Good morning rail junkies! We're halfway through September already and I can tell as there is a little chill in the air. What did you get done this past weekend? Friday, I worked a bit more on the modules for this coming weekend then went to a friends all electric model airplane meet. While I was fully engaged in model airplanes all weekend, I was able to sneak in some railfan time thanks to my motel being across the way from a UP, former CNW line. Trains were almost non-stop. On the way home Sunday night, I took old IL route 40 home and came across many, many grade crossings, both abandoned and still in use. It is clear that I need to research this stretch of road more and set out on a railfan adventure when employment needs are taken care of. So how about you? What projects or goals did you accomplish this weekend? Let us know, with a picture or two. We'll all come back on Friday the 19th and start a whole new weekend. Until then, keep it safe and... High Greens!
A chill in the air, indeed. It was 38 when I got up this morning to go to work. Compare that to temperatures in the 80s last weekend and, well, it's New England weather. I basically hid in the trainroom and worked on that truss bridge all weekend. It's taken me quite a while to get this thing together, but I kind of expected it to take some time. The bridge is assembled and painted, though, and needs only some weathering and final assembly in place. This makes it easier to see how the contours will play out, with the river below the bridge. This whole scene is a liftoff bridge between layout sections.
I spent most of the day Saturday working on the layout and listening to college football games. I weathered the LK Valley Foundaries rolling mill (left). This was a Walthers kit that was a modified 2-stall structure on the last layout. I had to cut it way down again to make it work on this layout. I'm not satisfied with how it came out, I may replace the structure with something else in the future. Still need to add a darker hue of rust in places, as the rust show is a tad too bright. I also assembled and weathered the structure on the far right. This is the Lyon, Conklin & Co. Industrial HVAC distributor warehouse. This makes switching interesting, as the crew would have to use the cars spotted at LC&C to "fish" the cars at the foundary and re-spot as needed. After 4 years, I've finally gotten around to weathering the highway overpass (out of frame to the left of above photo). I tried to find out what color bridge beams were painted in around 1967 in WV state highways. I knew light blue was a common color up through the 80's, then dark green after that point. I did the best I could and mixed up a faded blue and painted the beams. I replaced the bland beam shoes with metal ones from Details West and added bearing pads to match the bridge deck with the road way. I also completed sill striping on several CC&CI locomotives, including F7A #1617, GP9 #2229, BL2 #805, H15-44 #820 and started on GP9 #2214. That puts me at around a dozen locomotives ready for lettering and shields. I need to get those ordered this fall.
^Cars look good sitting under the bridge. Good shot. More progress this weekend on Avrams Bakery. Got the upper porch deck built and got the roof on it as well. Also put together 2 old Walthers undec'd tank cars that I'll paint and decal at some point.
Well of course I am out of supplies and the cash flow is short so I got nothing done. However I do have flex track on order and after ordering I reviewed what it would Take to finish and wouldn't ya know it I needed to order 6 more pieces. :/. Oh well plans are under way to build the mobile staging yard and a drop in section (original plan was a swing up but it won't fit right I think so a lift out it is to connect both ends of the layout to make it a full loop. So next payday my plans are to hit the hardware store, hobby shop, local craft store, and any where else I need to obtain my stuff from and then my wife won't see me for another month. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
