Turkey Day Photo Fun

[UP2CSX]

Nice work from everyone so far. Chip, those paper structures came out nice. I've never had much luck with them but, seeing the you, John, and Steve have done with them, I may have to give one another try.

Josh, good luck with hoppers. I kitbashed some SP sugar beet gondolas and they were a royal pain to get right. Of course, as soon as I got done with 10 of them, Athearn came out with the correct model.

John, roads are though to get looking right. Asphalt is especially difficult because most modellers make it too black and don't weather it to show traffic patterns. Your's will look good with some more weathering in the middle of the travel lanes and some striping.

Steve, I like using shipping containers as a backdrop for a freight yard. Hadn't thought of that.

 

[Steve B]

Jim, i just put them on the scanner, then slapped em into powerpoint and printed them out on card, easy and fast.

 

[jbaakko]

Josh, good luck with hoppers. I kitbashed some SP sugar beet gondolas and they were a royal pain to get right. Of course, as soon as I got done with 10 of them, Athearn came out with the correct model.

Again, not me, Ken L

(Ken, looks like I might have finish them for you at this rate ).

 

[johntealon30]

Thanks Jim I plan to do final weathering on the road after adding the markings

The little plastic peoples safety rep complained about the unsafe drop from the road.

So large lengths of armco have been scratchbuilt.

Some large flats seem to have appeared on the horizon aswell

John
RJR

 

[jbaakko]

Some new decaling work going on, along with station construction. Both units are Athearn, arrived yesterday by mail. Road numbers are custom decals by me, the units have not yet been dullcoted.

The Station is a "Mission style station" from Suydam. I never knew it was cardboard until I started building it! Very nice though.

 

[Myowngod]

Josh, they're nice looking units. Every time I see your modern time diesels I feel like scrapping my steam and buying modern day. I like the way the BNSF stuff looks rolling through the desert scenery.

...hmmm?... possible future layout?

 

[Steve B]

John the builders have been busy your way, bob on.
Chip got a load of those card buildings from the benjerry place for the children, great fun for them.
Chipis the building going to have a stucko finnish

 

[johntealon30]

It had been pointed out the barriers were a bit close to the edge (Space is tight so a bit of artistic licence had been applied) Im hoping the bushes soften the appearance of the "leap of death" .....

John
RJR

 

[SpaceMouse]

John the builders have been busy your way, bob on.
Chip got a load of those card buildings from the benjerry place for the children, great fun for them.
Chipis the building going to have a stucko finnish

Most of the buildings on my layout are yellow brick.

I'll make a separate thread for the answer.

 

[OldGettysk]

Josh nice looking Loco's , John your barriers are dead on if you know what I mean. I know some roads in the USA that are that close to the side .

 

[nsfantodd]

Here's a few more shots from today. I just ran out of glue an hour ago.

Josh, Did I miss something... are you building a layout?

Ken L, Your hoppers look great! Are you buildng the same cars Athearn is comming out with?

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH95504

Todd Templeton

 

[UP2CSX]

Ken L, sorry I got the WM hopper pics wrongly attributed to Josh. Nice work nevertheless.

Josh, that mission style station bulds up into a nice kit with careful work. I think that was one of the first suydam kits I ever built- I'm surprised they are still available.

John, you need dents and rust in the road barrier where careless drivers have plowed into it. It looks great otherwise. Like Paul wrote, there are many roads in the US where there's a metal barrier and then 300 feet to the bottom so it wouldn't be unusual here.

 

[johntealon30]

My 11 year old son has helped me this evening, he found a free grafiti generating website then did the work, scaled and then printed.

http://www.graffiticreator.net/

Meanwhile I painted the girder bridges. We then put our efforts together to come up with this.


His football choice "MCFC"

"RJR in da shed"

Then that guy came and wished us a krishna good day ??? I bet this is just a UK thing?

Who is he ????????

John
RJR

 

[grove den]

Johntealon30 :great pictures AND great modelling John!!
Specialy, Like the road you've made and most of all the first picture from #14!!( retaining walls)
Thanks!

Jos

 

[rhoward]

Great work as always from each of you! I tried to clean my track last Thursday after I got home from the feast at my Daughter-in-law's family only to be greeted by a short after getting it half cleaned. I didn't think i would ever get it back up and running. Finally, this afternoon, I started taking rolling stock off the layout to see if that made any difference and Voila! As soon as I took two reefers and my Decapod off the tracks at the Ice House, it came back on line. After reading a thread about someone who ruined a speaker in a loco when it picked up some track nails that had gotten on the tracks, I decided to create a magnet car out of an old flatcar that is too modern for my 1925 layout. At least the date on the side says it was made in 1947. On the other hand the maker did put polling pockets on the ends of the car. Lets see, Polling was outlawed in.......... Anyway this car will become a MOW car and do some milage on the SLOW after all. A strong magnet was glued under the car (Right side).

