Tonight I worked on a friends set of Atlas SF -8's. One has a factory NCE decoder and runs good, but when the ditch lights are activated the light shines through the door window in the nose. I took care of that on both units. The second unit has a TCS decoder with grossly oversize wires leading from the rear of the board to the front where the ditch light board is mounted in a slot between frame halves. One ditch light did not work, and still doesn't, and the shell would not fit correctly. So I rewired, but was not able to get the one ditch light to work. FAIL! Even though I have them running very well together I am still fired up that I could not get the light to work correctly. I also attempted to run in a friends Atlas 2-8-8-2 with a Loksound decoder, but it ran too erratic to move on to fine tuning and sound programming. I will have to work on this one a bit, but the problem is I don't know steam locos very well. I hate to melt his tender and decoder.:fingers-crossed:
I'm getting close to finishing another chopped nose GP9, but I'm out of X's and 4's on my decal sheets so off to the store I go today!
My initial effort at accurizing Walthers excellent smoothside baggage to better represent ATSF's 3660 series' cars....\ thanks for looking, Bruce
Well, looking at a pic of 1919 from 1976 (3 years before the two pics I linked), it appears to be the same as the pic of 666, which is the ex-1916. Reading the heritage information, all of the units were converted at the same time, so I don't know why you'd have 1916 and 1917 be steam and then 1919 and 1920 be HEP.
I got six cars off the work bench and back into service following coupler repairs, wheel upgrades (FVM) and various assorted other TLC. Next up - body mounting couplers on some Walthers (?) stand alone 48' well cars of which I obtained 3 with the same road number at the last Timonium show for $2 because they had Rapido couplers installed.
Finally finished the AA set of CB&Q E-7s. One is an old Atlas shell that after a rebuild and overhaul of the mechanism it still wouldn't run worth a dang so it was slip a LL mechanism under it. It needed a pilot so I put a Sunrise E and F unit plow pilot on it added a twin sealed beam light to the lower light location which the shell didn't have and Sunrise stirrup steps. MT 1015 coupler in front of both, and American Limited diaphragms to the back of both E-7s, and MT couplers in the rear trucks inplace of the old Rapidos. Sunrise air and MU hoses finished the pilots. All side windows have Micro Kristal Klear windows. Also finished up a 2nd PB unit and the end of a CB&Q Geep is just showing in the photo. Left on the workbench are three GN F units that are getting some repairs done to some added details, the CB&Q Geep and possibly another CB&Q unit, this time an E-8
Even with a HCD layout, things can 'stack up' in the queue!.... While waiting for delivery of some small mesh screen material for the hwy bridge roadway, I realized I still needed to construct the last bit of bracing...simply thread, provided by Central Valley, to simulate the steel cable bracing...nice touch! Simply glue one end in the appropriate location with CA...let dry, then thread through the top truss member, then down into the 'opposing' hole...pull 'taut'...drop of CA...then trim the excess.... The white bracing seen in the pics is a combination of Evergreen strip used to replace a couple of broken braces...and Evergreen H column, used to build a frame for the steel grate roadway that I want to model on this Hwy bridge... Still need to build a guard railing before I spray this one silver. Thanks for looking, Bruce
That's really nice on the bridge. I used thread once before and the "hairs" or small thread pieces stuck out from the line after it was in place. It is necessary to wax the thread in a ship model to prevent this sort of thing. At least I think that is a good analogy. Did you have this issue? Thanks for the help.
this thread seems 'waxed'...or, at least, picked specifically to represent the steel cable...no 'hairs'... Bruce
Finished repairing the damaged details on the F unit set. These are LL F-7s that I painted and lettered in GN for the Empire Builder power quite a while back. Added details are nose ladder brackets for the window washers, Sunrise pilots with MT 1015 couplers and added air, steam and MU hoses, winterization hatches applied. Sunrise window shades and air deflectors, lights added to the ends of the A units and B unit and American Limited Diaphragms. Coupling between the A units an B unit is using T shank Unimates. Decals including door kick plates are MicroScale. Big problem with all those finer details is that over the years they get damaged and is something I will not repeat doing again.
Yes, but...it is fun or satisfying to do all those details and try to see how nice you can make it look. These units certainly do look nice. It was a lot of work. Those life Like FAs, F7s, etc. were lead hunks and could really pull.
Atlas/Riv GHQ W-3 Well, now I have pics of my project, putting a GHQ W-3 kit on an Atlas/Riv chassis. Have a few of these, so..... One thing I have learned is that I shld have had the motor first! Have just recieved it and am going to have to backtrack a bit and do a bit of disassembly to facilitate modifying the frame. That presents an opportunity to turn down the flanges on the drivers and do some sanding/filing on the running gear, too. Fun, fun, fun!!
Working on a baggage/dorm for the Burlington Business train. Love the American Limited core kits for all the parts. Used some of those parts for an earlier build of a steam generator car. Test fitting the Brass Car Sides baggage/dorm sides. Decided not to use the truck mount coupler option went with body mounts instead.
Working on my version of a Q homebuilt dome. With a touch of modelers license. Took an old Trix dome car and raised the lower windows to even with the others on the one side. Filled in some gaps with styrene and using corrigated foil to replace lower corrigations. Foil ACCd in place and still have to do some smoothing out of seams.
I know you have already put a lot of work into this, but I always found the old Model Power/Trix cars to be too small for my liking. I found them short and narrow. I would think that grafting the Trix dome to a Con Cor or Kato coach would yield a more uniform car to go with the rest of your train. Just a suggestion.
