Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great Christmas and Boxing Day and got to celebrate as well as run some trains. Let's get started. Friday: Started off great. I slept in until 6:30 and got cleaned up and was able to finish the module leg project as far as gluing the assemblies together. I then set up the table saw and cut the 1/2-inch sheet to make the module side pieces. As I had originally thought, I was short one piece. I also needed one more set of end plates. Into town I went to pick up the needed material. Once home, I finished my work then worked on the side pieces that will accept the 2-inch carriage bolts for the legs. Setting it up assembly line style made it go faster and by that evening, I had three module kits ready for assembly. I'll pick up the 2-inch foam after the New Year. CHRISTMAS: Well things didn't turn out like planned. My father in NH is recovering from COVID, but my older brother picked it up on Christmas Eve and my daughter's future husband did as well. He has self-quarantined himself, so we changed our plans and had my son join us in going up to Angela's Grandma's for Christmas day. It was a nice relaxing day, and we enjoyed a lot of great food. My father-in-law loved the wall art that both Ang and I got him, a print of the classic F-150's and a Mustang Grill from a 1967. Fine art indeed! We finished the night just Ang and I letting the dogs open their presents and ours as well. I lucked out and got two new books on the Beatles that I look forward to reading as well as other items that I was grateful to receive. No train items this year but I didn't ask for much as I have what I need for now. Sunday: We were tired, so we mainly relaxed. I started a deep clean on the City Job modules and tried the track cleaning that I learned from Ron Marsh's YouTube channel. This involved cleaning all the rail with a clean cloth and mineral spirits. My track was super dirty, so it took many passes with the white cloth to get all the black gunk off. Once that was done, a thin layer of NO-OX-ID contact paste was applied by finger to the tops of all the rails. I cleaned the wheels of my BN NW-2 and tested the layout. Overall, the performance was a big improvement. I still have a few areas of stalls, but this may be due to the locomotive. I wish I could get a Keep-Alive in these tiny Kato NW-2s. If you're interested in this method of track cleaning, check out Rons-Trains-N-Things on YouTube and look up his track cleaning tutorial. It is very informative. Then before we knew it, the weekend was gone. So how about you? How was your Christmas and Boxing Day for our Canadian and UK attendees? I hope you all had a great weekend. This is the last full week of 2021 and a lot of us have this week off or at the least, this Friday off. That means we will assemble this week on Thursday the 30th for Weekend Modeling Plans. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
A 3 day weekend has come and gone already! Mine went about as expected. Plenty of Christmas activities all 3 days. Friday, we did that last minute Christmas shopping and the wife made a killer lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner! Did a little cleaning on the layout and touched up an item or two. Also found a Batmobile at Target while out shopping and found a spot for it in all the traffic on the layout. Saturday, was a fun day filled with presents, a golden roasted turkey and all the fixin's. We watched the Polar Express and A Christmas Story that evening. Our friends that were going to help me with the grill Saturday evening were not able to come. None are sick but one got exposed and found out Friday. With the mom in law and her sister here, no one wanted to take any chances so we'll plan to get together another time. Sunday was a lazy day. I made it down to the layout and changed out one of the trains to run, fired it up, sat back and watched. That was as far as I got. This will be a slow week so hopefully I will get to find some extra time to work on the layout again before the end of the year Hope you all have a great week!
I was able to finish weathering 3x sets of Kato 53’ articulated wells and the containers, and I made some progress on the remaining sets. I added some reflective stripes to five boxcars. And I helped my youngest daughter install passengers in her CN observation car. I’ve got tomorrow afternoon off so I’m going to stop by the Kato mothership in Shinjuku on my way to an appointment. Going to buy the last interior lights and decoders I need to complete my Metra rolling stock. Or at least until Kato releases Metra coaches with new numbers. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Friday, I weathered the rock cut behind the roundhouse and engine service facility. I simply applied a wash with craft acrylics to add a brown tone to the tree bark used for the rock. Christmas, I got an Ender 3 V2 3D Printer from my wife. I mostly avoided the layout that day. Sunday morning, I assembled the new 3D Printer, leveled the glass table and promptly scratched the glass and damaged the nozzle before I ever printed anything. So I ordered new nozzles and corrected the table leveling the old fashioned way. (Verified clearance manually throughout the top). Hopefully print something over New Years. Finally, this morning, I weathered the ties and glued down some ballast in the one scenicked area. Planning on ground cover and trees around the rocks tomorrow. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good morning all, Our holiday weekend went about as planned. Just my wife and I staying home with a few phone / face time calls with family in other areas of the country. My wife made a wonderful lobster dinner for us on Christmas eve, other than that is was very quiet. Just as well that we did not have to go out as it has been raining almost continuously for several days now. In between those activities I got out to the train room a few times and worked on building the last few turnouts I need. Almost done with 4 of the 5 shown below. 3/4 way through building the 5th one I realized I had built it as a right hand when I needed a left hand. No worries, I have plenty of materials to build another and I'll just have an extra right hand for a future project someday.
