Slowly working away when I can sneak in time. Today I added more details to "The Lobster", my little gas loco that is loosely based on early gas locos. Certain ideas about exhaust stacks and sand domes actually were carried forward into early gas locos, so the stack and the dome are actually fairly prototype.
My little diversion is slowly coming along. It’ll be a rickety mining line clinging to rocky ledges so the track isn’t perfectly symmetrical. I’m not happy with my new Atlas Z scale turnouts so I may not use them at all. If I add power to the little brass tab/ring sticking out of the side I’m hoping that would eliminate the stalling I’m experiencing. It’s just going to be an over and under continuous running display layout so turnouts aren’t really needed but I want to park one locomotive on a spur while running another one. I need bulletproof track work.
Not too bad at all. Perfect circles are not required. News, after laying off for two years my final layout starting shortly will also be a figure 8. Have fun.
Good news! I soldered a small wire from the tab on the side of the Atlas switch and connected it to the opposite rail and now my two micro sized geared steam locos run through them smooth as silk. Tonight I drove the “golden spike” so I’ll post a video soon of my train in operation. Such as it is.
Hey all! I'm relatively new to Trainboard sobthis is my first post. I've always been a lover of Narrow Gauge and as such I equally love modeling it. I prefer modeling in O scale, but to change things up I started a small HOn30 layout. I may show some pics of the layout later, butbfor now is an 0-4-2 project using a Bachmann Skarloey. Still has a ways to go and will keep you all posted.
I've had these queued up for a long time. These are E&C shops double deck stock cars. I bought them assembled but were missing a lot of the "detail", also weighed hardly anything. To avoid trashing them by disassembling in order to get some weight in them I cut pieces of lead to fit in amongst the underframe. The NMRA recommended weight for these cars is 57g, Blackstone cars are 52g. These weighed 26g to begin with, I managed to get them up to 40g so a marked improvement. They always tracked well anyway so the weight will only help. With the weight issued solved as best as possible I turned to the missing detail parts. Stirrups, roof grabs and brake staff & wheel. I got some Grandt Line brake wheels a while ago. I raided my stocks of wire for the other parts. Stirrups and 0.5mm brass, brake staff is 0.4mm brass and the roof grabs a 0.3mm nickel silver. All bent to shape by hand and CA'ed in. Having been cleaned, I painted all the parts black. That's where they stand currently and awaiting a trip to the spraybooth for weathering. Happy Railroading
