I have a small set of WP/SP/UP made by nscalekits.com. I don't think they are a catalog item, he offered them to me after seeing my post right here on trainboard about not being able to find any small enough decals for MoW vehicles. Here are a couple of posts from my blog that feature these decals. https://palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-hi-rail-truck-from-atlas-ford-f150.html https://palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-signal-maintainers-van.html Recently I found another source on ebay called circuscitydecals. Theirs are a larger sheet of just one road but with stripes and lettering as well as logos. I have a UP set on the way so we will see how good those are. I don't see any WP listed in his store but I bet if you ask they can do them. The graphics are not hard, it's the printing. I used to have a Cannon printer that would do fairly good N scale decals. The drawback being that by the time you put a couple coats of crystal clear on them they got a bit thick.
Here''s some shots of my Texaco transport. The pictures have brought out a couple of fixable items. Will do............. Hope you enjoy and as always any suggestions are welcome. Stay safe & well, Carl
Carl, that truck looks great. The camera seems to always find the small flaws that our eyes don't catch right away. I have a similar tanker truck kit coming from Royale Models. Having a hard time finding Chevron decals that I need for it and a couple of others I am working on. May have to try to make some of my own.
Brad, Thanks for the "like" and comment about the Texaco rig. I have some Chevron decals that I made, both white and clear decal paper. I would be most happy to send some to you if you PM me your address. carl
The Turtle Creek Central decided to finally add a new steamer to the roster and once again went to Kato Japan for a fine running little 0-4-0T and two 30 foot passenger coaches. So a brand new K105003 Kato Lemke arrived yesterday and is already in the shops after test running in the yards and on the main. The as delivered version. 100_0202-2 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2020 at 9:09 AM And the shots of when the shop got through with it and the coaches. The side tanks were extended and the fuel bunk on the cab rear got added to. A set of pops and a whistle, along with a rear headlamp and bell were added. All the couplers were changed out to Kato couplers from the rapidos. 100_0203-1 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2020 at 9:12 AM A MT steam switcher pilot was installed and the coaches got stoves for heat. A simple re-use of the end bumpers. 100_0206-2 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2020 at 9:12 AM Now for a clean-up and heading to the paint shop for painting.
Well the little tank engine is done and ready to join the fleet. 100_0209-4 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2020 at 2:33 PM Here it is with it's bigger brothers. The two in the back are from left to right an Atlas 2-6-0T and a Minitrix 0-6-0T. The one on the front right is a MicroAce 2-6-4T. 100_0210-6 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2020 at 2:42 PM
Thank you Brad, Peter told me that they have some. I'm waiting on a price for ten sets. Would you have any extra Lineside side dump trucks that you would part with?
Hi Dave, I took a look through my box of unfinished cast resin kits and no, that one I am working on is the only one I had. Here's a thought - If you could get hold of an appropriate cab, it would not be hard to scratch build a flatbed back end. Lineside identified the truck I am working on as a 63 but after looking at some reference photos I think it is a 61. The high grill is quite unique and that's what caught my eye when I bought that kit years ago. I have a fire engine with the same front grill.
I finally finished these ATSF E-1 A + B models......... 3D prints by OUT OF THE BOX MODELS on modified Kato E-8/9 drives: permanently close-coupled, sound decoder in milled out fuel tank of A-unit, capacitor and sugarcube speaker in cut down frame of B-unit. Running very good and pulling more than enough..... Found an old box with Ultimate N Scale trucks/trailers........ painted and decalled........ early ATSF piggy-back.... Converted some old Atlas flat cars (for the above flatcars)...... Ultimate N Scale replacement decks .... painted and decalled for ATSF Ft-5 and Ft-M class (the permanently coupled pair). Build, painted and decalled 6 of my own ATSF N SCALE MODELS stock cars of the Sk-2, Sk-3 and Sk-5 class to replace my incorrect MTL Sante Fe stockcars..... These are strange times........ happily enough to do........ also busy with (hopefully operating and lighted) ATSF N scale semaphore and trainorder signals.....
Got the two Maintenance of Way truck that I have been working on finished. The Showcase Miniatures Hi-Rail boom truck. Made a post on my blog on this build: http://palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/2020/04/first-showcase-miniatures-mow-truck.html And the Western Pacific flat bed truck from an old Lineside Models Chevy heavy duty flat bed. This one got some weathering as it would have been on the job for quite some time in my era. I made up a load of ties and cut up rails from some scraps. And have started on my Royale Models tanker truck. Using flush cut nippers to gently remove the pieces from their spues.
I started on my automated tram system tonight. I will post pics tomorrow but for now it’s an Arduino, an IR sensor and an H bridge to control the tram. The IR sensors (2) will be located in the tram stops and when the tram gets near them it will stop for a few seconds and then continue on to the next stop. This initial system won’t have any special features like return to home or emergency stop, it will just be a simple turn on, go one direction and make millions of stops. Future versions will have better features. So far I got the tram to go, and stop when either sensor is activated. I don’t know yet how to build in the delays or make the tram move again with a tripped sensor... working on that, and the Masterpiece Module that I’m building this mini layout on will be here tomorrow.
Ok so here is the rough setup of my tram control. So it took a bit to get the sketch right for it to work how I wanted, but I finally succeeded. I am going to try to install this on an Arduino Nano and mount it to a circuit board. I also have a smaller power supply on its way. I will upload a video of it running tonight and post the link.
OK here is a quick video of the automated tram. It will eventually have a random delay between 2 and 5 seconds at each station.
Good to see, MASSEY (my last name as well, lol) I’ve noted on my DC tomix tram chassis that you can leave a little power on the rails (because it is PWM) and have the tram lighting stay on when stopped. are you stopping by elapsed time or sensing position? Edit: I missed the explanation 3 posts above. Edit 2: look into tomix track, hard to get In US but has much sharper radius available (104 and 140) plus you can get it in street embedded versions For 140. Much tighter than kato
I'm not a very skilled coder so I am not even going to try to leave a bit of power on the rails right now. It took several iterations of my code to get it to work as it does. I am going to put a delay on the stops so that It isnt always the 2 seconds I have programed right now. The delay will be random between 2 and 6 seconds. The Radii I am using is like 125mm and plenty sharp enough for what I am going to do with it. I am using a Masterpiece Modules module as the base for this, and it will be a small city scene. I thought about using the embedded tracks but they were just too expensive and I had these lying around.
More plugs, for rewiring my G Scale GP30's. Going to put powered MU cables between them! Should help with any minor dead spots, and improve electrical pick up in general! Also got a small batch of T style wire splice. So I can splice wires, without cutting and soldering! And container of 130 weatherproof ring terminals, so I can update wiring of railroad out front! Heat shrink, with adhesive, to seal out the elements! Just waiting on low voltage lighting wire to arrive.
Enjoying seeing your progress on this project. A couple years ago I set up a point to point as an Arduino experiment using reed switches and magnets on the ends of one of my shorter Japanese trains. Ran great for awhile, made the delayed stops of 20 seconds on each end. Then for some reason it started acting flaky reversing directions in mid line. Seeing your project makes me want to get back in there and try again maybe using IR this time. I found some nice Nano breakout board kits on ebay that were rather inexpensive and saved me from trying to make my own.
After soldering a nano to a PC board and then to find out that it was a bad unit... serves me right for not testing it before soldering it. Grrrrr. I had a couple other units that worked fine loading the software so I’m thinking I will be good this time. That breakout board seems like a much better choice after this mess. Oh well, I’m too far in now to change. As for the reliability of this setup, so far so good, I had the tram running for several hours and it ran without error.
