Cinco de Mayo, where we use the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the army of the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, as an excuse to party. Let the festivities begin.
Good morning from Sunny and Warm Northeast Ohio!!! Got a couple of cars done this week. First up is a Tangent PS Combo Door Boxcar kit, painted with Scalecoat II NP Dark Green and Silver Paints and lettered with Tichy Decals. The NP used this car in both grain and lumber hauling duties due to the combo door. Next a Front Range Double Door Boxcar kit, added A-Line Sill Steps then painted with Scalecoat II Black paint, then lettered with Herald King Decals. The Chesapeake Western was a Norfolk and Western Subsidiary and did not own any cars until the late 1970's when the N&W transferred a number of cars including this ex-NKP car from class B-54 on the merged railroads. Wabash GP35, U25b and C-424 hauling a general freight on the Strongsville Society of Model Railroad Engineers layout. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski
Heavy steam! Streamliners! Crisp combo and double doors! (@dti406, howd'ja give me your weather? Cmon' take it back. )
We have Lehigh & Hudson River 2-8-2 Light Mikado (Broadway Limited) with some express reefers at the Water Tower. I am hoping to do a run by a some point this weekend but it is not looking good now.
I managed to post this to the wrong thread, so I moved it here. I have not tried to model steam locomotives very much, I did however get the "bug" when my old friend ( A D&RGW employee many years ago) spoke about the D&RGW L-131 locomotives, after looking a pictures of these massive steam locos, well I knew I had to try. So, I gets me a brass L-131 model, and decides to paint/weather one, well ended up two. This is my one of my attempts at modeling a steam locomotive. I have had, I don't know how many people over to my MRR, over the years with a steam loco model telling me, "this thing will pull everything on the RR", only to see wheel slip before the drawbars had been stretched on a single track. Fact is this old brass, noisy loco pulled 47 cars up a 1.5% grade, it slipped but recovered and just grunted its way to the summit. I need to get better images, but I have never been more impressed with a single steam model locomotive. I have since gotten a AUX water car. Painted with Scalecoat, decals Microscale and weathered with chalks. All deficiencies are mine alone. I think it could have pulled 10 more cars, but a couple of my friends told me I was being mean to it. I might try again now that it has some paint with 10 more cars, we will see what this loco will pull some day soon. I used some foam that was formed to try and replicate what the auger feed coal might have looked like, painted black and sprinkled with real coal while wet. My friend Woody told to make sure over spillage was present, as it always was. And a average at best video, of the brute doing the deed, before painting.
Wow! 47+1 cars and hardly flinched... I figured that the flat rolling resistance of the train is about 120 grams (measured at 2.5 grams per car). Already on level track only a handful of my engines could aspire to do what this brute can haul. Up a 1.6% grade, my trigonometry teacher says it would add another 76 grams (this time gravity, the grade, and the weight of the train figures in)! So there's nearly 200 grams of pulling power - and a really heavy loco - needed to get up that grade! None of mine would make it up with that train without doubleheading. That beast is officially awesome...
Thanks Mike. Yessir that old brass loco is a brute. The thing has not been ran very much as the wheels are like new, and it is very old. So I am reluctant to run it very much so as to not get any wear on those drivers. I have made a new box with cut green foam, to hold it and its caboose, they sit up-right and in nice plastic wraps in the foam. I only handle this old treasure with gloves on. It's train resides in its own carrying case, and hasn't made an appearance in over 5 years. Maybe time to bring it out and make a new video with the new Aux water car and a few more cars . A couple of my friends cringe as it works so hard to do its job. I tell them the D&RGW never, ever cared anything, but putting every ounce of train it could handle. I have seen images of these L-131's pulling more cars than could be counted in the pictures, especially between Grand Junction and Woodside UT. There was an old RG engineer that used to come into the yard office and tell stories of firing and running these L-131's and L-105's out across the "desert" west of GJ, he was 5 foot not much, but he was a giant in my eyes. Many years ago, when there were 100's of peach orchards around here they would pull 100+ car trains of reefers west, he said he hated it when all those hatches were opened on the cars as it slowed them down a bit. His name was Warren Kiefer, and lived to 93 years old. Said he fired the last L-105 across the desert, as the regular assigned fireman to the turn laid off when he saw there was a steam loco scheduled for the train instead of the new diesels, Warren was working the Xtra board and got the call. He had great stories, wish I could remember them all. He was one of those lucky few that lived longer in retirement than he worked, he got all his money back he paid towards retirement. And thats a good story too.
