AAR Boxcar kit, did not install roofwalk and cut down the A-End ladders along with installing Yarmouth Scale Models Sill Steps. Car was painted with Scalecoat II Boxcar Red #3 and lettered with Mask Island Decals. The Erie received several thousand of these boxcars in 1941, they rebuilt them sans roofwalk and cutdown ladders in their own shops in the 1970's. Car was in general service on the EL. Tangent Scale models PS 4000 CF Covered Hopper kit painted with Scalecoat II Black Paint and lettered with Herald King Decals. Car was used on the NKP hauling grain and fertilizer, one of the plants serviced was the Diamond Shamrock plant in Painesville,OH. Since I have not been going to the club recently, I have been going through my old pictures for new perspective shots and here is one with my Wabash U25B and GP35 in the industrial area at Madura Curve. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski
As the director of Utilities for a large hospital, we get a visit from one of those every week. We've been under contract with Praxair since 2010, before that it was Linde. I never really took note of what make the cab was, although I do recall at least one Volvo. We were usually too busy paying attention to the manuevers necessary to back the trailer in to line up to the fill station, and watching the gauges as they transferred. The NFPA requirements for delivery and transfer got much stricter over the years, and I really felt for the drivers. Because most facilities lease the tanks from Praxair, they're supposed to inspect your station for compliance before they can deliver, and are held responsible if they make a delivery to a non-complaint station. I wasn't too concerned about our station because we have a complete maintenance staff and perform our own testing and maintenance, but there are smaller facilities that don't have those capabilities and that adds a lot of work for the driver, who's usually put in a lot of hours over the roads already. Nice work!
A couple days ago I put together a video slide show of some of the best photos I have of my layout, it was fun and sometime soon I want to get some decent videos too. Here's the link:
Brad, that is one amazing layout you've got there! Some of those scenes appear real, well done! Video would be cool too!
Frisco passenger train crossing the Arkansas River Bridge on my N scale Boston Mountains Sub Division layout. Joe
From 08/1978 on my old N Scale road. The Arnold Rapido turntable was well made. It was motorized and the rails automatically aligned when stopped at a track. I still have it, though I doubt it'll ever see use again.
I like them too. I wish I had room for one on my planned layout, but there's just no way. If I ever have room for an addition, it'll be on the plan!
Here's a shot of mine. I wish I had made more room for a larger roundhouse, but this works for my layout. I still have to run feeders to the tracks inside the roundhouse, but the open sidings are all wired with mini slide switches. I turn the turntable by hand but I'll eventually add a crank to turn it.
Here is a very short Y-T video of my favorite area of our club layout. It should be as it is my area of work. Today was January "run day" so there is quite a bit of background noise - you may want to mute the sound. Hope you enjoy, Carl
Lehigh & New England ALCO’s are charged with moving a coal drag past the Water Tower. Power is Proto 2000 FA1 and FB1. Hoppers are Athearn RTR, Athearn Blue Box Kits, and Atlas. Caboose is Atlas Trainman. 1of 4