Ouch! As they say, "That's not gonna buff out!" Anyway, I don't know how I missed the beginning of this thread but I am caught up, now. Great work, Dan. Concrete piers are never as smooth as the commercially-offered ones. A pour line here and there is realistic. Doug
A perfect post BigJake. This blight has risen to appear everywhere these days. I don't find it awesome or interesting in the least, so certainly don't want to see it on my model railroad either. You can be sure that if your road interchanges cars with my DS&N, they'll be returned appearing just as they left.
Cab conversation: "Are those racks gonna clear the bridge?" "Sure, they're the newer low profile ones." Doug
Oldsmobiles are long gone, too. We had a '77 and '86 and years later, an '87, all Cutlass Supremes and all very nice cars. Doug
I wish Kato made this style of pier in inclined pier sets (and the intermediate sets) too. As it is, I believe these are only available in the 2" height.
Yep, they'll clear .... but just barely. The tallest car I'll likely ever run will be my MILW 60 FT hi-cube as seen here. It clears by exactly 1/4", a little over 3 Feet in N Scale. Thanks Doug. I shot some primer on the piers today and I'm feeling much better about their appearance now. I found some old Floquil "Concrete" color in my paint box and will give 'em a shot of that next. First though, I have two more piers to modify in the same way. Fun Fact: As hi-cube cars gained favor, the CNJ dug out and lowered one of their tracks under the PRR mainline at Elizabeth, NJ to gain needed clearance. The work provided a cost-effective solution to an otherwise vexing problem. I think it was the empty track seen between the train and the bridge pier in this photo. [Photo by D.W. Davidson, 08/1974]
Reminds me...In my first year of college '62-'63 (Drury College, Springfield, MO.) a friend and I were camping out and decided to go hop a freight one night. Like idiots we left a note in our tent in case we never came back about what we were doing. We went to the edge of the yard in Springfield and waited for a freight to hop. Waited quite a while and decided that this was a bad plan and went back to our tent. A few weeks later I decide to try again with a different friend. We left the dorm and it was night but I can't remember the time exactly. This time we had better luck and as a train was moving out I was able to get on the front of a car hauling autos. He ran along side and was barely able to get on the rear of the car as the train was going faster. I know, this was not a smart move by either of us. So now we are on a car filled with cars. I can't remember how high the cars were stacked but I don't think it was three high. We tried getting in a car and found it unlocked so got in the front seat for the ride. We had no idea where the train was going. About dawn we are pulling into the outskirts of a large city but didn't know which one it was. I'd never been west of Springfield at this point. The train is coming in the yard and I think we had just gone past a control tower when it slowed enough to jump off and take off running. We had heard the stories of what they did to hobo's. As we walked into what we though was the more downtown area we came across a guy leaving a restaurant and asked him where we where. He looked at us like we must be joking and said Tulsa. We spent a good part of the rest of the day hitchhiking back to Springfield. I tried this one other time with a friend outside of St. Louis where the trains would go slow on the tracks at the back of his yard. We managed to get on a train and it went less than a mile and came to a stop and sat there. We got tired of sitting and finally got off and that was the end of trying to ride freights and the beginning of my hitchhiking days. Sumner
One of the interesting results of re-entering the hobby of model railroading after several decades is a reawakening of memories through the familiar odors of paint and glue. Opening Floquil paint, applying Ambroid cement, soldering and using Testors spray paint all instantly transport me back to when I was young. Those of you who've spent time in the hobby, or in greenhouses, machine shops, darkrooms, lumber mills, bakeries or have cleaned a firearm with Hoppes No. 9 will probably know what I mean. I'm not sure if scientists have an explanation for why smells can evoke memories, but the results are amazingly powerful.
Yep, it's in hand, just came. I've decided I need to move my basic oval of track perhaps 3/8" of an inch away from the rear of the layout so as to allow a smidge more room for tunnel portals back there. I need to get the oval (which is about 8-1/2 FT long) perfectly situated because it's a cornerstone to everything else -- the yard and alternate route of raised track will all come off of it. When I get the oval squared up, I'll start putting my new track in place. Working on modifying the height my last two Kato piers. I might need more than the five I have, just not sure yet.
It is not surprising that the memory of scent is the longest lasting. The sense of smell (chemical sensing) was one of the first senses developed by primitive, even microscopic, organisms. Animals (and plants) depended upon smells (and the memory of them) to tell good food from bad, mate from enemy, navigation, etc., even before they had a central nervous system including a brain.
I lost most of my sense of smell some 40 years ago. Living in machine shops has it's pay. So now if I mention that to a nurse they instantly go into Covid-19 shock. Other officials think otherwise. Oh well.
When my brother quit smoking decades back, he was pleasantly surprised at his renewed sense of smell. The smell of fresh cut grass was the first to return. I was never a smoker, but worked in an office for years with many who smoked. When I later transferred to a new role in an office in another building without smokers, I was astonished that I'd been affected by years of second-hand smoke. My sense of smell returned and it's been with me ever since.
Like your brother, I'm a former smoker. I started in the USAF when cigarettes were 35 cents a pack and continued smoking for the next 30 years. I quit 12 years ago and that was the first thing I noticed as well, I sense of smell seemed to go into high gear. Stuck in traffic, I could tell if someone multiple cars away was smoking a cigarette. Other smells like the river after a rain and even the smell of rain on a hot summer day cooling the pavement were smells I'd not noticed in years. I guess when you constantly smell smoke, it diminishes your sense of smell. Going back to your previous post, in my teen years I built many plastic model kits from AMT and ERTL. On a whim I purchased a re-release of an AMT kit from Round 2 and upon opening that bottle of Testors liquid cement brought back a floodgate of memories from those teen years. It's funny how smell can trigger memories and I don't know if you watch the show NCIS, but several years ago they used that same idea to trigger memories for a WWII veteran who was having dementia issues and thought he murdered his friend during the war. Just the simple act of lighting matches and blowing them out and the smell of the sulfur was enough for the veteran to recall what really happened. For me the smell of creosote always reminds me of my maternal grandparents home. They lived along side the N&W Connellsville division and in the spring the N&W would replace ties along the right of way, leaving the valley smelling like creosote.
After a decade of disuse, I was able to find my airbrush stuff this afternoon, strewn about in various places, along with a 30 year old bottle of perfectly fine Floquil concrete colored paint. I shot my shortened Kato piers and they turned out pretty well. I might need to buy a few more piers to modify, but I'll wait until I see how my track plan evolves.
That Testors stuff was strong! I always got really hungry after putting one of those Postage Stamp building kits together
Those kits were so much fun to build, weren't they? I remember when model glue sniffing became a pastime for people in the early '70s and glue manufactures temporarily doctored their formulas with an orange scent and the glue quality suffered.
Your NOT right Just kidding. Spin up the 1960's psychedelic music. Kids DON'T do this! This has been a Public Service Announcement
