Power sub station

The substation is being added to the Paper Mill at the front of the shelf. The Walthers kit is very similar to the sub station about a mile from the house.

Tom

Brick factory (work in progress)

 I've laser-cut and etched a brick factory designed for Tichy windows. Cornice and other details are still to come.

off the grid

fifth of bourbon???

In honor of DragonCon*

Boldly going where normal sane men don't go....

 Tangent G43C kit, to be painted for Conrail.  Why?  Because I like kits.  I wanted a later version than the RTR versions offered so far.  And I'm a little nuts.....

Left the floor and weights out so I can paint the underframe easier.  The interior will get basically a mud color before I paint the outside Conrail dark red/brown.  

As should be expected of Tangent, the goes together exactly as planned.  But since the sprues come with some extra parts, I had to break down and look at the instructions on Tangent's website.  I guess getting the model right is more important than saying I built it without reading the directions....

Scott Chatfield

* A sci-fi/fantasy/cosplay/gamer total geekfest, 80,000 strong, held every Labor Day here in Atlanta.  I will not be caught dead there....

Kitbashing, and first progress in 5 years

Broke up a perfectly good sidewalk store building, chopped it up, and reassembled the pieces into a small trackside industry, a trapezoid to fit the space.  Back in the early 20th century they had no problems making brick buildings in weird shapes.  

This is the first time I have touched the layout in 5 years. In one day I made more progress than in all that time.  Health problems like depression are really annoying.  It feels good to get back into the hobby. 

And here is its planned location .  With LOTS of artistic licence, this area is Amherst and Hadley MA.  I built a hot wire sculpting tool to carve the rigid foam, then sanded it with 60 grit.  The garden shears thingie is the hot wire tool, made from a yardstick cut into thirds. I made several iterations until it succeeded,  each one beefier, because the wires melted from the high amperage.

Here is a mockup of the area.  I sanded the rough foam and painted it with cheap latex wall paint  Left to right - way on the left side is the trapezoidal building that was on the bench.  Next is a foamboard mockup of the Amherst Grange building, which should be behind Amherst station, but it did not fit.  In the center a small brick structure is standing in for Amherst station.  On the right is a foamboard mockup of a potato storage facility in Hadley, MA.  It was constructed as a brewery around 1900, but was never used for that purpose. A fascinating history for another post.  I am returning it to a brewery. In front of the brewery is a coal and kerosene dealer. There is none in the historical area, I just needed a reason for a few tank cars.

That strange stuff on the walls?  Instead of clouds or big painted backdrops, I display railroadania -  In the picture is an oil can, tie tongs, and a section of rail.  The other walls have more bits and bobs

DougL

Looks like you are on a roll! Congratulations and I hope you keep moving on as it looks like some interesting things are gonna happen.

Doug

Look forward to seeing more progress, Doug.  I know very well how annoying depression can be.  Hope things continue to be well with you.

Paint shop

I had the paint shop crew working over the Labor Day weekend.

Two HO scale Westerfield Models B&O M-15 boxcars have been painted. Vallejo burnt umber was mixed with 15-20 drops of Vallejo aged white. These received a gloss coat today of Future (Pledge Floor Finish) a couple hours ago. I hope to apply decals before the end of this week. After lettering, the cars will get a flat coat that has a few drops of burnt umber added. This will lighten them a bit with a chalky appearance.

Two more boxcars have also rolled through the paint shop. There was poor paint adhesion on a few parts of one model. Here's what I saw after the model left the paint booth.

I used 91% isopropyl alcohol to remove the paint with an old soft toothbrush. With most of the paint removed, the model was rinsed and set aside to dry. I may not have originally cleaned the model as well as I thought. But there were no paint issues with two other resin boxcars and a plastic boxcar.

I sprayed light grey Vallejo surface primer on the model yesterday. Coverage looked good so I set it aside to dry. I just painted it this morning with a freight car color similar to what you see in this image.

I hope to display all four cars at the upcoming Mid-Atlantic RPM in a couple of weeks.

Eric

TP&W Caboose

Toledo, Peoria & Western caboose #529 is nearing completion.

Big John Haggis Packers

Dedicated to Big John, whether he would like it or not.

Model railroad forums a decade or more ago were all talk, no images. Big John posted frequently and humorously about his experiences,  Somehow, haggis became a running gag, and back then I thought a haggis packing plant absolutely must be built and named after him.  It took more years than it should have, and it is only 1/3 done. Paper will be replaced with decals, etc.

Of course we NEED matching billboard reefers, with giant haggis-es on the sides!  Suggestions for images are welcome.

