It is beyond me how you guys can tell those steam engines apart. This is sort of on my workbench. It is a Bakatonics Welding Light kit that I recently assembled, but that is another story. Instead of having it flash continuously, I added a doorbell (on facia board) in the power circuit so that visitors will be able to activate it as they wish. I know my grand daughter will probably wear it out. The flashing LED will be in the near end of the green building (Newell Steel) in the background. The PC board and the battery will be at the layout edge for easy access and for changing the battery. I really enjoyed doing this. It took a few days to think through it all and decide how I would get it installed.
I thought I'd post something about a project of mine as my first. I've made a post-stimulus Amtrak Phase VI (or "IVb") Pacific Parlour car out of a Kato ElCapitan lounge: The decals are all from Microscale sheets for the P42 (small white potato chip logos and red stripes along the bottom), Amfleet cars (thick RW&B stripes and red fire exit markers), and heritage hi-levels (PPC logos, which are actually a tad on the big side). As I couldn't find any sheets with Frutiger characters of appropriate height, I am presently waiting for a friend to print names and numbers for it. I've decided upon "Santa Lucia Highlands", but that might change depending on how things turn out. The removal of the corrugated title area (where the words "Santa Fe" used to be) was the most challenging aspect of this project. In reality, Amtrak just placed steel panels right over the top after removing the title plate. I tried this with styrene, however the thinnest sheet I could find was 0.015" thick. This stuck out too far and didn't take to sanding very well. I then attempted to sand the area flat, however the result was visibly too rough and difficult to remedy without endangering the surrounding details with more filing or using filler (I hate filler). So to minimize the risk to the rest of the model, I used a 1/32" diameter diamond tipped grinding bit and a Dremel to mill out the entire mid section of the car all the way through. I proceeded to file the interior edges flat and filled the holes with strip styrene. As this process obliterated the small door on the outside opposite of the bar, I had to recreate it by making a sort of square plastic "burrito" with slightly recessed edges as to give the appearance of a door frame. Not my best work, but it would be easy to replace when I can figure out a more precise way to recreate the detail. I will later add small, oval-shaped objects to the square areas on the roof of the bar end of the car. I have no idea what they are for in reality, however they can be seen in any roof shot of these cars. The logo panels are too thick for my tastes, but until I can find a way to sand styrene sheets thinner without turning them into flakes, they will remain the slightly obnoxious eye sore that they are. There are a number of details that I was hesitant to create: Primarily the slight differences in side panels that I believe are the result of HEP conversion and the square holes that Amtrak made in the skirting near the trucks. Until I can obtain another shell or two to practice on, those details will be absent from this model. I add that Kato made the vestibule door frames too tall: They overlap the corrugated title area by a small amount. In reality, this is not the case for hi-level cars in either SantaFe or Amtrak liveries. This particular inconsistency made filing that area difficult, as I did not want to eliminate the top of the frame.
Finally have some of the cars to start another GN train, the Oriental Limited, thanks to MTs' release of the heavyweights. The 1947 consist had 17 cars and I am 8 cars there now with substituting an Atlas diner in the consist. Shown are the MT cars with the modified trucks and couplers and American Limited diaphragms added. In order to add the diaphragms to the MT cars I had to trim some of the inside ledge from the doorway at the top and the top sections of the sides for the springs to clear. The white rod is my small trick to hold out the springs and buffer to be able to glue the diaphragm to the car without gluing in the springs or buffer section. Poly Scale Empire Builder paint is a dead match for the undec cars and the Pullman lettered cars to cover the Pullman roadname. Cars get a GN in the letterboard and Pullman sublettering on the corners. You would have thought that MT would have used the blackened trip pins, but no dang it, they used the brass. So all the trips had to be darkened.
Going a little out of my era and trying something new. Wanted a unit train so I picked up some roadrailers. Just finished swapping out the coupler on my boggies for something more reliable. The one on the left is a 2004 & Can't see it on the right but I'm going to test a 905 z-scale coupler and see how many roadrailers I can pull with this tiny coupler. Now to start detailing & weathering my roadrailers.
Handlaid Crossing In N-scale Code 55 Our club is building an N-Scale diorama for display, and it needed a custom crossing. I've always wanted to try my hand at it since after making several hand laid turnouts with Fast Tracks fixtures and really liked how they work. Since this was a curved crossing, made to fit the trackwork, I used the method shown in detail of N Scale Magazine's January/February 2011 edition. This was the result after electrical gaps had been cut and filled, and the crossing painted to match the wood ties to the PC ties. The little bit of flextrack is ME code 55. When running a car through it, you can't even feel the gaps at all.... NCDaveD
My private car the "Cynthia Louise" named for my lovely wife Cindy who lets me have free reign in the whole basement. Also lettered for my former model railroad "The Lacrosse Route", a Milwaukee Road and Burlington Route joint venture.
Finished this SD70ACe over the weekend after it sat on my bench for the better part of 5 months. Hardest part of the project was locating a pack of Microscale's SD75M Super Fleet decals. Ended up using a combination of sets. This is how BNSF should have gone with their livery if you ask me, but what do I know... Next up for the layout, Domino's Pizza... Brian
I've started working on weathering my roadrailer train. Here are the trailers I have done so far. Also modified the boggie to be more reliable. When done I'm hoping to have a 40 trailer train due to the weight of the trailers and hard to find now a days. And now the trailers.... There will also be some clean trailers to mix it up. Nick
Differentiable, That looks really good! Can you get a close up/straight-on of the side? I did one in Phase IV and I used styrene. It's true that it sticks out a little, but I found it wasn't too noticeable. I'm away from home for 7 weeks, but I'll post pictures later. Also, I see you are in Albuquerque! That's my home town. Are you with the New Mexico Rail RunNers by any chance? Chris
HI the trailers look good. you will have no problem with a 40 count train. I run a 54 ns trailer train with one kato gp60 at train shows with no problems.
cfquinlan; Yes, I am in the NMRR (have been since 1992 I think), and I believe we've met before. As far as the pictures go, that's the best my phone's camera can do at that distance (software "zoom" only, it seems) and I need to get batteries for my aging Minolta. EDIT: I might be at the Alvarado for train day.
I have just got my T-TRAK layout up and running. My modules still need the siding and yard tracks put in, but I can at least run trains now. Today I work on the yard and sidings, then the scenery on the modules. I love this system because I have no room in the house for a layout, but now, I can set up my layout on the patio and run for a few days before taking it apart and storing it in the garage. takes less than five minutes to set up or take down.
yeah Brian! That's what I'm talkin about! Warbonnet ACe. You still should have put "SANTA FE" on the long hood tho.
