Happy early 4th. News this month. I missed the couple calls on my units. So Sunday I'm going down to pickup the GP40's and the Coal Hoppers. I'll get some photo's done hopefully while I'm out at my cousin's place. No track sorry but best I can do til a camera shows up. Not to go offtopic on HO, but what the hey.... 4 Walther's Goldline BN Coaches (They manufacture these for HO) for 20 bucks each. Had to custom order at a hobby shop but worth it. I mention that because I was out pricing Bridgewerks powerpacks. Not sure what the final inclination will be but I'm set on bridgewerks. GP40 Indepth reviews to follow this month and hopefully some U25B Detail parts.
GP40's. Where to start? The outstanding BN Paint Job, the fact that the switch cover comes in both dynamic or non-dynamic versions? First I want to start with the minor negatives. The handrails are thing and weak as I mentioned earlier. One of mine was bounced during shipping and it's hanging off to the side by a slight hair, going to correct that later. Next is the insanity of the plastic rain visors which only 2 units came with unless I missed something in the boxes. One already broke off during gentle attachment. So I'll be gluing that one on later tomorrow. But the positives: Prototype. From the reversing headlamps to the front and rear's red EOT lights, this unit is well designed. The exhaust grills have real brass hand rails covering them. Sadly this makes it hard to handle and carry. And while the unit could use with some weight add-on, the details make up for this. MU Cable Port in the front and rear, Walkway platforms that actually move, detailed Bloomberg EMD Trucks, Working coupler lift bars and brake hoses. Missing on these models are the snowplows but easily correctable via Ozark Miniatures. These units have the new ball bearing trucks and they run a lot quieter then the older ones. Sadly my transformer is showing it's age by slowing down when 2 locomotives are on the track together. But that's another phase. Even the grab Iron Ladders are well done on the rear of the unit. The time and effort spent on research clearly shows here and these units are great pullers. 4 of them can pull up to 200 cars. Overkill? Maybe. But still awesome. I'll go into sound and DCC Installation later when the time comes. But for now the 2-Bay Great Northern Vermillion Red Custom Run Hoppers. Just like I expect from the 100 Ton Hoppers, the metal grab irons are the thing that seals the deal for me. But very thin so handle it with the body. My hoppers also came with plastic coal loads, but as soon as someone makes a replacement version, I'll switch. On the downside, the wheels are plastic and the trucks are non-ball bearing. Not something I expect AristoCraft to still do this late in the game. No test pulls yet, will do that tomorrow. As for pictures, still no working camera but I'll try to use the blackberry instead. If not, hold on your hats then. It's like christmas in july! I love it! Yard cleared time to start planning the layout. the idea of an EMD GP40b is still on the planning list. Don't know if I want or not. But it was worth the wait for these units. Overall I'm happy with the purchase of them. Good Luck to RLD Hobbies in clearing their GP40 Burlington Northern and Great Northern 2-Bay Coal Hopper Custom Runs. Hopefully a BN Lurker will read this and head on over to check them out. Til the next update, Adieu~ EDIT: Well let me just expand on those sun visors of Aristo's... Their not worth the plastic their made out of. Seriously. So what I'm going to do, I thought I wouldn't. 4 Sets of Sun Visors from Ozark Miniatures will be next on the docket so I can finish those off.
Going to update a few things on the GP40's. I've got the blackberry photos taken, just need to transfer them via the data cable. I ordered the sun visors from Ozark miniatures. They'll be ordered on Friday (Their policy is monday's and friday's) and for me they usually take 3 days to arrive after shipping. And after cruising around looking for Miniatures By Eric G-Scale parts (G brand is out of production now.) I found some GP38-2 winterization hatches. So I said to myself, "Go for it." I had to phone that order in along side my RS3 winter hatches (3; 1 for the RS3 down the line and 2 for the FA-FB pair). I will not be adding the a/c units to the GP40's unless I can find them on a BN GP40/2/variant. Firecracker antenna's and strobes down the road. The snowplows may not happen as I'm not sure how it will work with the front ends. But I do know this, they have "Fake" Brake Hoses so I don't need to worry about that. Kadee's are going in so I can close couple them. Oh and I love the Canadian Dollar, I saved 4 bucks when I did the currency conversion with shipping. Woo.
PICTURES GALORE! I have them! Pictures! Finally! I picked up the Xbox Live Vision Camera for my 360 console and decided to hook it up to windows. Windows found the drivers, installed it and thanks to Cameroid website, I was able to use it to take photos of my GP40's, Coal Hoppers and D&S Coaches. 2 Threads for these. Let's start with the GP40's, the newest pride of my coal drag: Now the 2-Bay Coal Hoppers:
PICTURES GALORE! (Part Duex) These are the re-release of the LGB Durango & Silverton Coach & Combine. The Coach has a different name then the original. The Plan is to have the old combine & Coach and the new Coach & Full Baggage. So here's the long overdue pictures. Thanks Camroid!
