Is it me or is time flying by? I got up this morning thinking it's Monday. Maybe it's because I went to Church On Sunday, like most people do. Wiring project. It's trash day and the trash man woke me up as he and his partner went about their chosen profession. Usually that marks the fact it's Tuesday. Unless I don't hear them. Okay, I know I've already mentioned this. In the last picture I posted. The full dome is a Bbaakkmmaannnn, no I didn't stutter spelling intended. No love lost for Bachmann. To make it accepatable on my layout. I removed the previous lettering. That was easy. Over sprayed it with aluminum colored paint. Now it looks a little less gawdy. Painted the interior seats a Sun-tan color. Re-lettered it and converted it over to MTL knuckle couplers. I had to replace the wheelsets without discarding the trucks. That was a little iffy. Once done, wallah I have a sort of, respectable full dome. Not 100% accurate but as you've heard me say before, it will do, for now. The Erie Built's I acquired the result of trade off with a good friend. They look good on the front end of my Union Pacific mail train. The coal hopper's I purchased from a fellow model railroader at a train show. Held at the Orange County Railroad Museum, near the Riverside National Cemetery. Ask a mortician for directions and this is what you get. Two blocks away from the cemetery. Sheeesh!! Ask a railfan and you get two blocks away from the Hollister Spur line. Say what?? I've been hope-ing Kato, Broadway Limited or Even MicroTrains would come out with a Streamliner (light weight) Southern Pacific 3/4 dome. Then there are some different Full Domes that Great Northern acquired as did the Milwaukee. I'd like to see those replicated as well. Walthers and Rapido have put out some interesting streamline cars. A bit pricey but then it appears they stopped production as of late. Or I missed it. I have kitty cat messes to clean up. They are shedding and fur-balls is one of mother nature's ways of helping them handle things. Seems they know something we don't. Weather! Spring is on it's way. Back to work.
Eat grass - throw up - fur ball on floor. Repeat. And, garbage men have it easy these days. When we were kids, they had to actually pick up those filthy metal cans and dump the disgusting garbage into the truck. Now, they just roll a nice plastic container over to the truck, the truck picks it up and dumps it, and sets the container back down. Doug
I'm running out of photo's to keep you and self entertained. This next photo shoot I put into a Video Slide Show. It shows off the Santa Fe Mainline Bridge above the lower Williams Junction and Rio Bendejo Train Station. That name will eventually change to "Williams" Similar in name to Williams, AZ. All of what I'm working toward to restore and/or recreate. Then I get to do the fun part Scenery. The Union Pacific train doesn't carry a name as of now. Pioneer comes to mind, Portland Rose as well. Those of you Union Pacific rail fans can give me a better idea if you wish to. Enjoy! The Union Pacific passenger train shows what can be done when you set out to build a train. Starting with Life Like E units. E7 and cabless E8. I took the Greyhound (two tone grey) Arnold Passenger Cars Coach and Dinner already in my possession. Turned to a unmarked MTL RPO car, MTL Pullman, Rivarossi Baggage/Mail Storage Cars and started looking for the Pullman green coaches and observation car. And now you know. If a Standard (heavy weight) has steps, it's MicroTrains. Yes sirree!! Later
Sorry about this but now you'll get to see me upset and learn why. I decided I needed to go back and note which pictures and videos I've already shared. To my dismay I found, the following. On page 19, here in this thread. I posted videos of my layout and a friends layout. All four videos have been pulled off. Honestly, I have no idea what happened. So, If you go back you won't see my pride and joy the Santa Fe and Union Pacific Holiday Rush Mail Trains. Instead you will see a blank screen starring at you. The same thing was happening on BarstowRick.com. I had a number of videos pulled. No communication, no explanation and I had to find a substitute. I can only think they didn't like the way I presented the video. The purpose was to give fellow hobbyist, modelers, DIY's a How To. I made an effort to leave it up to the observer to choose what they wanted. Take what you want and leave the rest behind. Yep, I even said that. Huunh? Too this day. I'm not sure why you'd have a You Tube Video Channel and then Darken it. Unless, if... it's to prevent others from seeing your fine equipment because you're worried about security considerations. Having to do with the day and age we live in. People are hungry and if they can find a good cash paying fence, they will steal whatever they can get their sticky fingered hands on. I don't agree with that behavior, but I can understand that. I wouldn't want someone breaking in and stealing my train equipment. And, by the way. That's already happened to me. So I can understand wanting to remove temptation. Anyway the videos are gone. Which means I get to recreate that scene. I will need to get me a good HD camera to make that happen. This means I get to correct the obvious foopah's. Anyone out there with any ideas? You know. The camera I should purchase? What I've shown you so far is not my finest pieces. However, the Life Like, Model Power, earlier Rivarossi/AHM/Arnold and Atlas train equipment will be hard to replace. Most of this stuff is fixable and there are replacement motors available. Oh well, it is what it is. Well, now you have a better understanding. Hum-mm!!! Grrrrrr!! It's all
Rick my friend.... I have a Sony 'handicam' I picked up at Walmart on sale a few years back. It takes really decent HD videos. The only problems is....you need a program to convert it to something else but the AVCHD that Sony uses. There are a few out there. I am not sure if YouTube allows upload of AVCHD format. Speaking of YouTube. I still cant sign into my YouTube channel, As soon as I click on the 'sigh in' button I am still gettting ....
