Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend and got a lot done. Let's get started. Friday: Went off without a hitch. I stopped by the Railfan bridge in Galesburg to find a small group had already gathered to watch the yard. I talked to some old friends then left for the show to set up. Set up was great and we had a bigger layout than last year. We were running trains on DC and DCC by 5:00pm. Saturday: With trains running, I set out to walk around the show and catch up with a few old friends and talk about their layout or news in general. I was able to find both the caboose models I was looking for in HO and N as well as a new VTR N scale car and HO pick-up model. The show was bigger this year, and the new coordinator did an excellent job of bringing both vendors and displays in. The team that did the show this year really deserves a great job and thank you for such a good show. Sunday: I ran my Rock Island #4710 "Frankenstein" loco with a short freight most of the day on the layout and generally had a great time with the guys from Heritage NTrak. I also got to spend about an hour with my old friend and original Galesburg RR Days train show coordinator, Harry. He had flown in from AZ and it was nice to catch up and relive some of those old RR Days memories. Before we knew it, it was time to put trains away and pack up. We successfully packed up by 5:00pm and after a quick trip to the depot for some pictures of the display locomotives and gas for Jess, I started home. I did stop by a building that I may use as a guide for one of my N scale buildings, so I took a lot of images to help aid in construction later. All in all, a fantastic weekend. So how about you? What did you get done this weekend? Let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday July 1st to start off a red, white and blue long weekend. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
Good mornin to Y'all, Hope Y'all had a great weekend. Color number two has been applied to the SSW PA"s -- And - I am just about finished with the ATSF F7's -- I think a little lite weathering is in order - mainly on the roof's. A little exhaust soot would be cool. Thanks,- Y'all have an awesome week, Wolf
Good morning all. Weekend went about as I thought. Maybe not as much modeling as I'd like, but I was able to get some stuff done. Both Saturday and Sunday I spent time aligning Angelo's Distributors and C&C Pet Food mill. Took them completely off the layout, tweaked, prodded, nuzzled, prayed, added bracing, shims, and a little sugar and got them aligned fairly well. This building got out of alignment when we moved from Northern Virginia to Raleigh in '08. They stayed in storage from '08 to early 2016 when I finally got the attic finished and started building the current layout. I did not want to "rebuild" the building and made the decision to deal with it best that I could. Angelo's still needs some tweaking on the opposite side where it butts up to Ad Hoc Mills. I also assembled several Details West switch motors. I am placing them on the 2 track mainline at the turnouts into Albemarle and elsewhere. Have a great week all. Take heart..... another long weekend approaching!
I worked on the Neeltran location yesterday. I built in the craft foam paved area and weathered it, and then added some scenery back around the plant. I still need to weather and detail the building, but for now, I am focusing on general scenery. My "High Tech" ballast application system.
Summer decided to come to the Pacific Northwest! Sooo, doing anything MRR-related seemed unlikely, but did get some things done, none the less! Saturday: Moose [almost] finished main brewery building. A painted door went missing and there be no roof detailing. It's good to have it finished enough to no longer bother Moose that finishing it might never happen... Sunday: Modified an old gondola to support a mini video camera Moose just received, mounted the camera and tested it around the layout mainline. Doesn't see well in tunnels without the inferred (IR) lights on, and Moose hooves make turning the IR lights on/off something of a challenge [to a moose]... Camera hits several tunnel entrances - apparently it's not to NMRA specifications! Monday: Might try to make a video of the layout from the mainline, if it isn't too frustrating or hot...
It was a good weekend here. In between family visits I was able to install all of the backdrop behind the Carlin section of my layout. Shown below with the 8ft section temporarily set in place. The two backdrop sections are mirror images and both came from Backdrop Junction. They were purchased at different times and the company had changed hands between my purchases. You may notice there is a slight difference between the sections. The new owner used a different paper which appears to actually be a better quality but is a bit glossy. I may try to spray some sort of flat finish over it but only after trying it on a leftover piece first.
I got the track laid out on that last module. I am happy with how it will appear when done. Now I just need to figure out how i will cut the deck for a water feature, as the plan includes two bridges.
Friday and Saturday were dedicated to vacuuming, carpet cleaning, and other chores to make the house presentable when our son and our potential future daughter-in-law arrived from Texas in Saturday afternoon. Sunday we had church, followed by a big family picnic that lasted most of the day We got tired enough that once most everything was put away and cleaned up, we just watched TV and crashed. As predicted, I did not get to the Sebring Model Railroad Club. I did still manage to get my GoPro gondola camera sled operational and I did play with the new (to me) GoPro Session. At first it didn't behave because it needed a memory card and once I found a memory card, I discovered that it needs a GoPro remote to link it to the GoPro app. I have the needed remote, but since I haven't used it in a couple years, of course I needed to charge it first. So now it's on the charger. This week I may give our son and his girlfriend a tour of the Model Railroad Club and, if I'm lucky, I'll be able to test the new camera sled. See below:
Over the weekend I managed to finish and paint a covered hopper kit and a Branchline 40' Double Door boxcar kit, also got some of the decals started on these two. I also found an Intermountain Milk Tank Car kit that I had started and after the weekend am about done, I still have to finish attaching the roofwalk end pieces to the end of the car and some hand grabs. I also started on an old Details West Combo Door Boxcar kit, and modified the underframe with Moloco Extended coupler pockets kit versus the kit coupler pockets as they are easier to maintain. Did some more walking and physical therapy excercises every day, as I would like to get back to bowling by early August. Rick Jesionowski
Impressive! Cool pics! Cool micro cameras! I am on here late due to fishing requirements earlier today. The Olds is still "under construction". The next attempt at the hood will be number three. Keep your toes and hooves crossed. All have a great week.
Father's day weekend family members came by and cut down a lot of brush and large saplings. Friday I spent the entire day outside cutting up the downed brush and saplings and feeding into the burn barrel. My muscles aren't healed enough to use the chain saw but I can run the Sawzall all day long. After dinner I spent some time cleaning up my workbench and working on sidewalks. Saturday morning my wife and I went to the petfood pantry to unload donations. She has been picking up donations while I'm still limited to 10lbs or less. Her SUV was packed to the point of being overloaded. It felt great to be back at pantry even if I could only handle small bags of dry food and treats. After pantry I continued with the sawing and burning. Saturday the heat came back. By late afternoon I was hot and worn out and retreated inside to the AC. I tried adapting a vaccum upholstery nozzle to my bench pin to collect styrene swarf and filings but I wasn't happy with the results. I'll figure something out. Sunday I continued working on sidewalks for the business district. Its slow work cutting and filing everything by hand but I'm making progress. On a side note, Monday marked the two month anniversary of my valve replacement. I'm feeling great, lots of energy. My goal is donning my daypack and exploring more of the S&NY RoW and looking for more traces of the abandoned coal mining communities on the mountains above.
Helped the neighbor girl save a baby rabbit yesterday. It's looks very healthy and active this morning. And the girl is really smiling.
I finally finished decaling my N scale Southern Pacific "Overnight" black boxcar. Three more cars to go... (shudder)...
I actually finished these the other week but given they are going to head out for their first run on the modules this weekend coming. All 3 are PSC RTR brass cars in HOn3. They were pretty rough when purchased but been rebuilt and painted then decaled with Thinfilm decals.
Its been a while. Not much to say. Should be done breaking down the layout tomorrow. After that I'll focus on pack up as much of the house as possible. Have fun folks. BTW: I get my railroading fix with YouTube videos but I avoid modeling based as it causes yearning.
