Welcome back! Come in, the stove is on and hot coffee and tea is available. Sad, shouldn't it be a glass of cold lemonade or iced tea by May 11th? Bah! Lets see how we did this past weekend. Saturday: With the last turnouts set up, I did something I have not done in a while. I set up a few cars and fired up my B&M GP-9 #1715 and did some switching. That little GP I detailed and custom painted way back in 2004 sure runs great and I had very little stalling and zero derailments. I fired up my new Atlas GP38-2 with sound and was immediately impressed. I need more of these! Sunday: Was of course Mother's Day. The day was dark, cloudy and only 48 degrees. Normally I would take Angela out for Mother's Day but we are still on lock down at least until the end of May, maybe June. Since I could not take her out, I brought the restaurant to her. I spent the most time making a menu for "WIGGIN STEAK HOUSE" then cooked some Rib eyes on the smoker with Hickory wood, baked potatoes, sweet dinner roles and desert. All of this was served with some good ole Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra playing softly in the back ground. It was a success and she thanked me for my efforts. That said, not much modeling done on this cold Mother's Day. So how about you? Did you stay warm? My native state saw snow. Yup, pretty pathetic for "spring" but there is hope. When we meet again on Friday the 15th, the weather is supposed to be WARM! 73 in fact. Maybe I can finally plant my garden. Until then however, stay warm, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
My progress for this weekend. The E8's are just about ready for a clear coat and re-assembly. I started the new front and rear hand rails for the SW900 (4628) Started the dynamic brake housing on the SW8. Thanks, hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
Not where I live. We never know for certain. It could snow. It could be rain, wind.... Or (BLEH) nineties. Set up my new table, but did not get much further. Just too tired.
For me my weekend was as usual. Saturday worked at the bicycle shop. Built an adult tricycle and a tandem. Those were hand fulls. Sunday was my usual day of food prep for the week. Homemade bread, yogurt, salad croutons, salad dressing, breakfast casserole and some fried chicken. At the workbench I assembled a couple of car kits and then painted a dozen different models, none of which are worth showing off yet. I'm off Tue. and Thur. so hoping to do some second colors and decaling. Have a good week. Be well, be happy and be good to yourself and others.
A couple weeks ago a generous heart of The Railwire delivered me an Atlas code 55 #5 turnout that I needed for the new layout. It came unexpectedly wrapped in an Aberdeen & Rockfish gondola. Since the A&R is not a road that gets interchanged to KCS I wanted to do something special with it to ensure a regular reason to run it on the layout. I've seen a lot of interesting loads over the years in beat up old gondolas, so since this is clearly era appropriate rolling stock, I decided to add a load. I started with these as my inspiration: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2734009 The A&R gon is not an exact match to that prototype and I don't think its ever carried panelized turnouts, so we are definitely in proto-freelance territory. I gathered my materials: I cut the dark grey styrene down to just fit inside the gondola, making a removable false bottom. Then I started building the racks. From the photos they appear to be simple welded I beam, so I eyeballed them, cut, filed and sanded and glued: Cross members were done in a smaller I-beam: In working on track laying this week I encountered Atlas several turnouts in my collection that, charitably, are FUBAR. While not cheap, they are not expensive and thankfully I won't need them all, so I cut one and test fit it: And that's where I left off Friday night. On Saturday I went in and snipped off the ends where the railjoiners would slide in - the weird ties just needed to go. Still to come are the X braces on the back and weathering. I'm also debating cutting the bottom rail and portions of the ties off so it sits lower in the gon.
Let's see...I bought a soldering iron and 18ga wire to be a bus...we had 105° heat, my son was stung twice by a scorpion and we had mothers day....I did nothing, and yes, he's fine.
Did not get much done on the reefers. Waiting for couplers some of which came yesterday. Also had a disaster yesterday as some trains got knocked off the layout. Two of the Atlas tank cars and the AS-16 loco. The tank cars had cosmetic damage, mostly railings that had to be reattached. The loco on the other hand had cosmetic damage such as hand rails, sun shields, and name plates knocked off. I was able to reattach everything but the front and rear handrails. I was able to find them on Bowser's website and ordered replacements. Supposedly they are in stock. The worst was the gears inside one of the trucks were knocked loose. Luckily nothing was broken. It took me a couple of hours and many attempts before I figured out how to open the trucks. Once I had that putting the gears back in place and putting the truck back together was easy. The loco seems to run fine.
As of this morning, the shifter needs a cab and a crew. Midday I went out and bought some craft supplies.
Not exciting accomplishments, but moved various floor shelves in my train room to adjust their positioning so that my layout benchwork will perfectly place above them. The whole affair is made more complicated because my L-shaped layout will be on casters (so that I can access the back for maintenance) and the layout must be able to roll back and forth without bumping into the shelves. Then I vacuumed, which hadn't been done in a very long time. So, next step is benchwork ….. ….. when I feel ready to tackle it.
Well, as planned, I spent time working on the electrical substation kit Saturday. I had hoped to finish it this past weekend but alas that didn't happen. Some of the overhead wire and insulators took a bit longer to do that expected. So, I sill have two support braces, 6 wires that connect the overhead to the equipment below, and then the fencing before it is complete and ready to move from the workbench to the layout. I also overdid it when my wife and I had to fix a shutter on the house and work on some plants. Sunday, my knees were really bothering me (and still today as well) but I still managed to crank out a great mother's day breakfast and cook up some goodies on the grill for lunch. We then watched a movie and while the wife relaxed, I spent some time gathering up boxes of papers to be shredded. Out HOA is having a "free" shred it day this coming Saturday where they have one of those trucks that comes out and shreds it while you watch. All in all, it was a good weekend. Hope everyone also enjoyed the weekend!
I got the scratch build almost finished just need to add a couple more details and I will be set. Sunday being mother day I didn’t do anything. I also got two pieces of mesonite painted up for a back drop clinic I will be giving soon.
Accomplished nothing this past weekend. Had a little health issue (not COVID-19) and ended up in the hospital overnight. Tests found no serious issues and I should be ok. All those years of running and cycling paid off in this case. With this virus about it's not a good time to have to be hospitalized. Not being able to see your family is the worst. Be safe everyone.
I didn’t quite get the electrical work in the basement all done, but got soooo close! No work Sunday with Mother’s Day and all. I’m going to spend a half hour tonight and maybe tomorrow night and get it wrapped up on the one side. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Greetings. Late to the party today. Good weekend. I broke out the new static grass machine, but just for a little while, so the whole house wasn't covered with grass. Sipping on the first cup of Saturday AM coffee, I broke out the deck bridge and spent all weekend cutting and fitting track to it. Made the guard rails as usual from N scale code 55 track. After this picture was made, I also painted the rails w/ an airbrush and weathered the whole shabang w/ weathering chalks. It is ready to install.