AVCHD is a pretty common format now a days. I know Adobe Premiere Elements can write out AVCHD files. My assumption is that it can import them. Then you can write it back out in the more common MPEG format. My few years old Canon camcorder can record directly in AVCHD or MPEG formats.
As to the right camera. You guys are giving me food for thought. I will need to look into this more. George, Sorry you can't get onto YouTube. Do you have a You Tube blog with videos of your layout? Inquiring minds want to know. Nothing like the ship these days.
I do have a YouTube channel. It has some older videoes of THERR. https://www.youtube.com/user/mtntrainman It even has the very first HCD N scale layout I built 12 or 13 years ago !! Also the first iteration of THERR ...built in the den before moving it all into the original THERR Travel Trailer ! 15 videos in all. Just click on the word "Uploads" below the first video that comes up to bring them all up. I just watched em all again. Brought back some memories...LOL
How about that? You do nice work. Your trains just glide over our layout. The one I watched first, you had a bridge over a canyon, then it went through a canyon, then back over the bridge which can only mean Dog Bone. Through some amazing scenery. To do it all again. Nice!! Anyway, I subscribed and left you a like. More to come. It is certainly worth the visit. Thanks for the link.
Final tally of pictures. You've seen the best of the bunch. There's others but mainly the same thing from a different perspective. I need to get to work. It's going to be awhile before I get trains running again. Yesterday, they confirmed that my Capri wire strippers are on the way. They wanted to know if she would have a room to stay in and call her own. Yep, that's the train room. What? You thought I was talking about a different kind of stripper. That would be nice but I wouldn't be able to afford her. Besides, she'd have to share the room with the kitty boxes and even I wouldn't like that. Keep the ideas for a good video recording camera coming. Be run trains.
What did I go and do? Lose you guys? My bad on the rant but that just bugs the heck out of me. Like I said that isn't the first time. Obviously I need a camera to take my own videos. I won't be able to depend on You Tube to publish them. There is something going on there that is just weird. I hope they eventually figure it out.... ship, is never a good thing. The exception being, keeping it family friendly. Waiting to see how this plays out. What no ideas? No ideas for a camera? Not to worry, I'm already on it. Fingerhut, E-pay, Amazon and local camera stores. I take most of my still pictures with a Fuji, digital camera. It takes very poor video's. Taking another look at an I-pad, I bought a few years back. It takes great stills but I have no idea how it will do with videos. Then there's my cell phone. I will be checking it out. Lastly, I do have a VCR movie camera and I've been happy with the results I get. I need to find a way to digitize the videos. Thinking I might be able to use a VCR player and DVD recorder. Just some of the things I'm looking at. I've been holding back pictures of the Ashfork Jct., Train Yard. Hoping by now, I would have the layout checked out, wires reconnected and ready to go. So I can add the upper section. Not even close but I will get there. More later.
Not me. Just trying to catch up. It was sunny and 50° outside today. I finally spent some time out doors! I have no advice on the camera. I have a YouTube account with no videos. It was going to be for die cast racing, but that kind of never got off the ground. Maybe over the summer. I'm always getting locked out of Facebook and I've never posted a thing so I gave up on it. I'll check out George's videos later. I'm really interested in the HCD layout.
Well, Rick, I use a JVC GZR-60 video camera with photo capability. It is getting a little older, so has occassional issues with color saturation or graininess. I have had no issues with it uploading to the 'U Tub' site. But, I haven't uploaded there for a while. I put about two a year up there just to keep it 'active.' I have been using Vimeo now for my vid's since the other channel has decided to become, shall we politely say, gatekeepers of selected content? The Vimeo site seems to work ok, and I have an easier time seeing analytics of my videos. The only issue I have had with them is that some Cell phones won't read their vids with out downloading an app. Hopefully you will find a good little easy to use camera. I found the JVC easy enough that this non smart phone capable guy could use it.
