Weekend Photo Fun June 4, 2010

AAAAAHHHHH! Nothing like "Cat Whisker" FT's. Except maybe SSW Black widows. Wonderful photo!

Have a good one,
Wolf

 

This is probably under false pretenses. It is actually "too late for last weekend's phopto fun."
I finished my Spring semester load the second week in May and thought I would have some time to work on the layout for the first time since New Year's. But my wife wanted me toi work in the garden, and we wanted to take a short vacation visiting a friend in Houston. I needed some track and that meant a trip to Ben's.
I finally got some track laid on Demara Yard but not in time to get a photo until Tuesday. Demara Yard is the open staging on my Karankawa "Island Seaport" layout based on Santa Fe in Galveston. Demara will be inconspicuous behind two other yards, a Santa Fe yard in front and a port terminal switching yard in the middle distance.

Note at right the Imperial Sugar import facility on the background.




Disclaimer- track was glued down with goioey white stuff and wires dropped but not connected, gooey stuff needs cleaning, rails need cleaning. Don't know if it runs. Cars are just "posed."

 

Lovely work Russell and Kenneth - an impressive array of rollingstock!

Here's part of my version of the Maine Central's Calais yard, currently inhabited by Boston and Maine stock.
Loads of work needed yet.



Mike

 

Amtraks Mountaineer passes through Bluefield.

 

Mike, I love your scene...the lighting is what really sets if off for me.

I show a New York Central H6a 2-8-2 hauling a fairly undemanding load up the grade out of Seneca Falls.

 

Outstanding scene Mike! :thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up:

 

comissioned to do a car for my club.
actually did two

 

Cool pics this week as usual. I am hosting a few visitors today so I thought I would put a Spadra turn together to test (and teach) the new car card & waybill system. Here the yard engines are switching the turn while a westbound North Little Rock - Kansas City freight rolls through Van Buren.



Have a great weekend.

 

Mike, top shelf modeling as usual. Thank you for the inspiration. wow! :thumbs_up:

 

I love this scene, Mike, but your hill needs a guard rail...especially the way I drive!

 

SNFF 2010 06 05

Hello, all,

Here's my contributions for this week.

Couple of photos from the NMRA Pacific Coast Region annual convention, held in April 2010:


Tom Knapp's Nn3 master craftsmanship:




Guiseppe Ayamar's N scale diorama of Diablo Canyon on the BNSF Transcon in Arizona:



-----------------------------

Next, as a general model railroad public service announcement to all....

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you're invited to
come as a guest to next weekend's NMRA Pacific Coast Region, Coast Division Meet on
Sunday, June 13, 2010 at the:

Masonic Lodge
890 Church Street
Mountain View, CA 94041

You get to have great idea exchange, seeing and kibitzing with your fellow
Bay Area model railroaders and guests. I'll be there, and be happy to meet you.

There is no charge to come and visit us as a guest, and
the clinics may well be worth it to you to come on over:

Meeting Clinics

Learn more by seeing the Coast Division web site at:

Welcome to the Coast Division of Pacific Coast Region of NMRA

And other events such as the Model Contest / Show and Tell / Photo Contest and Switching Contest:

http://www.pcrnmra.org/coast/contest.shtml


=================================

We will have the following clinics:

10 AM - Developing a Web Site for your Railroad

by: John Sing, http://home.comcast.net/~j.sing

(a copy of the handout will be posted to the Coast Division Meet Clinics web site
above as soon as I finish it - when it's there, anyone may download.)

John Sing is back to deliver a clinic on developing your own Model Railroad Web Site.
Anyone will benefit, this clinic is designed for everyone - you don't have to be a Internet expert.
In fact, doing a web site.... it's a lot like designing a model railroad.

We'll take an entertaining, easy-to-understand look at the following :

1. What's possible with Model RR web sites? Who's doing what locally?
2. What should my "Givens & Druthers" be for my web site?
3. What are my web site options? (from Easy to Advanced). Lots of options.
4. What is my easy step-by-step list of things to do? Easy steps.
5. Examples / resources of what you can do today


http://home.comcast.net/~j.sing

You'll see many examples, including how the Coast Division quarterly web sites referenced
above get built.

Everyone can do this!

You can literally be up and running your own web page after getting home from the the Meet.
No kidding! We'll show you how.

(As a supplement, you're welcome to review John's previous clinic on Photographing Railroad Models):

http://home.comcast.net/~atsf_arizona/John_Sings_Photographing_Railroad_Models_John_Sing_v23.pdf




11 AM - Details Make The Difference and MORE!

by: Brad Lloyd

Brad Lloyd has presented numerous clinics on model railroading and detailing at the
National NMRA level as well as Pacific Coast Region Conventions.

He is a well known local and regional modeller, and he built two of the sections of the beautiful
Yosemite Short Line On30 traveling modular narrow gauge layout:


Yosemite Short Line

Come hear and see what Brad has to say about Detailing Makes the Difference!

