since I was up, thought I'd start it off hot off the hard drive link to video, sorry for the low res, even though my digital camera takes video it's not great, but at least it's a moving train http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f123/river_eagle/N-Scale/?action=view¤t=5.flv enjoy b0b
Cool shots so far, all. Carl, I assume you have a new Athearn Challenger? River Eagle, thx for starting us out with a great shot. Bill Denton, always love seeing anything you do. PSG1790, love the Black Widows. ========== Here's my contribution for the week. I've been working on weathering the Santa Fe passenger locomotive fleet and passenger cars. This has turned out to be a great learning experience; it's noticeably more challenging and time consuming to get close to the subtle weathering that a often-washed passenger loco/car would receive, as compared to a dirty freight diesel or freight car. Thanks to Skibbe for giving me the tips on what/where to weather passenger equipment, that made my efforts start to turn out (hopefully) OK: http://therailwire.net/smf/index.php/topic,11860.msg94785.html Following is one example of my efforts so far to take a stock model and improve the appearance, a Santa Fe PA-1: By the way, can you tell what is the scale of the above model? I worked on getting appearance of depth in the trucks with washes and strategic applications of Grimy Black in the deep areas. Here's a comparison, after (left) and before (right) on the PA-1 A-1-A trucks: Investigating a closer look, here's the EMD F unit B-B trucks. After weathering is on the left, before weathering on the right: (Yes, these are all photos of N scale models by Kato) After the original step of applying a base coat of Stainless Steel silver paint to the trucks, here is where the Grimy Black for making shadows was applied. Final step was to apply an overall wash, made of 6 parts water to 1 part Pollyscale acrylic Grimy Black - to tone down the silver: Takes some time, but it's fun. A continuing journey. Thx again, Skibbe! Have a great week, all.
John, That is a Key, several years old, and since taking that photo I have added numbers onto the # boards. your article on how to do # boards was a great help. Thanks !
The California Special, train 75 (66 when running on the SP through Sugar Land) is being pulled by Alco's 71L and 71A today. In Clovis the engines will turn the train over to be added to train 23, the Grand Canyon for the rest of the trip to California. Different cars were routed to Los Angeles or to Oakland.
John I like your trucks. They now lost their plastic appearance. Bob and Carl, I like everything SP of course, especially the centennial line up. Here is my SP contribution. My own idea of heritage paint scheme if SP would still be around and try in an inexpensive way to follow UP's lead.
A few shots switching the limestone works then the unit train hauled by two Geeps heads to the cements works. I also used the telephoto lens on a few of the shots.
Do I spy a D&RGW unit??? The Central Pacific unit is neat--very plausible! I braved the howling winds, and deep snow on the old Milwaukee Road North Montana Line:
Very nice, Roland! At last it's not that experimental GP60 striping that was tried (and not tried again)....
Athearn cab car, with windshield wipers, painted diaphragm, pilot, and Z couplers Nearly complete SD40T-2
I have a construction thread on this over on the Atlas N board, and I've developed this model as a resin project. This is the 65-ton Whitcomb switcher that was developed for the US Army Transportation Corps, exported to Europe and Africa, some stayed in Europe, others came home after the war, and over 100 made their way onto industrial and shortline railroads in the US. This is the first one I've painted - and I'm reasonably satisfied how well the resin shell reproduces the detail (and hides the glitches!) of the original. This one will be Allegheny & South Side 100. Dan Pikulski of Dans Resin Casting is doing decals for it, and may be doing a similar model in HO. This will be available as a resin conversion kit project to the Tomytec/Tomix TM01-02-03 chassis, and maybe some of the bigger ones that are currently made such as the TM-05; I have one on order. I developed a replacement frame that will come with the kit. I'm writing instructions now. The mechanisms are available from Ebay supplier Plazajapan and possibly others. The options include the slope-side cab (shown above), the postwar flat-sided cab that Whitcomb developed and retrofitted the USATC units with, and the high center cab using basically the same hood that was new postwar production. I'm still about a month out or so on having these to sell, but you can at least start planning. The molds are working well and the end result (whew!) seems to work.
Nice work all. I normally don't get a chance to contribute to this thread so here's one for this week Due to excessive rockfall in the area (something about a giant with an afro pick in his hand making this mess) the Van Buren Sub had to tempoarily protect the track infrastructure. Here K-L is cooling its heels waiting for a maintenance-in-the-way crew to remove the "protective tarp" so it can get on its way to North Little Rock.
