Moose completed two 55 ton hoppers for the future North Fork Skokomish Mining Company. Here they are sitting outside of a warehouse located in Moose Bay. Why, Moose no know... Painted and applied custom decaled.
Moose have three -- count'em -- three locomotives fresh out of the paint shops. Yippee! Each was custom decaled and new paint, errr, sort of. Tender shells were all repainted and the locomotive shells simply received flat clear paint after decal application.
Do you actually manage to get those Life-Like and Bachman steamers to run well? On another topic; is that warehouse scratch-built or a kit?
The Bachmann DCC 2-6-0 is a very nice runner. The Life-Like 0-8-0 PMS #12 was purchased used, with a damaged wire harness. The wires common to the connector were dislodged & broken. Was able to engage the wires well enough to change its decoder address, but not to run it. Note that it did operate, like it's brother (see below), but it has since been placed in the "Needs Repair" box... The Life-Like factory DCC 0-8-0 MT&P #34 was purchased new some time ago, but has yet to be ran per say. However, it did appear to operate smoothly and to have good slow speed performance on a Kato ~ 10 inch straight section yesterday, when updating its decoder address. Will break it in on a Kato loop when have time to set that up. Will post results to Moose's "Running Trains" thread at that time... The yellow warehouse was scratch-built.
The fact that an N-Scale locomotive even has a "Wire harness" makes me cringe. Then well done sir. It must have been a copper plated (Expletive Deleted) to scribe all those end of board lines.
Makes Moose cringe just thinkin' about trying to repair the wire harness -- especially with these dag'gum moose hooves! Oh yeah, the results weren't bad though AND there was something of a side benefit: the neighbors have to deal with all the new and interesting words their children learned that day -- and are repeating to this day... Bwaaa! (Insert evil moose laugh here!)
Moose work on converting a new Graham-Farish 4-6-2 Coronation Class to DCC ... and correcting some "issues"... Issues: (1) Broken drawbar, (2) Cold solder & loose wire in tender, (3) Bent tender coupler, (4) Missing front coupler, and (5) Non-functioning new Zimo decoder. Once the tender wire & solder issues were resolved, installing a Digitrax DZ126IN was ease. Unfortunately, Moose intended to install a Zimo MX681N decoder, but it did not work. The seller had sent a replacement drawbar after Moose had discovered the original broken. The other issues Moose only discovered today. Moose learn valuable lesson, check everything immediately upon delivery, not two years afterward... Couplers were replaced with Dapol 2A-000-11 & -13 short & long arm couplers, respectively. Moose still trying to figure out how and where to install the additional details that come with the model. Hope to test run and break-in locomotive on Kato test track sometime this week... Note: This locomotive was purchased new from "Mech Models" a few years ago, and delivered with a broken drawbar for which the seller sent a replacement. Moose finally got around to bringing this out of storage to install a decoder today and found: (1) the replacement drawbar's clip end slightly twisted (i.e. used), (2) the front coupler missing, (3) the rear coupler bent up, and (4) both a cold solder & loose wire in the tender.
Oh! Now yer givin' Moose naughty thoughts! Ya'know, that long arm coupler on the GF Coronation might be too long. Perhaps Moose should buy some medium arm couplers and replace it...
Moose finish re-ID of two Atlas Shay geared locomotives for the local timber removal company. Yeah! DCC non-sound decoders were professionally installed in both a few years ago. Applied custom decals and a flat clear coat. Nothing special, but those wee drive shafts on the right hand side had Moose quite hesitant to touch them...
Moose finally complete seven Maintenance of Way (MoW) cars, four for the MT&P RR and three for the Johnston-Kerr Timber Co.
Who made the Heavyweight passenger cars? Those look great!! Would be neat to add on to one of mt Rio Grande passenger trains, as a run through car. Maybe detoured from it's usual route.
Thank you, good sir! Those are made by Micro-Trains. Moose designed the decals and had Bill Brillinger of "Precision Design Company" in Canada print them. Bill also designs decals.
Moose bad, here's his website: https://www.pdc.ca/rr/catalog If you have any questions about how to design them yourself, let Moose know and Moose will start a thread on decal designing ideas. Might be good to see how others go about designing decals too!
Moose commenced a'paintin' the teenie tiny bits of 20+ Micro-Trains disconnect log cars... Plus, Moose found a package of Micro-Trains logging car loads, so Moose also have loads of logs to paint! Here's a sneak peak: