It's been a while since I have done much on the layout and still nothing really new layout wise to show. I did recently get some cool Frisco rolling stock and an E unit from a fellow TB member who I appreciate far more than he probably knows. And I picked up a Rapido new look bus. I'll have to run the wires for the lights but it should look cool. That's about it for now.
The Santa Fe Herald on top of the building caught my eye immediately. Then what appears to be a Frisco E8 also caught my eye. How about the policeman on a pedestal directing traffic? Then I noted your control panel. Reminds me of a early mix of toggles, Atlas Sliders and Switch Controls similar to what I had early on. Kato is better any day. Good to see your layout up and running. Your never done. There's always that one little detail item. Humm? i need a guy on a ladder over here. Or this could use an extra Chevy/car, you know the one I saw at the hobby shop. Or!!! How about a new passenger train that just came out. It never stops. Looking marvelous!
Did you see the Delorean from “Back to the Future”? thought that was neat to sneak in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
No, I didn't. I was to busy looking at trains and stuff. Missed it. Pretty cool. Now can you make it disappear into the future? LOL
The DeLorean helped us skip July completely on the layout thread. :O I did get down there and run trains a couple of times but that was about it until this past weekend. While I was at the N scale convention, I was able to pick up what I thought was a good deal on a 6 pack of LBF Coalporters in BNSF paint. LBF has been out of the game for a while but these cars were still new and bundled in the original shrink wrap. The seller had them marked as a show special. I saw a lot of folks look at them and pass. I did to at first but ended up getting them. You could see all 6 cars and they all had issues. My guess is the set had been dropped. Possibly more than once. Most of the cars looked like this. Saturday morning I decided it was finally time to see what kind of mess I had gotten into with these. I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to work on the. Less than an hour later, I had 3 of the cars 100% ready to roll. The other 3 I had glued some parts so let them sit for a little while. After giving the glue time to dry, I re installed the trucks on the other 3 cars and now they are on the shop track waiting for a trip around the layout With the small amount of work it took to get these cars back to 100%, I have decided what I thought was a good deal turned out to be a steal of a deal! Next up, I worked on some shelves for the wife and at the same time cut the parts needed for a display shelf for one end of the layout. I got the wife's stuff all put in place and them got my shelves put together.. Still need to find some trim for the bottom of this. Built the same thing a while back for the other end and it is still waiting on some trim too. Guess that will be one objective before it gets too cool to paint this fall. here's how it looks so far. After all that I sat at the desk and worked on getting these tractors prepped for painting. Remains to be seen how these will turn out so tune in next time when we......................
I've been running a CSX unit train of coalporters for years and I prefer these to the Deluxe Innovations model. Mine are actually branded E&C shops; same tooling, same product as LBF. They were also sold under the Huberts brand in case you go looking for more road numbers. According to Spookshow the tooling was bought by Intermountain. I especially like that they came with MTL roller bearing trucks, and unlike the DIs they included internal bracing detail, although each was missing one brace. They are extremely lightweight, so if they run flawlessly then you have excellent track work. Interestingly if you fill them with actual N scale anthracite they happen to hit the NMRA weight standard exactly. The Deluxe hoppers leak coal and the weights look unprototypical.
Wow, the JPT Sub Shops have been hard at work, sparks flying in the Car Shop, the Shelving Dept. and the Farm Equipment Div. too! All very cool and diverse projects. Keep 'em coming.
I'm late on my response. Must of had a DeLorean experience. Forget-back to the future. Like your Coalporters. Wish I could find them in black with yellow ends and lettered for Santa Fe. What a layout!