Brad Lloyd lives in the San Francisco Bay Area but grew up and lived in other parts of the
US, before coming to California. He is in several local round-robins. HO is his primary scale, but he also
models in On30, and is a narrow gauge and short line modeler.
Brad's primary interest is the Denver & Rio Grande Colorado narrow gauge.



11 AM - Model Railroad Roundtable - by Jerry Littlefield
We also have our ever-popular Model Railroad Roundtable. Check it out, you'll
be amazed at the good ideas, lively conversation, you'll learn a lot and have fun doing it.
Don't miss it!

======================================

The price is right, so feel free to come by if you like.

By the way, the NMRA Pacific Coast Region has an online calendar of local Northern and Central
California model railroad and railroad events, check that out at:

PCR Master Calendar of Railroading Events

This weekend June 5 and 6th, for example, is the San Leandro Club's open house on Saturday
and Sunday, see the John Armstrong-designed Southern Pacific from Oakland to
Donner Pass in HO, including one of the tallest helix's in the Western US.

Check out the calendar.... some really great events out there to be taken advantage of,
if one has the time. The weekend of June 25th, for example, has *six* different events.
So many events, so little time!

Brought to you as a public service by the local NMRA Pacific Coast Region .
======================================

Hope this is helpful to all.

 

I'm back!

All outdoor activities canceled due to rain, so I declared this afternoon to be train time. A few weeks ago, Sears had a 1000W work light on sale, so I bought one. The lighting in Mike's pictures is so amazing, I thought this work light might be useful. I spent the afternoon playing around with the light, and came up with some pictures that I think are pretty darned good for being taken indoors.

For this one, I pointed the work light directly at the layout, giving a convincing sunset look. I'm going to try some more of this.


For this shot, I pointed the light at the ceiling, with each of the two lamps aimed away from each other. This gave me a pretty effective ambient light that filled the room. The colors in the photo actually look like they do "in person".


This last one is my favorite, possibly the favorite of all the pictures I've taken. I aimed the light at the wall above this scene, which really made the sky look believable. The autumn colors just pop, I was very, very please when I saw the results on the camera. The two trees are constructed from floral wire, Polyfil, and ground foam, and I think they look fantastic in this shot.

 

Wow I love that canyon!
Tracy that last shot is brilliant:thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: I'm put off by a lot of autumn scenes, but not that one. The lights open up all sorts of possibilities, as you know.

Thanks Crandell, N7CZ, Geared Steam and Candy for the comments on my photo!
Crandell I like having the road climbing up to the bridge - it casts a really nice shadow when I lower the light on the stand.
Candy there's no guard rail in my reference pics but I think my road is steeeper, so I suspect you're right :tb-biggrin: although I'll probably ruin it by plonking the camera on it.

Mike

 

Tracy, that seems to be the problem with most pics...not enough light. You seemed to have nailed it.

 

Light

If anybody's interested, this is the light that I'm using. I picked it up for $19.99 about a month ago. It's incredibly bright, and tall enough to put the light over my head (no photographer shadows).

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_... Lights&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a

 

A mundane Monday? NOT!

It had been a mundane Monday. The morning south bound passenger run had just arrived at the Erie hotel. The yard job was working Dunkirk Yard, sorting a string of inbound cars just off the Erie railroad. The yard crew had just tied on to the string of in bound cars, pumped up the air and began to pull the string to far end of the yard. At first the cars began to groan and creek a bit, but shortly there hesitation gave way and old No. 7 a 4-6-0 had them moving freely with just a slip or two of the drivers. They had come down about mid way in the yard, a bought parallel to the Erie Hotel. When we herd the air dump, then old No. 7 gave a groan and a lurch and then slid to a stop. The fireman picked him self up from with in the tenders coal well, The engineer who was shaken a bit snapped to his feet crossed the cab to the fir mans side and at quick glance down the rear of the train, he could see the fading dust ball in the air. It looked like about 10 cars back they had gone aground. The engineer set the locomotive brake and collected the fire man and headed back to the derailed car. It turned out that an older Florence and Cripple Creek box car had derailed and broken a rail joint.

The fallowing pictures where taken when the maintenance of way train had arrived from the other end of the line 3 hours latter.

Note that the carne and boom tending car are completely scratch built. Also note that the cranes boom lifts and lowers and so dose the hook.





The boiler room.




In a few short hours the derailed boxcar had been rerailed and the bad joint was replaced and the yard was back in business.

 

Here's a little photo from the Mogollon Railway. I am the new guy here, so I hope I don't offend anyone. This scene shows a large dog checking out Peach Head the cat, perched on the hood of an old Model T. The dog is being eyed by a large goose which is friends with the cat. Life goes on next to the Mogollon's funky main line.

 

Excellent scenes and photos, this week.

FM H10-44 pulling a cut of cars in the yard. DJ.