Sunvisors have arrived. After test fitting them, I'll be picking up some Lock-tite Super glue or something stronger then my normal glue so they'll stay on. Engine Black is a bit too flat for me, so I'll be picking up a better black aswell. Within the week I'll have web cam pics of the project. Mind you only one GP40 will be the camera model since hauling them in front of the camera is a bit crazy. Next order of business is MU Cables for the front. I have plenty of close up shots to do this right. The Upper part of the cable will be layed on top of the Battery MU cable so it looks like it's attached to the walkway plate.
The GP-40 locomotives are real nice. I like the fact that they are NOT sequntially numbered which is unrealistic. USA Trains made this mistake with the Rio Gande SD40-2 locomotives which were 5378, 5379 and 5380. When USA Trains made the GP-30 locos they realized this mistake and made randon loco numbers that Rio Grande actually used, 3004, 3014 & 3017. Quick question though, didn't Aristo make Burlington Northern GP-40 locos and if so what makes them different from the custom run ones?
I've been told that Aristocraft Manufactured 2 of their own by mistake, or so the story goes. All I know is there's 2 other BN GP-40's out there and I'm out to find them. Overkill on the coal drag, but what the hey. Nothing official posted about the missing 2 can be found so It'll be through offline sources I go through. The difference will be the Production Stamp on the units. RLD's will say "Made For RLD Hobbies" and Aristo's will say "Aristocraft" on them.
Sunvisors Out of 4 stock sets of sun visors, only 1 set went on right, that's on Unit #3017. The rest of the GP40's are now wearing Ozark Miniatures Sunvisors. Painted in Engine Black and to be finished with a testors gloss black. Super glued on too. That's taken care of and a photo later tonight. So what next? Well sound, dcc and a strobe light, but that's down the road. The MU Hoses cannot be done because of the stupid MU Cable aristocraft has in the way. Snow plows? Maybe if I can rework the airhoses/Brake hoses. I think I just ran out of things to do here. Unless I think of something else.
Final Update for the month. July 30th my new Piko Rosenbach Station Kit (eBay sniped; story below) from the same person I got my Black Widow FB-1 from. But even though I paid less than half of Piko's Manufacturer Price of 160, It was the auction from you know where. I swear I must have been watching the auction from BN F7A 666 (Haha inside joke for any BN fan who remembers that cursed unit). 14 Minutes left in the auction and all of a sudden my Router's "Perimeter Alert System" notifies me of a hacking attempt. I have custom firewall software that gives me a quintuple firewall system with 128-bit key encryption. Shortly after that, my internet ceases to function. And not just "their server's overloaded." Youtube wouldn't play even though I had a video running in the background. It just stopped loading and streaming. I couldn't figure this out. So I pull up my pc's security software and I Notice a strange IP Address with a Moscow origin sitting on my router. Technically, that's not possible since I'm all the way in the US unless I'm being hacked and someone is basically haulting my router from allowing internet data to flow. So I yank the plug out of the router and plug it back in just in time for A) This rival bidder's software to lose it's choke hold on my IP Address, and B) 10 seconds left. I threw a 60.00 bid on the item successfully with exactly 2 seconds left. As I was tracing the intrusive IP Address, I found it's point of origin was fake. It linked me to another that was fake, and so on. Ghost IPs as they are called are what hackers use to hide their steps. In the end I believe this rival bidder who was pushing my auto-bid was hacking my router. But it didn't help. I still won the item. I paid 2 dollars more then my max auto-bid, but It's still cheaper and it's the station I want and will look good on my setup. This will not discourage me from using everyone's favorite, key word favorite, auction site. But it has shown me the flaws in my router's firewall system. Also for anyone who asks; Broadband internet is assigned static IP Addresses. They never change. My Computer's IP will always stay the same on broadband. Unless I switch to another broadband service and it'll get that services static IP. Dial-up is randomly assigned a different IP Address every time you connect. If for some reason you find yourself in my situation, disconnect your modem for a minute, then reconnect it. That will lose the lock on your computer's IP Address. Finally, The project for august is going to be the Station set. First thing's first though. Since I need the Rosenbach Switch Tower, Baseplates, and Nuestadt Waiting Platforms and I need them cheap, focus will begin on the station. I'm going to change up the trim colors. The base trim molding will be a darker sandy earth color, while I'm thinking a soft turquoise for the trim. While I'd like white with cascade green trim, I decided to go another route on this. My buildings will be wired for lighting and will have their own seperate power supply for them. Bridgewerks of course. I also picked up a micro level, T-Square and Wolfcraft Corner Hobby Clamps to make sure these buildings will become assembled right. As for figures, I'm keeping it to a combination of Preiser and LGB. July is ending with a big bang. Our storms weren't even a week removed before today's fire up. Til August when I can dry out.
