Nice work, Tom! Yeah, those things alway seem to happen around midnight. Seeing something like that in the mirror will sure wake you up, though! We have a scrap place around the way who usually loads 52'-5" cars to the brim and they're heavy. Sometimes a 65' car sneaks in and it's ridiculous. There's no spring travel left. I'm not sure how they don't get bad ordered. Very many of those trips and they'll end up looking like your NS car!
added a compound air pump to a 0-4-0 and a second air pump to my articulated. A old junk Bachmann N&W J gave up it pumps for its brothren
I built most of this kit this week. I upgraded it to Kadee couplers and steel wheels. One side looks good. The other I managed to put a big fat fingerprint on, and then removed most of it. Eventually, weathering may hide my booboo. Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk
Not exactly what's *on* my workbench but what is now *next to* my workbench. I bought this two-sided, rotating pegboard from our local JCPenney that is closing. I originally thought that it would be used as a part of our church Welcome Center, but now that it's here, I kind of like it. Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk
Well, I have a workbench. Built it a couple weeks ago, right now it has dozens of unbuilt kits, parts and tools on it after I unpacked two boxes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Great modeling guys, I try to keep up, but sometimes its more coyotes than this chicken can take care of. Pastor John, I have not only left finger prints, but some DNA on my projects LOL, a little weathering and it will be fine. I like that rotary peg board too. Thanks Ryan! Railmix, you have some unique modeling and ideas on your MRR, I enjoy seeing your progress. RGW1, That is a very nice looking Aux water car, a neat idea, and concept. RGW Mike, I just dream about having the time, resources and people, you do for a large project like yours. Great job. GP30, I have followed you MRR projects as I can, very impressive skills. I actually got some modeling in today but no images tonight, maybe tamale (as my friend says).
I am working on installing Soundtraxx Econami in a Hallmark Brass F7 A-B, factory painted in SP Black Widow. Soundtraxx oval speaker in the B and iPhone 6 speaker in the A. Also woking on adding a motor and fan blades to an Athearn Blue Box GN rotary snow plow.
I'm slowly collecting the cars for a typical grain train of the last days of the Katy here in Texas. After the Rock Island went bankrupt in 1980 the line from El Reno, Oklahoma to Fort Worth, Texas eventually became the Oklahoma Kansas Texas Railroad. OKKT did things pretty much like the parent Katy but with a little less flair. I've wanted at least one OKKT car for some time and I thought the Evans 4780 covered hopper would be a great fit for this train. After giving up on finding an undecorated ExactRail Evans 4780 covered hopper, I decided to instead do a quick strip-paint-decal job. The model was originally decorated in Erie Western white, so I stripped it with 91% isopropyl alcohol in a gallon size bag, cleaned it up and primed it with Tamiya Fine Surface primer. Next I mixed up some green paint using ExactRail's MKT Evans 4780 hopper as a guide. Some Testors Beret Green and Model Master Willow Green mixed about half and half seemed to get fairly close. Turns out I broke part of the train line so I made a new bracket out of styrene rod and bent a replacement bit of 0.012" wire. Good as new. Finally I applied Circus City decals to the model, settled them down with Micro Sol and Solvaset and let that dry. The little Evans logo on the OKKT car actually came from a boxcar data set from Microscale. I didn't have a proper Evans logo like ExactRail used on their car, but the Microscale decal seems to fit in just fine. Anyway, after the decals were finished I shot some Krylon 1311 matte clear on the model and called it a day. Weathering will come later.
Not MY workbench, but the Illini Railroad Club is making progress on our new project. We lost the layout a few years ago because the residence hall it was in had heavy renovations planned. They gutted the whole building, so the layout is gone. We are relegated to a closet in the Civil Engineering laboratory now. Last year was spent recovering and reorganizing, so we are now a Free-Mo club. They built some modules at the end of last year, so now we are building a cart to transport them. Hopefully we can get it done before Thanksgiving break next week. Here is some plywood and some random wood pieces: . Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is an Athearn caboose I built like 30 years ago, and the paint was waaaaay too Orange. So, I cleaned most of the weathering off, and repainted with a more correct shade of Orange. I took the opportunity to do some mods to the end rails, found the smallest brass angle I have ever seen, soldered some brass wire handrails to them, and attached. Painted some clear decal paper and laid them over the window plugs, to match photos I have seen. Also used an MDC cupola as it is a little closer to right. Also used an old Yellowstone axle generator. Also used clear and red lights on each end either end can be lit up, here it is as the D&RGW 01414.
We got our module cart done Friday night, so we had to do a photo shoot with it. This photo is from the third floor with the gantry crane in the background. This photo shows the back of the cart, those metal brackets prevent the modules from being pushed out the back. The front then has pieces that fold down to lock the modules in. The cart is about 6 feet tall, but it can split in the middle to allow it to be loaded into a truck or van. The top half is self-contained with a bottom and top piece of its own. Each half holds 4 modules, so we can have a maximum of 8 per cart. Right now, we only have these 5 modules, but we are in the process of designing some more modules that combine to form a big interchange. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I love that caboose, Tom. Hard to believe it started off as an Athearn blue box model. Weathering is spot on.