This is a great build. Those SV handrails look good I have used a few SV kits and I agree with what you have said about them. Great stuff thanks for posting the photos.
Thanks for the compliments. I did make the decals myself. They didn't turn out too well but well enough for a faded locomotive. I had to do a lot of individual numbers for the number boards and the rear hood.
A couple of Pikestuff kits have arrived. I'm planning to have a rollingstock repair facility, and I hope I can mix these two kits up a bit to get something different. No idea what that might be, as yet. It won't be bright blue though
Weather that blue just a bit and it's a pretty common color for metal siding along with red, white, and a kind of olive green. Anxious to see what you come up with. Judging by the rest of your layout, I expect it will be outstanding.
My custom tank car decals arrived this morning and here's my model so far. It's a resin kit of an 1890s tank car design. This one has a 1909 build date.
My first custom locomotive. Sorry about the lighting, but the green paint is spot on and the mocro scale decals match the paint. It started life as a Athearn Genesis B&O unit. The horns, strobe, end steps, steam gen vents, 3rd and 4th sets of grab irons, and all weather windows are new to it. The paint is True Color TCP-47 SP&S Green and True Color TCP-48 SP&S Yellow. Decals are Micro Scale 87-102. Parts are a mix of Details West but it did start life as a torpedo. Thanks to everyone who got us this far. It still needs numbers on the number boards and decals on the other side. Well, that and complete assembly. Joshua Peck
Since we resurrected this old thread, I am going to repost a continueing project I am working on along with more new work on that project. I have started on a kitbash to build a P&LE Breadbox Coil Gon, per the drawings in a 60's era Model Railroader. The AHM model is wrong in a number of places and the basic gon body will be kit-bashed with a Walthers Coil Flat to come up with a more representative model. One of my club members has got his 95% complete and I am following in his footsteps to build my model. [/url] These are the two models I am going to take apart, cut and kitbash to come up with a better representation of the P&LE Gon. [/url] I don't know if you can see how the bracing under the AHM car does not conform to any prototype, the frame should be straight like the coil flat as the depressed section of the gon sides gives it the strength and not the frame. [/url] This is the interior of the AHM gon and the coil flat. As you can see the AHM car is not realistic at all, and the ends of the gon are angled down toward the center and not flat like the model. The first part of this project is to cut out the interior of the AHM Gon, just leaving the sides in order to insert the coil flat center portion and frame into the car. More pictures will follow with the next steps. Well, after the weekend and last night, I managed to accomplish some work on the Coil Gon. [/url] I completely disassembled the coil flat and am left with the underframe, which needs to be narrowed by 6" on each side in order to fit inside the AHM Gon body. It also has to be shortened by about a scale foot or the 125Ton Trucks will not fit properly, which means the metal weight will need to be shortened also. I have the frame for the coil cradle, the middle cross-member needs to be removed as it was not present inside the gon. It was previously filed and sanded down to fit inside the AHM Gon body. The Coil Cradle is as it should be to be inserted in the gon along with the frame. The floor and non prototypical underframe have been removed from the AHM Coil Gon, using a cut-off disc in a Variable Speed Dremel Tool (at the lowest speed setting); more modifications need to be made to the body including cleanup and smoothing of the interior so that everyting fits inside and for the coupler mounting along with other details. Rick J
I am Glad you did Rick J. Looks like a great project. We did not see many, if any of these things thru Colorado.. I remember seeing the model cars, might have even had a couple over the years. I would bet those doors got beat up and hard to work with on the prototype. I know nothing about the cars so I might ask some seemingly dumb questions. Like, were the doors geared to close at the same time on the proto?\ A good project to watch for sure.
Being as this was the last post in the new tread I wanted it to be part of the new, old thread so the re post, TH I really enjoy all the projects going on here! I would like to respond to all but there are too many. Over the years I have ended up with a bunch of these HO MDC 50' plug door kits. I made them QA&P (rule#1 again) I put coupler cut bars and cushion devices where appropriate. Painted and decaled also a light weathering. The Beige cars are for beer loading at the Hootch Brewery (getting to where they are calling for a couple switches a day) 10 cars The Yellow cars are cushion General Service cars. 4 cars The boxcar Red ones are for cotton bale loading only as they are equipped with wood lined floors and walls. 3 cars I think this will complete the modern fleet for QA&P 50 plug door cars. Thanks for looking Thank You Tom Holley
Tom, those are really nice examples of your weathering skills. I've been a bit lazy lately but here's a pic of the Dalman trucks offered by Tahoe Model Works. These trucks are really nice! I painted them by drybrushing a mix of RR Tie Brown and rust. I used the same mix to paint the wheel sets. I love the spring detail and their uniqueness so I just had to very lightly drybrush them with white just to highlight them a bit. The boxcar is huge compared to my fleet of 40 footers so this car will be pulled by my Russian. You see, I want a train for the different time periods of the Zalma Branch and this is for the 1925 end of the spectrum. This was a very fun and quick project and inspired by a fellow Frisco modeler.
Bachmann Old Timer I added a decoder to my Bachmann 4-4-0 Old Timer. I used Athearn/Roundhouse tender trucks with all wheel electrical pickup. The all wheel pick up is a must when using DCC with this loco. I still need to cover the decoder with a wood pile.
Here what just got off of the workbench. I am trying to have all kits either finished or close to being finished so when the time comes to install them, they'll be ready. I like to know what the footprint will be ahead of time for planning purposes. This is not a bad little kit. It's almost already to go with the exception of a chain link fence to go around it.
Scratchbuilt truss bridge by Phil Rawlins on the club H0 scale layout. Not bad for a first try at installing a bridge on an angle.
Couple o' quick and dirty projects of mine recently. The first one was literally five minutes... This is a Trucks n Stuff Lowboy trailer. I took a piece of atlas N scale, and stripped the rail off to glue to the bed of the trailer. Its gauged to HO, scientifically measured using an athearn Hopper's trucks. Thomas was my proof of concet test engine, but the actual payload is an Athearn 0-4-2 tank locomotive, which only just fits the. Truck after i cut the trip pins off the Kadees. Nd yes, someday ill put Sergents on it which are smaller than the #5, but the littke engine still sorta runs when it wants to so ill leave the 5s on to go to the club. ----- My other project has been a longer time coming, and its still in need of decals and some other interior paint... this is the second theater car Ive done, this one as a Naptown and White River model club car. The interior lounge, doorways, and beds are painted. It started life as a UP doyble bedroom buffet lounge car. Unlike the last car though, instead of blocking the window smaller to hide the wider end skeleton of thr Walthers car, i electrd to actually cut the end of the car off. Unfortunately, only part of the side frames is supported by each other, and to reattach the new theater car end, i had to put the car side on to space everything out. This is an awful lot like supporting a load bearing wall of a house wth the siding,i hope i havent further glued the whole thing together. But the end result so far looks like this:
