The temperature outside has been a daytime high of -25 for the last 30 days, so I have been inside spending a fair bit of time working on my layout.

Well the purpose of building two GE 85 Ton Locomotives was so I could run them in an open pit much like they did for HBMS Flin Flon and in the Bingham Canyon Pit Utah, if not in other places as well.

Well both of my 85 ton steeple cabs are now complete. 

They are the same yet different.

I decided to detail them differently and including pantograph, man position, number position.

Well here it is, a completed GE 85 ton steeple cab.

The decoder is in, lights work, some numbers on its sides and an engineer to drive it.

Well summer is coming to an end, nights are dark by 8pm and it is time to get those 85 ton steeple cabs completed. The pantographs are now in after 5 months of waiting. I have put more details on and got one coat of paint on. As you can see, the mechanics have their work cut out for them trying to figure out a pedestal configuration for the pantograph.

It is summer up here in the north. Too nice out to do any modeling but during a couple of days of rain I finished the 30 yard western. At least for now as I want to rust it up a bit.

I put the Walthers Diffco in the back for comparison.

The 85 ton is available for printing through Shapeways. It is amazing to see what others are designing from Z, N, TT, HO, S, O and possibly other scales. I am off for a visit with family in southern Manitoba so won't be working on any of my projects for awhile. Hopefully I can pick up some items I need and maybe my back ordered pantographs will get shipped by then.
Until later.

Tim Schwartz

My updated 3D print of the 85 ton steeple cab arrived this week. All my previous print flaws were corrected, and additions printed as well.

Generally you can't tell much for differences from this shot, but the big difference is the beefed up truck .

Well I said I was going to work on the 85 Ton Steeple cab but most of my detail parts are delayed so I haven't accomplished much on it.

So this weekend I worked on the 30 yard western since I have most of the parts I planned to put on it.

First the ends. As like most cars there are version changes over the years, maybe specific to a company.

I had a question come my way about my 30 yard western, so here is a bit more information.

This is what I based the 30 yard western on, mostly photos with just a few actual measurements. The rest was scaled from all the photos.