Its Monday 3-27-06, Weekend modeling accomplishments!

[Tompm]

We survived our Girl Scout New York trip. We are still sore and tired. We visited the Statue of Liberty. We were supposed to go to Ellis Island but we did not have the time as the lines to get on the ferries were very long and we waited about an hour. We also visited Times Square at night and took the girls to the Toys-R-Us store where they rode the Ferris wheel. On Sunday we attended a children’s play at a small repertoire theater and visited Rockefeller Center. We rode the trains to New York from Philadelphia and while in New York we rode the subway quite a bit. Coming home was our only bad experience as the NJT train was late and missed our connection at Trenton by a minute. The SEPTA train did not wait for us to get from one platform to another. That forced us to juggle our arrival home and get rides for everyone from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.

I did some modeling on Friday evening. I began adding number decals to the Atlas ARHS special run two-bay hoppers.

I tried posting earlier this morning but could not access the site. Now I am finally getting back on the computer (aka I passed out for a couple of hours as I am still recovering from the trip :D Time to find the Motrin.)

[Zephyr]

The weather was finally nice enough for me to do some outdoor painting! I got started on two SPSF behemoths: a DD35 and an AC6000. I had to put a coat of SP letter gray on the DD35 to get rid of the Union Pacific paint scheme. Then I put on some SF yellow on both units.

The DD35 originally was UP 77. It's an Athearn dummy kit I picked up for $25.
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/3540/img39402jw.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/2876/img39414ht.jpg

The AC6000 is Broadway Limited Stealth Series. This will be my new flagship.
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7710/resize9ps.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8527/img39441op.jpg

To come later this week/end: SP scarlet red and engine black + decals!

[r_i_straw]

I had a good time working with the Boy Scouts on the Railroad Merit Badge program out at the Houston Railroad Museum. We had about 15 Scouts. Great way to recruit rail fans and modelers. :D

[Mark Wilson]

Weather wasn't good enough to work on the house this weekend (too cold and spotty showers). So I helped my N scaler friend continue work in installing subroadbed and track on Saturday. And got some work done on the riverport retaining wall in Sunday evening. Still need to do some spot weathering to highlight individual boards, but at least it doesn't look like a bunch of cut up Starbucks coffee stir sticks anymore!

http://www.railimages.com/albums/markwilson/aal.jpg

[okane]

I spent most of the weekend planning out the layout and rying different layout configurations on a test area.

Replaced the couplers on 10 CC Passenger Cars, after all that they still do not run without uncoupling, so thay are back in their boxes waiting for the scrap heap.

Got to run some trains on my non permanent door size layout. Well a little bit of fun anyways.

[Powersteamguy1790]

I finished two lasercut building kits and also managed to install decoders in two steam loco's.

Stay cool and run steam...... graemlins/cool.gif :cool: :cool:

[MOPMAN]

Well I didn't get as much done as I had planned what with a large family dinner Saturday (w/kids and grandkids) and the NASCAR race Sunday. I did however get some of the fascia installed and de-sprued the walls and silos for test fitting on the grain elevator.

[r_i_straw]

Originally posted by okane:

Replaced the couplers on 10 CC Passenger Cars, after all that they still do not run without uncoupling, so thay are back in their boxes waiting for the scrap heap.
What coupler are you using? Some of my favorite reliable trains that I run for NTRAK shows are made up of Con Cor cars with Unimate couplers. They uncouple very rarely.

[Pete Nolan]

I was hobbled a bit with a jammed ankle--nothing serious, but limiting mobility for a few days. So I took a seat and worked on my new minesweeper. Since I had a lot of time, I put on a lot of detail, and finally achieved that incredibly cluttered look of working ships. You wanna get from the bow to mid-ships? First you have to jump over the breakwater, about 30 inches high. Then you snake your way past the bridge--the plans show all of 20 inches of clearance. This is fun stuff for me.