" It's no fer whimps! "

Haggis

@DougL,

What in the world is "haggis"?

TP&W 529

TPW801:

Interesting model with that little bay window, looking forward to seeing your completed caboose.  Perchance are you able to post a prototype photograph of this caboose, a quick look online of TP&W equipment showed a fair variety in differences in their rail cars.

Good news, everyone!

It's been too long, Eric! 

I'm excited to get to catch up with you at the MARPM! Dave Ramos and Ted DiIorio and myself will have our hands on "weathering station" set up all weekend, I hope you can maketime to stop by and "get dirty" with us!

Ralph

Haggis

From what I can surmise, it is everything from an animal that you wouldn't eat by itself, ground and formed into a patty and pan fried.  It seems to possess some mystical power for model railroaders up north, especially three-rail enthusiasts.

Ray

A couple of HO scale shacks for a port diorama

Sows Ear to Silk Purse

A friend of mine has a small enterprise selling "previously enjoyed" model railroad items. He picks these items up at swap meets, estate sales and flea markets, fixes them up and resells them on E-bay or swap meets. He's not set up to do DCC so I get the pleasure of trouble shooting and seeing if it can be made runnable.

Here's an example of a Bachmann U-boat that doesn't run. It's quite the "sows ear" with bare wires and wads of electrical tape. I often have to chuckle seeing these types of items when I read about somebody having difficulty with getting their engine to run or a burned up decoder.

The green outlined items need to be properly fixed. Then the decoder can be checked to see if it was DOA or is still fogging a mirror.

Bernd

Haggis

Without going too far afield (I'm on a mailing list where haggis are an ongoing joke)...

Haggis is a  savoury  pudding containing  sheep's pluck ( heart, liver, and lungs),  minced with  onion,  oatmeal,  suet,  spices, and  salt, mixed with  stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's  stomach ^[1] though now often in an artificial  casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the  Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour". ^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis

TP&W 529 Prototype

The TP&W bought two cabooses from the Santa Fe in 1969 and numbered them 529 and 530. All of the TP&W's other cabooses were bay-window types, so I guess that's why they decided to add "bay windows" to the 529 and 530 in the form of all-weather windows usually seen on locomotive cabs.

Here's a 1975 photo of TP&W 529: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irvinle1/8679826070/in/album-72157631244758016/

The 529 still exists today at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in Wisconsin. https://www.midcontinent.org/equipment-roster/cabooses/wisconsin-calumet-529/

Haggis

You really don't want to know. It's icky.

Michael

Haggis

Sorry I asked. According to Jeff Shultz's post, it truly is icky. Guess it helps to be Scottish?

Mark that is really good mortar and brick work

Mark, that is beautiful, and a tremendous amount of work to draw then manufacture it. 

And the mortar is more than nicely done, it shows every line but it is not overwhelmingly white.  I like the efflorescence around the upper left windows

It looks like the cornice is 3-D, bricks overhanging the wall.  Could you post a picture of that?

Haggis

I think it's funny, since being on the Internet in the 1990s (the Usenet groups back then), haggis comes up frequently in model railroad groups. I'm not sure why.

That being said, I visited Scotland in 2015 and tried it. It was much ado about nothing. Having grown up meat & potatoes and then ventured into mostly Asian and Mexican foods, I wasn't too sure about it. It was fine.

Probably...

Hi all,

Probably because of our late member "Shortliner" Jack Trollope, who passed away earlier this year. Shortliner Jack used the sign off "away in up in the Highlands" for a lot of the years across multiple forums - and then there was the in-joke about the "wild haggis" that had escaped to the Highlands and flourished.

Shortliner Jack was a prolific designer of small layouts and a very active modeller and encourager of others and their modelling efforts. His profile image on the UK-based RM-web forum was one those escaped wild haggis that roamed loose in the Highlands.

He was also involved with "Model Trains International", one of the first internet-delivered magazines. His designs were also featured in the Small Layouts groups and also on Carl Arendt's "Small Layouts" website.

RIP Shortliner Jack, gone but not forgotten, and neither are the wild haggii, still roaming loose, somewhere "away up in the Highlands."

Finishing the third watermelon car

The first watermelon car, modified from a cheap Liliput model and backdated into pre 1900 time.

The second one, rebuilt and backdated after 1900.

And the third model, modified into a time after 1935/40 with a more "modern" appearance.

New ventilation grids for the end side windows.

Maybe that the model must receive a new painting and lettering because herald and lettering have been changed in that time.