With the help of my son, here is a video of my GE 85 ton steeple cab I built.

i hope it provides inspiration for your projects.

Tim

It is cyber Monday. For all of those people considering a 3D print of that favorite railway car, today is the day to grab those savings at Shapeways.

CYBER20 is the promo code for 20% off at Shapeways TODAY DECEMBER 1 ONLY!

Check out my models: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/schistlakemodels

There are a variety of models in various scales by other modelers.

Tim Schwartz

(Not enjoying -30C windchills!)

The winter weather has settled in up here on Schist Lake. Our lake has 10 inches of ice and enough snow to take the snowmobile out for a ride. Since I don't own a snowmobile, I have been out snow shoeing for exercise. When not in front of the tv or computer, I am up in the layout room working away.

I have been doing the yearly maintenance required to run the layout without too many issues. Several locomotives and cars have all been cleaned, greased and oiled as required.

Between all the good weather there was bad weather. That meant putting a bunch of new buildings together and starting some more scenery.

As part of the mine I need a shovel to move the ore. There are a lot of modern track hoes and other mining equipment out there, but none of that would be right for an early 1900's steeple cab locomotive. HBM&S, Bingham mine and some of the Missabe range mines had the 4160 series Marion Shovel. So here it is ready to dig ore in HO scale...sort of.

One of my needs for my mine are some side dump cars that are smaller than the 50 yard Difcos that I have. As previously blogged, I did make a 30 yard ribbed western, and a 20 yard western in 3D printing. However to get a fleet of those would cost a fair penny. My solution, cut up some on sale Difcos to make something close.

Progress on my layout rebuild continues. I have now managed to get the turn table in and operational after multiple adjustments to the power pickups.

While I am not hand laying any rail, I am laying down track and one spike at a time seemed appropriate.

If you have been following my blogging you will know that after building my GE 85 ton steeple cabs, I need something for them to do. So I built a mine. Then I needed some place for them to take the rock, and well I didn't have any place.

As I continue to rebuild my layout to accommodate my GE 85 tonners and give them a place to take their ore to, I had to update my duck under. Now I have seen several different ways to build a duck under, whether a swing or lift system, and I would say what type you build is dependent on the space you have.