Some of the stuff it found on it's first run of the mainline. Notice the pile on the plaster in front of the magnet as well. It was also covered with fillings on the magnet as well as the spikes (most likely from cutting the piano wires used in the Tortoise switch machines with the dremel).

I also have been working on another retaining wall. Right now I am waiting on the LHS to get more in for me to finish it.

 

[UP2CSX]

John, I guess it was just a matter of time before someone came up with a graffiti generating website. I hope the graffiti in the UK doesn't get as bad as it has here. It looks good on your bridge through. And I don't know who that guy is either but he seems to be lost on his way to the temple.

Just got back from the Hillside tree lighting ceremony. The mayor always gives speach before the tree lighting urging people to shop and go to church. He owns the shoe store and he's a pastor. Most people think he's not quite right but they keep voting for him. He always wears a top hat to occasions like this:

The Main Street is decorated with hanging lights and cars are parked all over the place for the tree lighting:

Engineer Spike is in trouble again. He was supposed to pick an empty carbon black hopper from the paint plant at 2:00 pm but he was making a little merry last night and decided to make the pickup at 6:00, right in the middle of the tree lighting. He's arguing with Officer Mike about moving all these cars off his right of way. Officer Mike is debating whether or not to taser him :

During all the excitement, the UP local headed by GP-7 #105 comes through town, long hood first, as Walthers intended. The #105 is passing through the Bear Creek Swamp just outside of town:

 

[UP2CSX]

Ray,
So did you find if the short was in one of the freght cars or the decapod? I have had shorts when an uninsulated metal axle made contact with a metal truck sideframe. That drove me nuts for days but it taught me to remove every piece of rolling stock before short hunting just in case. That magnet flat car looks like a good idea. I'm sure I have a ton of metal bits and pieces scattered around from the original construction.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Ken L, sorry I got the WM hopper pics wrongly attributed to Josh. Nice work nevertheless.

Jim, no worries - and besides, if anybody mistakes my work for Josh's, that's sort of a compliment in itself!

Ken L, Your hoppers look great! Are you buildng the same cars Athearn is comming out with?

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH95504

Todd, thanx for the kind words! I had 8 Atlas Trainman PS2's on my hands that couldn't be run with my ACF 2-bays without looking out-of-place. [I'm planning to install a cement plant as my 2nd-largest trackside industry, so I definitely need a decent supply of covered hoppers.] I knew I couldn't expect to recover the money I paid for them ($8/ea) so I didn't mind cannibalizing half of them. I know all about the pending Athearn models and, in fact, I've ordered 2 of them. At $18/ea after my LHS' discount, that's all I can afford without going into debt. Now, hopefully Walthers will have another sale on one of their later runs of Trinity cement hoppers...

John T., your layout has really blossomed during the short time since you've finished building that shed! Sure wish I could work that fast...

Jim, I enjoyed the story that went with your photos! Hope that's an LED you're using for the cab headlight on your MP1500, those tungsten filament bulbs will melt a cab roof right quick!

Josh, that's an interesting number on your UP unit - reminds me of CSX SD40-2 #8888, very easy to remember.

Crandell, that FM Trainmaster looks downright regal. Sure wish I could've seen one of those beauties in real life, they have quite a memorable sound!

There's alot of other great looking stuff being shown this weekend, but I don't have time to comment on everything - keep 'em coming anyways!

 

[rhoward]

Ray,
So did you find if the short was in one of the freght cars or the decapod? I have had shorts when an uninsulated metal axle made contact with a metal truck sideframe. That drove me nuts for days but it taught me to remove every piece of rolling stock before short hunting just in case. That magnet flat car looks like a good idea. I'm sure I have a ton of metal bits and pieces scattered around from the original construction.

Have no idea. Can't duplicate it. It may have been a short piece of piano wire that landed somewhere in that area and was shorting somehow. That area is right next to my workbench and every once in a while when cutting a piece of piano wire, the end goes plinggggggggg! And then is nowhere to be found. I did check out each one of them to see if anything was caught or stuck in them that shouldn't be. Even put the Decapod up on the MicroMark blocks and ran it for 15 or so minutes just to see what it did.

 

[NYSW F45]

i thought i'de some pics of my stuff. although not upto par with some of you guys with details and nice layouts. New athearn tunnel motor is in the front.

still debating on what to paint the GE Dash 9 demo unit. I've been tossing around the idea of a modern day 6 axle Erie-Lackawanna/NJDOT GE or even going as far as a 6 axle NJ Transit. Pretty much like if NJT decided to keep ordering brand new 6 axle GE's like they had with the GE Uboats.

oh and the truckless MRL SD45, well its going to stay truckless. I emailed athearn about the silver sideframes and hoping they still carry them if not i'll see what I can do about getting a pair of dummy ones.