Decided to,pull the trigger again! This time, I went for the Kato turntable, roundhouse, a couple of 2stall engine sheds and related track. Could start showing up anytime from Tuesday, July 3, to July 30/31. I was hoping to get the newer, modern engine shed instead. Not listed anywhere though, so....
I bought a 30 Watt soldiering iron last night from Walmart for $9.97, my old one is about ten years old and needed be replaced. These morning I'm going to finish installing track on modules 05, 06, 07 and part of 08. Will post a photo when I finished. Joe
Engine house and turntable have arrived! Still waiting on the rest of the parts I ordered. Could be here anytime from now, through the end of the month! Everything else does NOT include tracking information, so I have no idea where it is, on the journey here. Very nicely done however. Very clean, no flash. Maybe some minor painting to improve things.
I got my two Atlas Geeps in the mail Saturday. The Lackawanna GP7 will donate it's DCC chassis to one of my two #701-710 non DCC Atlas WP GP7s. The shell will donate it's high hood and probably cab sections to my Life-Like GP20. The GP20 will most likely end up as WP #2009, which was the only WP GP20 to be painted in UP's colors. I caught it in Milpitas, Ca. shortly after the UP/WP merger.
finally got a couple of photos! Overall view of new layout. Latest and last structure. Kato modern 2 stall engine house. Locomotives are Atlas, Kato and walthers/LifeLike Atlas GBW C-420, RS-3 Atlas DRGW GP7/9 Kato NW-2, custom painted DRGW Walthers/LifeLike SW-9 DRGW Overall layout size is 2x4 foot. 11 inch radius curves, and 1 #6 LH turnout.
A 2X4 foot layout with a turntable and 2 roundhouses and I can't seem to find room for those on a 4X8! I guess I have too many yard tracks. And, those little GP7's, GP9's, and GP20's sure were/are neat looking locos, aren't they. Especially with the Dynamic brake bulge. Doug
A Spectrum 2-8-0 from Ebay which will be my next modification project; I will make it into an H8 or H9. I will of course post pics. Amanda
Doug, You’re lucky! I don’t have yard space! Tempted to combine both 2x4 foot railroads I’m working on! Connected by the Kato double crossover! A funky figure 8, engine facilities and some industrial switching. Run 2 trains on separate loops, or 1 train on a squashed fig 8 and an industrial switch job.
I bought a Frisco passenger train and a E-8 locomotive last week. It is the all silver set and not the red stripe. This is ConCor's original release from way back. Now I have five passenger trains in total, four Frisco lightweight and one Santa Fe heavy. Joe
Just received 4 Bachmann 70 Tonners, Intermountain Cooks Paints 8000 gallon tank car, and NCE NAVO decoder.
More model train goodness for me! An Atlas N scale WP U23B to go with the one I already have (it needed a friend) and a couple of Wheels of Time Rio Grande insulated box cars:
I bought 60 insulated rail joiners from Hobby Town USA yesterday evening. Will use them to join all of the track instead of the metal joiners. They are easier to install than metal for my eyes and I'm going to solder track feeders to each rail so it won't effect continuity. Joe
I bought a package of trees from Hobby Lobby last night for $10.99 plus tax. They have white trunks and medium green foliage, will go good with my trees made from Nandina seed stems and Woodland Scenes foliage. Sometimes I use grape vines to make trees. Joe Trees from Hobby Lobby Trees from Nandina seed stems
I just received a shipment from Canada, a pair of brand new Miniatures by Eric Pacific Electric cars. I now have a Portland Twelve interurban and a Hollywood Car suburban…
Recieved my Digitrax LNWI today! LocoMet Wireless Interface. I can now use my ipad(s) to run trains! Been experimenting a bit with it, on my small Kato engine facility layout. Took under 5 minutes to connect and run! Took me longer to recall my iTunes login! Two versions available. WiThrottle lite and Full(paid) version. I went ahead and downloaded the Lite version first, until I found login! Then I went ahead and got the Full version as well. Might be able to use lite version at shows. Works quite well. Better throttle control than remote(s). IMO. Guess I’m gonna have to get one of my sound locomotives and try it next! Looks good and runs good. I’m impressed with it!
Received the new Atlas SD35 Southern Pacific sound units today. It started out exciting... SP #6908 Did not RTR - looked like it was on a test bench for a year with gummy wheels, finally got them clean and now runs great. SP #6924 Did not RTR - Sound is great, jerks along at speed step 1 - 5, can't hardly move beyond speed step 50 (connectivity is fine) it seems to be binding on rear axle set. Does not move well at all - This needs to go back to Atlas. I find it a Shame we spend these kinds of dollars and I have to spend shipping cost to get a the warranty correction on a brand new unit. Guess it's the times we live in. SP #6950 RTR!!! and runs/sounds as what I expected all 3 to do. So I end up with 2 out of 3 until warranty recovery takes place. After all said I am still satisfied on the Atlas Product.
Atlas should issue return postage labels so we don't have to spend postage to send something back, especially brand new out of the box failures. They haven't even been used yet!
It's interesting that the store I purchased them from would honor a paid return trip and replace the locomotive if in stock...but the stock they had sold out fast - so I'm left with Atlas warranty recovery process.
I purchased these at the Altoona show last weekend. Atlas MP15DC DCC equipped and a three pack of Bluford Shops Conrail hoppers.