Need my morning Go Juice. My VCR camera is a JVC as well. I captured some great 1:1 foot scale of trains at Bakersfield, Tehachapi Pass and Loop, Cajon Pass, Santa Maria, Guadalupe and of course Barstow, Ca. Model number unknown to me at the moment. It takes clear crisp videos but goes through batteries. I can get a two hour recording session out of it. Features I like: It will take stills right in the middle of a movie which is neat for spotting a particular train car or image. It captures sound real well. I can program it to darken the picture when changing visual subjects. It has a remote that works well inside the house. Not so well outside. I can set-up my camera, get it focused in on the subject and remotely start and stop recording. I made two Toy Train Videos with it. One of my Dad's N Scale layout. The one I built for him. Trains a running and showed off some features. What's left of it is the one I'm working on now. How about an O and S Scale layout, Doug P., and I built for a local Funeral Director. The Oh S#!+ Railroad, that's what the owner said when he first saw the construction of the Train Table. That name stuck. Formally, known as the O & S Scale Railroad. The one his son angrily destroyed because "Allegedly" his dad hated it. Go figure. More about him... then it was his dad. Oh well, you can't win them all. The Video I took of the layout turned out well and showed off the various scenes and functions. I used the Still feature as well. What I don't know. Yep, I can navigate around most things. Trial and error. I don't know how to format them, to put them on my computer. Everything I've tried so far ends up looking like we lost quality of image. Thinking some sort of copyright protection. Anyway, it may be the need to convert to a different format. Back to the school of hard knocks and lessons learned. Read the Manual. Electronics isn't my thing although, I dabble in it a lot with the newer sound systems. What I'm looking for is a ready to shoot and download camera. No fancy hook-ups, just plug and play. Oh yes, of course editing, made simple. Simple things for simple...OLDER MINDS. Aiiyiiyii !!!! The Pawn Shops having interesting stuff. The downside it's over priced and the store isn't there to back you up. Kind of the way things are these days.
Rick, phones these days shoot up to 4k. If you figure out a sturdy mount for the phone, and provide good lighting, the quality should be good enough, without having to buy a dedicated video camera. That being said, for really high quality video I think people are using DSLRs or mirrorless removable lens digital cameras these days. But in my opinion that is overkill, unless you already have such a camera. I would go with the cell phone solution.
Still working on the camera. DSLR's is most likely where I need to start. The phone will work and I have a tini-tiny tripod that has an adjustable clamp on it. It was made for the Fuji DSLR. Worked real nice when I was over at a friends house to do a photo shoot of his layout. I was checking out a different CD I have of my layout and found these pictures. As you may already know every toy train or model railroad layout needs storage. Storage for train cars, locals, commuter passenger train sets, and even motor lash-ups... ciesel engines lashed-up together. What I'm going to show you in this post is a stub end yard. This used to be seven feet long and would of been my stub end staging yard for my passenger trains. I tried it, didn't like it, choosing instead to go with a run through yard. I hate backing up passenger trains through #4 Atlas Switches. Nonetheless, here we go. I repurposed it. Did I say that? For use here I shortened it down to 4 and half feet. Every stub yard needs a yard throat and yard ladder. Not the prettiest picture but a good jumping off place. Check out all the wires. I'm getting to know them up close and personal these days. Not that I haven't already. I mean I put them in there. One wire at a time. I'm coming off the main so the rule of thumb requires me to use a Kato #6.. Although, I'd like to see them make a #7 and #8. Hint, Hint, oh wait this isn't a hint this is more obvious then that. I think Tomix, may have these by now. What you are going to see next. Well, I regret to this day. I looked through my junk box and found four, #4 Atlas Switches. I really don't like these as there is a dead spot in the frog. As if that isn't enough... the switch machines are right beside the track. I don't like how they look...YUCK! And different locomotives and diesels I have, the front pilot will hang up on them. Then I have to go fishing underneath the top deck to push them through. GRRRR !! On order four new Kato #4's. I can only hope they will fit right in and I don't have to rebuild the whole damned thing. Oh, and why use cork roadbed when nobody is going to see it? Next, looking at how I utilized the stub end yard at the time of this shoot. One more won't hurt. See the hole below the Anti-climber on the Union Pacific SD 45. I think that's a Kato and the coupler pocket just doesn't work for me. You ought to see an early U Boat a friend of mine gave me. It has a truck mounted coupler box. It looks worse then this. I can't even use a plow over it to hide it. The sign in the background. What about it I hear you asking? What you can't read is "No Parking" and the rest is obvious. Teasingly this is for my short legged, four pawed, feline girl friends. Get off the tracks, swipe, there goes a diseasel. Sp intended. A storm blew-up in Big Bear Country and blew rain through a gap in the mettle shed wall and melted this cardboard sign in to something resembling a pile of sand. Ah, see there you thought... I was going to say something else. Right? I should have said "Shifting Sand". We learned to use such linguistics when attending a conservative, pre-PC, self righteous, parochial church going, school setting. I absolutely hated it there. We were so policed it was unreal. Talk about the good book inspired . Got along tried to make things work. I couldn't play football and wanted to be home doing just that at the local high-school. Under age and mom had the last say. Sigh!! Oh who knows, I might never made the team any old ways. Anyway, I missed my train layout. I most likely would have ended up working Ambulance. Hindsight is always 20/20. Now back to: Trains, trains and more trains.
