Another weekend is done as we are headed into the Summertime portion of our year. How did you do? As anticipated on Friday, I spent most of my time at the soccer fields this past weekend, so no modeling was accomplished. Like Mr. Beasley said in response to me on Friday, I will enjoy the time that Jared spends playing his soccer matches. He turns 14 soon and he is growing up quick. His soccer matches are done for a while so starting next weekend, I'll be back to some form of regular schedule. The two SD70's are ready for paint and work on them should resume tonight. So how about you? What did you accomplish this past weekend? Track work, bench work, or DCC, whatever you found your self doing, let us know! With pictures if you have them. We'll come back and meet here again on Friday the 14th and do it all over again. Until then... ​High Greens!
Mission Accomplished! My only plan was to fix the bit of defective trackwork, and since working on it I've been able to run my fussiest engines over it in both directions without a problem. The technique was old - get out the NMRA gauge and check everything. At first I was mystified and was about to flip the engine over and check its wheel gauge, but I carefull watched what was happening and discovered the problem. It was one I'd never seen before. The turnout in question is a Walthers #4 or #5. This turnout diverges sharply enough that the straight point rail ended up being out of gauge at some point. I just bent the point rail a bit to give it some curvature to match the diverging rail, and the wheels stopped popping off the track. I continue to add details to the carfloat scene, and this time I took some pictures. Looking in on the carfloat apron with the carfloat itself somewhere out on the bay... I put some sand under the apron, to hide the foam behind it and form a dam for the Envirotex which isn't poured yet. There are a couple of holes in back of it, for the Tortoise throw rod and the power wires for the track, and also one beneath the right dockside where the wires for the headhouse light run through. So, I want to keep the "water" out of that space. When the carfloat gets to the dock, it looks like this: Since last week, I got the apron aligned vertically, so the carfloat just slips right in and matches up with the alignment pegs. You can see the hoist pulleys and counterweights in the top photo. I don't have a problem with changing water levels, so once I got the level where I wanted it I cut foam blocks to put beneath the apron for support, so I don't depend on the cables and alignment pins like the prototype has to. I also cleaned up a bit under the layout, and found the pilings I'd bought at Springfield last year. I've installed those to the left and right of the apron. No photo of them yet, so there will be an update. Don't worry. You won't have to reboot your computer for this one.
Been forever since I've done much modeling, and this really isn't anything earth shattering (and actually just "assembling", not modeling) but I figure I would post it anyway... Noticed on Fox Valley Model's Facebook page that the latest run of Trinity RD-4 coal hoppers is on the way. This includes the TXUX Silver and Black scheme, some of which I have on order. They will run with my earlier purchase of FVM TXUX cars in the all-black scheme, as they ran (and continue to do) on the early "Big Brown" coal trains running from the Powder River Basin to a TXU Energy plant in Texas. So, my model of this train will run as an empty, for no other reason than I needed a couple of empty coal trains to offset the loads and I thought that the elaborate/intricate internal bracing included with the models would make for a nice looking empty car. Alas, despite having had the first TXUX cars for several years now, I had never bothered installing the bracing. So, I figured that since their mates were on the way I should probably try to get that done. So, I went about installing the bracing, which includes 11 braces per car, and I currently have 7 of the RD-4's. So, installing 77 of them inside an n-scale hopper is akin to playing the old board game "Operation", but I did manage to get the process down pretty well by the time I was done, so the 12-pack of the new run I have on the way should be a much quicker project. Here's a (very poor, apologies) photo of the results. I think I will do a short write-up once I get the others here and can setup for some better photos.
It looks like you got a lot more done than I did. I had planned on doing some model railroad work this weekend, but with recent rains, my 2 acre lawn was about to turn into a hay field, so that took care of Friday. Saturday I go talked into going to a car show. One of my hobbies is restoring classic cars, so there went Saturday. Sunday, that's NASCAR day. By the time the race was over, I did manage to get a little work done on a laser cut building, but not much. Guess I really got nothing done, but I did manage to have a couple of beers. Does that count ?????
Saturday was IndyCar night, Sunday is F1 day, Monday morning before 9:00am is cool enough in the garage, so I went ballasting....
Yea , I miss the CAMRA days when , if you did not get bashed , ya weren't trying hard enuf ... more than one went into the Dairy at Meridian ID on Sat nite ...
Looks like a productive weekend! Great job on the car float Mr. B! It looks great and the photos really set the scene. Great work everyone. Get ready, Friday is coming!
Got moved home after 4 months TDY in Charleston. So hopefully this week I'll get to run something . . . once I clean the tracks.
