I've had this car sitting on my desk for a while. Was going to get rid of it since it's the only NS rotary coal gon I have and doesn't really fit with a long string of BNSF hoppers. Well, when i was ordering some decals the other day to fix my UP arroWedge, I found just the thing for this car. I went ahead and prepped the car for the upcoming change. Other than leaving a bit of a shadow that I could probably finish removing if I really needed to, the lettering was super easy to remove with a q tip and some 91% rubbing alcohol. Here is what this car is destine to be. While not really a fan of graffiti, I did find this one to be pretty neat and should add some interest to any train it's in. Now just waiting on the decals to arrive. Should be a fun project.
Hey Richard.... I have a 'pipe load' challenge for ya.... https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mtdj4NVk...186_903111549774457_1060173024217666731_o.jpg .
With the Amtrak power pretty much updated to DCC, time to think about what to do with the other equipment One of those old school F40's will be come a cabbage and I had forgotten I had the other one. The dome cars are questionable at best. Not sure what to do with them. As for the Superliners, they are all older ConCor cars. They aren't terrible cars but they are a long way for Kato cars. They tend to wobble a bit. Probably a combination of light weight and non original trucks. You can see the lovely rusty weights on the underside. Even with that, these cars seem very light. Adding weight would probably be step 1. They all currently have M/T 4 wheel passenger trucks and M/T couplers. Adding metal wheels would be a nice upgrade, especially if I wanted to add lights. The cars do not have interiors so that would have to be fixed. I wonder if you could even put a Kato light kit in one of these? Anyone care to weigh in with suggestions about these cars?
If they were my cars I would either run them as they are or sell them and buy Kato Superliners. I don’t think it would be worth the effort and expense to upgrade them.
So, the time part I'm less worried about as it's time spent working on the models which is good for me. The $$$ is what I have to figure out. Is the upgrade work more, the same, or less that selling them and replacing with newer Kato cars. I'm guessing I may have to actually do one to see but was hoping maybe someone else has one or more of the needed upgrades and can provide some insight.
Saw this on one of the KC railcams the other day. Can't make out the number as the feed wasn't great that day and have had no luck finding better pictures on line but this looks like it would be cool to model. Like I need more projects
Not really much to share from this past weekend. This fella got an upgrade to DCC. Went smooth, no issues, and was off to the layout for some run time. Seems each one I do, it gets easier and easier. I continuing to work on a transformer model. All the assembly requires is to attach 6 insulators on the top to have it ready to paint. Gluing 1 at a time and letting it sit to dry is more time consuming that I should let it be. This thing has been sitting in the corner on my work bench for a couple of years now so any progress is good progress at this point. Somehow I failed to take a pic of it so far. Other in progress items that I've previously poste on: Pipe Loads - While my pipe loads look pretty generic compared to a couple of fantastic models I've seen or seen pics of lately, I'm happy with them and continue to build more. Only a few more and I'll have more than enough to do me. The coal hopper that will get the full side ocean/orca graffiti is all prepped for paint and decals and is now set aside waiting for both the decals and me to pick up the proper paint needed. The arroWedge is still pending decal arrival as well. Looking forward to getting this one done and the decals sealed. Soon I hope. The Superliner cars are sitting next to the workbench as I try to decide how I want to deal with them. Either lot of potential or lots of trouble, not sure which. The SP gon I got a couple of weeks ago is also sitting around. I started some weathering on it but it's got a long way to go. The infamous aluminum rods load is still waiting to have the strapping that attaches to the car added. I really need to get motivated to finish that one and get it either out on the layout or at least off the workbench. As if that's not already too much in progress, I also found this Atlas hopper that I want to strip, repaint, and decal. It should be a good cheap proof of concept car. That's a project I'll post about another time if all goes well. I originally was going to just remove the lettering on this car and go from there but that didn't work. I've almost always had good luck with soaking the printing in a little 91% rubbing alcohol and using a cotton swab to take off the lettering. On this car, the paint is apparently less durable than the pad printing so a full strip and repaint it will be. That's enough out of me for now, I'll be under my rock until later.
You are a very busy model railroader. You’ve got an awful lot of projects going all at the same time. I hope you don’t get bogged down like I would if I had that many projects going. I installed the same decoder (DN163K1C) in 2 of my Kato GEVOs and, like you, I found installing the second one was much easier than the first. I have 2 more that I’ll probably put decoders in and I’m sure they’ll be even easier. Good luck with your projects. In the end they’ll be great additions to your layout.
Thanks sir. I do indeed have too many projects going at the same time. I normally don't do that. It's a mess right now and I'm sure I will feel better about it as I get some of these items completed or at least figured out. I took this picture of the workbench last night which doesn't even show some of the projects and in looking at it today, I may have even left out a project or 3 in that list above.
Remembering the old saying “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop” I don't think you'll have anything to worry about for awhile.
Okay, so one I can probably finish up in the next day or so is getting this load attached to the car. so what do you all think. More black banding across the the load to the car. or I have silver which would probably blend in with the load too much, or one of these 3 colors. The yeller probably would look like new straps and the off white like older straps maybe and that center one, who knows? I requisitioned the above from the wife's sewing stash. Didn't see any other colors that looked useful so that's about it. So, what do you all think?
Every load like that that I have seen has yellow straps just on the bottom row...to hold it down on the car... I vote for the yellow... That's what I am going to use on the ones I am working on... NOTE: I am thinking of using Elmers clear glue to glue 2 pieces of yellow thread together to make it look wider like load straps would be. You should be able to pull 2 threads with Elmers glue on them...together between your fingers. Just before it dries...put it over the load and it might just look like a strap. JMO
Funny part...My wife has one of those homemade pasta rollers.. . https://www.amazon.com/Fantes-Machi...-3-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1 The rollers can be adjusted to zero thickness. I told her I was going to use it to flatten the yellow threads to make them look like 'straps'. I don't need to tell you how that suggestion went over...
So, you are going to do it anyway, right? I was leaning toward the yellow, thanks for the vote Thank Joe! With two of you saying yellow, I think that's what it will be.
