Blowing through Sugar Land with a UP "Big Blow" turbine. NTRAK layout at Oklahoma City Train Show a few years ago.
Good morning from cold and snowy Northeast Ohio! Russell, I have always liked the Big Blow Turbines of the UP, nice looking model and scene! Got a little work done this week. First a couple of trailers, a 45' Southern Van and another 40' DT&I trailer, the DT&I trailer is from a group of 10 leased from XTRA. The Southern Trailer was painted with Scalecoat II Silver and lettered with Microscale Decals, the DT&I was painted with Scalecoat II White and Silver and lettered with Highball Graphics Decals. Atlas Blue Island Reefer kit, painted with Scalecoat II Boxcar Red and Silver paints and lettered with decals from a couple of Herald King sets. I was originally going to decal with an old Oddballs set, but the decal disintigrated when it hit the water, so I looked around for a picture of one of these cars in Boxcar Red, and found one and replicated the lettering in the picture. Evans leased these cars to a multitude of users, and this was probably a repaint of one of the previously leased cars. A another picture of my Athearn GP40-2's with more of the fleet of 86' Hi-Cubes on their way from the Detroit area stamping plants to assembly plants across the country. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski
Three little 2-8-0s. 158 is a Roundhouse model. 152 isan Athearn, and the 1357 is a Bachmann. Hopefully I will make them all Rio Grande in the future
I am up at the Armadillo Ranch so away from all my photo files that I could use to zoom in and crop. Here is another image that is posted on line that may show a little better detail. Being in N scale, the beams and braces made of Plastruct shapes are a little oversize or it would be much too fragile for a portable module. There are some awesome photo etched brass models out there demonstrating what could be accomplished if I were to do it over. However, this old dog is probably too old to take up that skill.
Rick, that DT&I train would look right at home on the Rio Grande. In fact, from Flat Rock Yard in Detroit, DT&I forwarded a train of Ford auto parts for an assembly plant in Milpitas, CA. D&RGW was part of the haul, initially hauling over the Moffat Route, but later changing to a Tennessee Pass routing. The train was the hottest on the Rio Grande, hotter than the Rio Grande Zephyr. It was train number 79, and no dispatcher dared make it late. It was best known by its moniker on the Rio Grande: the Ford FAST, or Ford Auto Service Train. The Ford FAST was well known for its DT&I 86' boxcars of auto parts. Since your cars in the image are 4-door cars, they could definitely be the Ford FAST, since only GM and Chrysler specified 8-door cars. The train would have flats of automobile frames, 50 and 60' boxcars of engines, transmissions and axles, and the large high-cube cars for stamped body parts. In other news, I was recently invited to an ops session on a fictitious On30 model railroad in my area called Colorado Mining & Timber. It features a number of tunnels, trestles, rugged terrain, steep grades, and plenty of operations capability. CM&T mimics the hardscrabble and frugal narrow gauge railroads of Colorado in the early 20th century. In this scene, CM&T 40 negotiates an S-curve along a sheer cliff and on a 4-8% variable grade.
Notice out of focus DQ sign through the boxcar doors Although you can tell what sign it is? As CSX #5407 ES44DC stops for a photo op! Shhh, don't tell anyone!
Yes I know about the FAST, the DT&I had a Delta Turn from Flatrock to Delta, OH where they connected with the Wabash (later N&W), and forwarded the cars in the turn to the FAST which on the Wabash was to Kansas City where cars were dropped at the Assembly Plant there and the rest forwarded via the Rock Island or Missouri Pacific to the D&RGW forwarding to the WP and the plant in Milpitas. The first boxcar in the train is a 60' box from the Lima Engine plant, I should include more of the 60' cars along with 50' AC&Y boxcars with tires from Akron. I have some gons where I am going to load frames like the DT&I had (Ex PRR G31b's). Normal power for the Delta Turn was a GP38/SD38 combination, with occasional use of the leased LS&I U25C's. Rick Jesionowski