[okane]

Russell

What coupler are you using? Some of my favorite reliable trains that I run for NTRAK shows are made up of Con Cor cars with Unimate couplers. They uncouple very rarely.
I went to my LHS, and they sugested that I switch the trucks to Micro Trains 1017-s Adjustable Passenger Trucks to replace the CC ones. Thats what I did and they seem to be worse then the CC trucks and couplers.

[marty coil]

Finally was able to get decals for a couple Pacific Great Eastern 'hacks'. Not sure if this caboose was a 'drover or baggage caboose, or both.......

http://www.mynscale.com/images/Galleries/martyscustomn/11/000_1423.jpg

[N_S_L]

Marty, excellent work as always! :cool:

[r_i_straw]

Originally posted by okane:
I went to my LHS, and they sugested that I switch the trucks to Micro Trains 1017-s Adjustable Passenger Trucks to replace the CC ones. Thats what I did and they seem to be worse then the CC trucks and couplers. Oh yeah, been there done that. The MT passenger trucks have way too much slop in the "T" shank coupler mounted in the snap plastic coupler pocket. Those coupler parts work OK in the tiny metal clip in some aplications but not in the passenger truck pockets, especially on longer trains. They tend to ride up over each other, even the newer ones with "Reverse Draft Angle" on the knuckle face. One quick fix is to flood the coupler pocket with super glue and freeze the whole thing up and make rigid dummy couplers out of them. If you don't have tight curves that will work. I usually put Unimate/Red Caboose medium shank couplers in the Con Cor trucks and replace the wheels with Intermountain 33 inch passenger wheels. I have also used the older Kato couplers but they are no longer available. If you want to keep the MT trucks you can always body mount MT 1023s.

[okane]

Russell

Thanks for the heads up, how difficult where the Unimate couplers to install, I will look into them as well as the MT 1023's

[Powersteamguy1790]

Owen:

The unimates would definitely solve the uncoupling problems.

Body mounted MT # 1023's would also work if your radii aren't too sharp.

I used Unimates on some Kato F-7's that work very nicely.


Stay cool and run steam..... graemlins/cool.gif :cool: :cool:

[ March 27, 2006, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Powersteamguy1790 ]

[r_i_straw]

Originally posted by okane:
how difficult where the Unimate couplers to install, They twist in to the Con Cor coupler pockets the same way the old couplers twist out. Use the same springs.

[okane]

Thanks Russell, I will give those a try

[Sten]

Originally posted by okane:
Russell

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> What coupler are you using? Some of my favorite reliable trains that I run for NTRAK shows are made up of Con Cor cars with Unimate couplers. They uncouple very rarely.
I went to my LHS, and they sugested that I switch the trucks to Micro Trains 1017-s Adjustable Passenger Trucks to replace the CC ones. Thats what I did and they seem to be worse then the CC trucks and couplers. </font>[/QUOTE]I've got some C&NW bi-levels that had the 'clip pin' type bolster and when I changed them the Microtrains, the bogies had too much 'yaw' in them and the cars rolled over, so I drilled the hole out so I could fit some styrene tube into it, glued it in with some pieces of flat styrene on the inside of the car for strength and filed it flat, then after it dried drilled the styrene tube for the mirco trains bolster pin
and now the cars run superbly

[BNSF7173]

Well, JTW did the Rockford show, lots of traffic smile.gif but nobody was buying :( Rockford is in bad times so I was not surprised. We got to meet Slambo and they Guys from The Capitol City eNgineers. They have a nice group of members and the module and custom paint work seen was excellent graemlins/notworthy.gif I wish they were closer, would love to invade their modules with some old Northern New England stuff graemlins/223.gif Also started planning my rail fan adventure in Galesburg by buying a DVD on said topic. Good weekend.

[traingeekboy]

my progress always seems to end up on monday night and tuesday night. It is amazing how much layout you can get done by working for maybe an hour at a time BTW.

I bought a switch and laid more cork this week.

Current plans are to buy atleast one more right hand switch so I can complete the reverse loop area of my layout.

[kmorris]

I got caught up on some decoder installs that I have put off for weeks.

Marty, nice job on that caboose!!

Kevin

[YoHo]

I got some plaster work done on the mountains. It's mostly done and ready for paint.