Russell, except for the lack of vapor escaping from the generator and slight heat shimmer from the stack, I would swear that was a prototype photo from ~50 years ago.
Rio Grande 2-8-8-2 #3612 lifting an eastbound freight up the 2.2% grade out of South Yuba Canyon. Tom
Train show in San Antonio last weekend. Here is Russell Straw's Rosenberg module. I hope Russell will get a live cam beside the museum soon. Photos of the Gulf and Western group from Corpus Christi, Texas. Certainly the best traveling layout I have ever seen. Container yard. Train wreck. My favorite scene on the layout. In fact, one of my favorite scenes on any layout.
Not only did I forget the legs for the module, I forgot the backdrops. I managed to find enough stuff at the Home Depot to build some quick legs but did not want to attempt backdrops. I still had fun running trains. Thanks SAMRA for putting on the show and SANTRAK for letting me set up with them.
Thanks Hank. I have to get back to hauling my diorama outside for some photo shoots using real daylight and horizons instead of indoor shots with artificial lights and all.
Here's something I've been playing around with the past couple of days. It's an F7 slug with a chopped roof. The portholes, stacks and fans have been removed. As far as I know there's no prototype for it. It's just under eleven scale feet high from rail head to roof. A normal F unit is a bit over two feet higher. Why make such a thing? It's something that not many will have and it's unusual. And it's powered as well. I still have to wire in a decoder.
On all three Santa Fe U30CG's based on reworked Minitrix shells on Kato U30C / C30-7 mechanisms, This weekend I added the Gold Medal Models stirrups, painted handrails, body-mounted the couplers. Here's #403: Numberboards and weathering next. Getting close to finishing. The thread detailing all the construction is here : http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?92144-Trix-U30CG/page17
I did a quick decal job on a Herzog ballast hopper that I had painted some time back. I considered just stripping the paint and throwing it in the pile with my other cars destined for UP paint but figued I could use the practice. Been awhile since I've done any extensive decal work so the results are less than spectacular but it passes the 3 foot rule. I'm getting the process down now so hopefully the yet-to-be-done other side will turn out much better.
Thanks. The body was made from an Athearn Hi-F (60's era) F7B shell. I cut the strip with the intake vents out just above the strip with the portholes and just below the roof line. The roof was secured in place by drizzling hot glue along the join inside the shell. Hot glue was used to fill in the portholes and the gaps where the roof met the body. There were still gaps. Those were filled in with Rose Art modeling clay. It was brush painted with flat black Model Master acrylic paint. The chassis is made up of Athearn and Proto 1000 parts. The frame, worm housing clips, the clips on the bottoms of the trucks, all the gears are Athearn. The motor, flywheels, shafts, worms, truck halves, wheels are Proto 1000. Instead of standing the motor on it's side as would normally be done it was laid flat.
Okay, right after MOLOCO announced RTR versions of this car and especially the Wabash version that I did, and I was 95% completed on the decals when the announcement came out, here is my version with the addition of the ART lease information and the Return to Information that is not on the RTR car. These were the only cars on the Wabash with a 6 digit road number, railroad historians think it was due to the request of American Refrigerator Transit when they leased these cars to the Wabash. I followed a photograph in James Kincaids WAB/NKP/DTI/DTSL/AA Book. Car was painted with Floquil Light Blue Paint and lettered with Mark Vaughn Decals. My next car will be the ART version of the car. Thanks for looking! Rick J
Another nice looking car. Notice the spacing between the reporting numbers on the side? I have some other Wabash cars that do this, too. Was this a Wabash characteristic or are these decals meant for a rib sided car? Thanks.
I had not noticed the spacing between the reporting numbers on any other cars except the RBL's that the Wabash leased from ART. All the numbers were just on the sheet of decals except the 783 was in a separate line, I had to space the numbers based on the photograph in the WAB book.
One more Gulf and Western photo. Here is their sign they display for the train shows. One-half of the lighted oil refinery you see is a mirror. Here is a much older photo of the refinery.
I have seen the refinery before (in person!), but since I had to unhitch the PVC plumbing couplings to clean out the trap under the bathroom sink, something else looks somehow familiar.