Oh I think it might work just but tape across section between rail grooves leave it open beyond outside rails and it will drop ballast at base of roadbed track which is what I do, I made mine from a 1.5 inch piece of tubing and put a piece of plastic across section between rail grooves leaving an opening outboard of the rails and it drop ballast to base of roadbed track very nicely, with a wing comb to keep ballast at a certain thickness or height. then just wet with alcohol and then drip diluted white glue with dish detergent in it onto ballast, at base of roadbed to hold it in place and I use grey ballast to match roadbed mixed with a bit of black and white. I use T pins to hold track in place while this is being done and remove them when done. For double track I use one with a different comb to fit between the two roadbeds.
I hope we can revive this tread. Lets share the little projects we are working on. This a shapeway Rail King, and its going in the Tropicana distribution center to switch cars.
Cool looking tower in wood! great job! I did mine in FUD material at Shapeways. It's 3D printed! http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/attachment.php?attachmentid=67816&d=1417629600
23 year project and still not done yet.... This is a project that has been on my workbench/mind for almost 25 years now... It does not exist in Z scale or real life... Its a self propelled high speed 350 ton capacity rail crane. It started in my senior school portfolio with the crude pen and ink and marker hand sketch of the blue crane. I had no clue about rail cranes back then, there was no such thing as the public internet and there was zero books on the subject in my school library... Boy does my ignorance show in that design along with the text description.... Not sure why I thought a 3 truck carbody was a good idea... But who knows, it was 23 years and many, many concept designs ago... The orange crane hand sketch was done back in 2003?... I had been involved in construction equipment design for several years and had even done some crane design... But I still dont know what I was thinking with a cable rigged crane... I think I had the right idea with the carbody and using the engine as live counterweight that could also extend out for even better lifting capacity. Outrigers are dangerously in the wrong place.... Big mistake there... They should be at the articulation points. And the boom would definitely not be resting on a cradle on the idler car... It should be unobstructed and held up by the rigging only. The final crane design is in full scale as you see it in CAD space. I'm busy scaling it down for Z scale right now.... This is built using construction equipment standards that I'm used to. I've never done a professional rail project before so I'm sure I'm breaking all kinds of rules. And in many areas I'm sure I have way over engineered it since rail equipment does not take nearly the abuse that earth moving equipment does... The overall width and height conform to the industrial Brownhoist 250 ton capacity cranes built until the late 70's. The crane does all kinds of stuff that I'll show in more detail when the Z gauge model is done... But it does easily fit a 1200 HP tier 4 diesel electric power plant (including cooling package, generator and single hydrostatic pump) that powers 8, 150 HP traction motors for high speed travel and pulling its own work train. It has a separate cooling system for dynamic braking for the traction motors, the electric hoist motors and electric slew motors (2 slew motors) to rotate the upper crane works.... The rest of the tricks it does I'll save and show at a later time....... Now its just a matter of finding the time to finish scaling the full size model down to z scale....
amazing engineering and design don't forget the out riggers all cranes need them to do their job safely rally neat looking
Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it! Almost done scaling it down and then its the tedious job of making a parts tree.... That's the no fun part....
ELECTROLINER !!!! 2 of the actually, Randy edit , I wasn't paying attention .. its not Z scale , its N
The next projects. Going to have a real multi disciplanary few weeks with the next projects Snowyriver by Shapeways EMD FT Stonysmith by Shapeways Bethgon coal porter (this will be a prototype for a big train of these if successful) Stonysmith by Shapeways NKP Dolomite containers Fannocreek Espee Woodchip which I picked up from Robert Fage a few months ago One of Gerd Kurz's Alco RS11 frets which I'm really looking forward to doing (The big Woodchips I got off him really look the part) And, Yes, the long saga that is the NKP Berkshire is going to get finished at last! It has been on the back burner as the stock for Shasta and the extension module have taken priority This lot should keep me busy for a while. I'm taking Cuyahoga to TVNAM in Staffordshire in June. This as an all American show that usually has a good selection of HO,N and O layouts on display and some traders who specialise in U.S outline models. Hopefully the FT might be finished in time for that and the Berkshire might have the front end pumps and detailing done. cheers Kev