Hey All, I have been continuing the builds for several 1900s boxcars, using mods of Accurail 36-ft cars. I had this earlier version of a Frisco car (K4 Decals set) that I retrofitted with a modified underframe to have truss-rods and Tahoe arch bar trucks. Before: Underframe: After: Since this photo, I have added air hose details. Have a good week All, -Bob T.
Your era is rarely modeled and your work is truly outstanding. Looking forward to more updates and photos in 2022.
Well, over the weekend I managed to paint the third color on the 86' Hi-Cube and the second color on the NSC 4550CF Covered Hopper, and I got about 90% of the decals done on the 86' Hicube and 50% on the covered hopper. I also continued work on building another 86' Hi-Cube along with starting on a NACC 50' RBL. Rick Jesionowski
After about a month hiatus, Moose finally managed to finish decaling & clear coating the MoW cars, as well as paint and install their trucks & wheels. Now for the fiddly bits: Completing the boom crane assembly with its wee "cable", painting and installing the teenie tiny brake shafts & wheels, and attaching the roofs...
Family and Christmas filled our weekend, so not much done railroadwise. Did connect temporary power to the oval of track on the new layout so that I can run a train as I plan my next step. The oval contains a very important Kato crossover on the backside of the layout and it seems to work flawlessly.
Had a great Christmas weekend with family and friends. Yesterday cleaned up the train room a little, plus spent time tuning some cars out of the "bad order box". HOWEVER, the weekend continues as I do not have to go back to the office until Tuesday next week. So this week I will definitely be splitting time between the trains and taking down Christmas decorations. Have a good week all!!
Even though I had the full week off I didn’t get as much done as I wanted. I kept getting interrupted and side tracked. I was able to fijj my ish installing seven blue point switch machines. And went back to work on my thunderstorm effect. I found a small problem with the sound effect and ordered a new one. When that arrives I will be able to install that as well. Christmas I did as planned. I ran a few noisy trains. My wife got me the BLi rolling thunder system. Since I have 11 locos and 2 more on preorder with the rolling thunder in them the system will work great. I am already please with the effects. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I managed to do some preparation of components from a gondola kit. Scanned a few slides. Filed a new train order for my collection. Worked Christmas, so otherwise did not feel highly motivated.
Good day to Y'all Hope Y'all had a wonderful Christmas With 5 days off, I managed to get my F7 project just about done. They need a final clear coat and a few details added as well the window "glass" This is the last set of this project. I made a model of every class of F3 and F7 the SP had (One set for each class). Not including the T&NO and the Cotton Belt - that is next. Y'all have a great week, Wdolf
Isn't this fun! Christmas and trains. Saw most of my family on Christmas day. Two grandkids out of town and son under the weather. I have just done a bill of material list for the last boxcar. We came in at fifty-eight parts. What a relief! The above results are great! All have more safe holiday fun.
Besides messing around moving mock up scenery, buildings, etc.. finally got the nerve to paint an area with that cheap 50 cent Wally World paint and I'll be darn, it looks pretty cool. Need to enlarge the area, me thinks? And gonna try it on the roads too, maybe? Getting tired of looking at that Black base that I painted the foam base. Maybe black was a bad idea, maybe not? Finally more than one color, geez!
We had our usual small Christmas of my wife, our daughter, and son. My wife and I are only children and as such we don't have much family left nearby. I do have relatives in Florida, Ohio, California, and Alaska. We exchanged our gifts and had our traditional Christmas dinner. The wife is feeling better and we will see what the doctor thinks tomorrow. For Christmas my son got me Walthers Merchant Row II and Merchant Row IV kits. My daughter got me a NCE Starter set. She was not able to find the recommended circuit breaker so I will have to find one. Give my reputation with electricity of sparks and smoke I am not playing with this until I have some protection. I continued inventorying my unbuilt kits and unweathered rolling stock.
Very nice haul. And quote, "Given my reputation with electricity of sparks and smoke I am not playing with this until I have some protection.", Amen to that, I'm with you. Every time I go near a DCC locomotive, things bad happen, when I attempt to work on them
