Recent content by kjd

Nothing like a good steam whistle in the morning. I hope nobody tries to run a ship into it.

I found this and it is similar to your model, from this page: https://wjhudson.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/southern-pacific-steam-boxset/

A photo for day 20 of the new normal. What do you get when you combine a shark, a twinkie, a skybox and storm light? This is actually 3 photos, the dramatic sky was over Elliot Bay in Seattle, the hills and windmills are from eastern Washington and the train was in my garage. The 8527 and...

I thought April Fools was cancelled this year. If he'd been able to go another 800ft forward and steer it 470 ft to the left and get it to go about 250ft across the water he would have made it. So close.

I was thinking, this plan reminds me of Cottonwood, ID, on the Camas Prairie. The tracks have been pulled up for years but it is a small agricultural town on a curve. It had several grain elevators and a large wooden trestle. The main industries are on the curve so there are some funky shaped...

It looks like N scale, that is a lot of going on in 8' in HO. The spur to the cement plant looks about 9"radius at most assuming the 12" squares. When I was looking at it I thought I would hate to be a surveyor in that town, the property lines would have to go every which way. It does look...

I'm not sure what you are talking about but I assume the original is 30" x 16'. O scale isn't exactly twice as big as HO so if the plan is 16' on O you need 8'10" to duplicate exactly in HO. Not that it matters, just take the elements of what you like and build it. Maybe instead of 50' cars...

Here's the glow worm that is 4106. The kit for the high nose was white plastic while the utility cab was black. The radiators are kind of thin.

James, that crusty CNW hopper looks especially tired next to the freshly painted switcher and perfect ballast. After running the above grain train for a bit, I heard the dreaded thumping coming from 4106 indicating at least one of the axle gears is cracked. I looked at the locomotive and...

With DCC, add a resistor to the LED circuit since LEDs are a set voltage. Red and green are about 1.5 V and white and blue up to about 3.3V. You need to know about what voltage is on the track to calculate. You also need to put the light circuit parallel with and not in series with the track...

Good morning, Everyone, I like the new place. The 6' tape squares on the floor are a nice touch. Greg, didn't you hear, April Fools was cancelled this year. Not joking, I have heard of zinc pest and locomotive frames falling apart. Impurities in the alloy cause it to crystallize and become...

Thanks, Mike. The ones I have have the engineer's window even with the top of the center windshields and not stepped down like on the brass model. I think they fixed it on later runs but I guess mine are from early production.

Here's one from yesterday. I was saying how it's rainy outside and sunny inside. Well at the moment it is raining and sunny outside and (via Photoshop) foggy in the garage. GATX 7357 and BN 4106 are on the point of an empty grainer.

The middle GS looks a bit "jacked up". Is that the one needing repair?

Do you have more views, particularly the front of the cab, the biggest fail on the early Atlas C30-7s. I have a handful I want to paint up as well. A few BN and one ATSF. In 1995(ish) the BN was using a bunch of ATSF painted C30-7s on coal trains. I like numbers so one of the BN units will...