Back in the mid 1980s, after getting married, buying a house and starting a family, I dragged out all my old N scale collection that had been stored away since my college years. I had been helping my dad out with his HO layout and got the model railroading bug again. It was mostly Atlas/Rivarossi and old Lone Star Treble 0. When in high school, I had put new trucks with Rapido couplers on most of my Lone Star freight cars but the three passenger cars were still unconverted. I obtained some Con Cor passenger trucks for them and decided to change them to ATSF so that I could pull them with my Santa Fe Rivarossi E8 and C Liner. After a dip in the paint stripper the old UP paint was all gone. I added wire grab irons, diaphragms and detailed undercharages. A few years ago, I decided to change all the freight cars back to the original looking trucks with the hook and loop couplers using resin copies cast from a RTV molds created using the original trucks that I still had. Micotrain wheels were installed. I did not have any of the old passenger trucks to copy until I found an original passenger car at a train show recently. I used that for making an RTV mold and started casting new trucks. I decided that I may as well paint them back to UP so they could run behind my repowered Lone Star F units. While at it, I painted up an Arnold Rapido RPO car and an Observation car to round out the train. The RPO got a baggage compartment and the Observation got some LED marker lights. The old RPO need a little heating and bending to reduce the "hump back banana warp" that those cars sometimes developed. These were the shorty N scale passenger cars that Arnold patterned after the early Athern HO streamlined cars. The Lone Star autos and crossing gates are on the right.
Good morning from cloudy, cool and rainy Northeast Ohio! After missing last week due to some family medical issues, I managed to finish some cars this week. First up, a prepainted PRR Hopper Car kit, where I dull coated the factory finish to get rid of the paint shine on the car. The PRR had 36,000 of these H21 hoppers and this addition to my fleet brings me to less than a .1% of the PRR's total. Next going to the NYC for one of their 50's built 70 Ton 14 Panel Hopper cars, the NYC also had a large fleet of hopper cars servicing mines in IL, IN and WV. The car is a Stewart Kit, painted with Scalecoat II Black paint and lettered with decals that Brian Branna allowed me to purchase from his decal supplier, these are great decals that follow the prototype well. Now going the the merger, I have a Tangent Sam Rea GATC Clone of their 4600CF Covered Hopper kit, painted with Scalecoat II UP Covered Hopper Gray paint and lettered with Champ Decals. Car was in grain service on the PC. A pair of PC Kato SD-45's with a mixed freight running on the Strongsville, OH Club Layout. Have a great weekend! Rick Jesionowski
Back to U.P.! What a journey! I hope those medical issues get run out of town for good. Less than 0.1% of the total. A few more to do! Big ol' covered hopper. Sharp looking material train.
It's December, time to put up the Christmas Tree. Here's a picture of my tree lot from my old O Gauge layout.
Christmas has arrived in the town of Willoughby. The town council has put up candy canes on all the city lamp posts and in the town square. They once again put up a Christmas tree in the square, this year's being the biggest ever. Individual stores decorate their buildings; and the Tri State Utility likes to say that because they have the biggest building in town, they have to have the biggest wreathes! Even the train station has their own outdoor tree, welcoming travelers.
A little photo editing of one of my Brush Creek shots, courtesy of Allen at Realistic Model Railroading Forum....
I have had these 2 HO scale Overland Brass DRGW cabooses for a 6-7 years, I finally decided to paint and decal them up and get them into service on my MRR. Used Scalecoat paints and Microscale decals and a few I made myself to do these cabooses. Used some cushion devises on these as well. I also decided to use some Atlas caboose trucks under them, now I guess that might make some cringe, but they look at least as good especially when the proper axle generators are used. The brass trucks rolled like a hand brake was applied. But I did paint and weather the brass trucks to match the Atlas ones. I didnt want to weather these too much, so a light weathering coat was applied. The most challenging by far was to cut and install slide glass for the glazing, real glass looks so much better than plastic glazing. I am waiting for some High-tech rubber air hoses to come in to put the final touches on them. Here we have the DRGW 01504, first image without weathering or glazing. And below the DRGW 01524. A challenge for decals were the diagonal stripes on the ends of the roof of the 01524, also all those little red stripes on the decals too, there are 32 decals on the steps alone on each caboose. Here they are being shoved by the DRGW 3129 into the cab track. The yard tramp job will soon come and get one to add to the rear of that Freight train in the back ground. Thanks for stopping by for a look.
