Weekend Photo Fun March 14-16 2008

[Zephyr]

The weekend is upon us - lets see your photos!

I was able to run some of my latest locomotive projects at my friend Don's house last night with Matt. Here's the best photos:

First, a little peek at the immensity of this layout.

A shot of my Alco switcher

I ran my newly completed auto train with an SD60 and U30C - the Walthers autoracks run really smooth.

Pair of high-noses

U-boats!

Another lineup

A couple recently completed boxcars

 

[mdcustom]

Finished out the F.D.Works building with a full first floor interior. Complete with pigeons (and pigeon poop) on the cornice.

 

[UP2CSX]

Zephyr, are sure this guy isn't a relative of Rod Stewart? Holy cow, that's one gigantic layout. How come I don't have any friends like that? Your units look right at home on that layout, as does the rolling stock. If it wasn't for those mountains in the background, I'd swear that was South Chicago somewhere.

MD, I don't know how much your client paid for that building but he got his money's worth. The level of detail is amazing and it would take me about two years to build something half as nice. Great job.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

How about a crowd pleaser?

 

[brad_in_omaha]

Its nice those Rock Island locomotives out rolling around Eric!

 

[suprduc]

That is an amazing layout Zephyr and the RI looks great on there. Great job on the pictures.

Fantastic work MD, lots of great detail and a true inspiration.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Zephyr, that's an enormous layout your friend has - I'll bet it's been featured in MR (If so, do you know what issue?). Anyhoo, I really like your weathered 'Rocks', I have a number of auto racks I'll need to weather myself pretty soon.

MD - I'd swear I could walk right into that hardware store of yours! I could only hope that someday I'll be able to build something half the good myself.

Jeffrey - nice looking 2-10-2, is she dressed in your private road colors?

Here's my contribution for this week: a reworked HO Front Range ACF 2-bay covered hopper that originally was in C&EI paint. I wanted to add it to my fleet of CSXT 2-bays for a cement plant I'm putting on my layout, and I've always been fascinated by the rust-streaked Chessie 'patched' hopper cars.

Even though this car lacks a few features of the prototype (such as the overhanging ends on the roofwalk), I figured 95% of people wouldn't notice or care anyhow. And I don't intend to sell it on ebay either.

I liked the subtle 'masked' effect where the patched CSX road markings were applied, as seen in the prototype photo.

Here is the model. It wasn't until after I snapped the photos that I discovered a few spots that I missed, especially on the ends...oh well! :-[

 

[NYSW F45]

Awesome pics zephyr. The weathering on those autoracks are great. Makes me wish I joined the local club already.

 

[Zephyr]

Thanks, guys.

Ken, Don's layout has not been in Model Railroader YET. I would think an article on his layout is imminent. Nice hopper by the way, I like the fading on little Chessie.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Jeffrey - nice looking 2-10-2, is she dressed in your private road colors?

I wouldn't have it any oyher way. She's dressed out in the black and gray tourist colors of the Midland Gulf Railway.

 

[johntealon30]

RJR week

Zephyr WOW


This week at RJR

Played with a car to put a camera on

Attempt 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpb2gUyii8o

Attempt 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blUFKoj__Sc



Last night saw the last of the track Ballasted. A happy sad moment. Ive almost got to the point i enjoy doing it !!!!
This evening I have weathered it and added some bushes

John
RJR

 

[mtrpls]

Remember those Pawtucket Patriot reefers from last week? Well, here they are in a NYCS train headed back to the east coast. These photos, like Zephyr's, were taken on our friend Don's layout:

Also, this last week I managed to weather an Atlas 33K gallon "fishbelly" tank car. This car was weathered from an actual prototype photo:

And some covered hoppers I've weathered:

All of my (built) plastic pellet hoppers, including the Atlas 5701s and Walthers National 6200s:

 

[rhoward]

mtrpls, very, very impressive weathering!

John I love the rails. How did you weather them?

I have been doing a whole lot of the boring stuff that has to get done for my first NMRA AP Certificate. Hopefully I am getting close to being finished. Just thought I would show the paperwork for one of the more unusual things I did for the electrical certificate.

For some reason, the text boxes printed when I pasted this page into Photoshop....? Edit: Figured it out!

And finally the diagram of the control box itself:

 

[johntealon30]

Ray,

The rails were done in 5 steps
1 lay the ballast and fix with standard PVA/water dripped on
2 spray lightly with matt black ( I used an aerosol)
3 hand paint the rail side with dark red rust enamel
4 a bit more black aerosol to add patches
5 use a track rubber to clean the rail tops

John
RJR

 

[rhoward]

Thanks John. They came out great! I am thinking of getting a special tool for painting the rails in the most visible locations on my layout. have no idea whether it will work well or not.

 

[jbaakko]

Ray, check out the weathering paint pens from Floquil, they might work well. I'm considering trying them on my layout.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

My Athearn KCS de Mexico AC4400. I wish I could say it runs as well as my rebuilt F units, but it doesn't. It's the main reason I don't buy from Athearn's rtr locomotive line-up anymore.

 

[UP2CSX]

Ken, nice work on that covered hopper. The weathering looks just aboout perfect.

John, if you're like me, you'l find you're never quite done with ballasting. Various section settle or get broken and need a re-do. The ballast and track weathering look great though.

Mrtpls, your work is great but have some mercy on the dial-up users here. 25 pics in a row take a long time to load at 53k. That tank car really is huge. I guess I didn't realize how big it was until seeing your photo of it sitting next the two SW's. Nice weathering jobs on those covered hoppers.

Ray, very nice diagram. I'm sure it means something electrical having to do with Tortise switch machines and LED's but after that, I'm lost. I hope the judges thing it's sufficiently complex.

Jeffrey, considering that most of the of the RTR line are just BB Athearns with better detail, I never excpect much. I do have an RTR GP38-2 and it runs surprisingly wel considering the basic design on these are now approaching 50 years old.

 

[MLW]

Fantastic guys! Really nice start to the weekend. Great weathering and great pictures. Keep them coming please. I'll see if I can post something this weekend. You realy give me the urge to work a bit more on my layout, unfortunately I have little time lately. Work, familly, friends, play, travel. Oh well.

mtrpls : WOW! Great job. Looks real

Zephyr: WOW! Awesome layout. Great weathering, looks real too.

CSX_road_slug: Great job on the weathering. Nicely done

johntealon30: Love the European flavor. Very nice indeed. Great job on the boarded-up tower. Realy like it.

jeffrey-wimberly: Very nice steamer. Who makes it?

 

[Selector]

What an amazing set of images you all have posted this week. Simply amazing. No shortage of talent.

Here is my own modest offering, taken through a cut-out in the front paneling that finishes the outer benchwork. I didn't build this layout with photography in mind...unfortunately...and this image shows just how tricky it can be do get a good quality image from so many places. Anyway, such as it is, a Pennsy Duplex storms out of a natural limestone tunnel up grade while on another road's parallel path going in the opposite direction toward the distant trestle, another train lumbers past.