Southern Pacific Boxcar

This SP B-50-20 class boxcar is really the second in my virtual interchange series of cars and is my tribute to TBRR. I'm not sure if y'all might have more of an affinity to T&P, but I remember all kinds of SP relics in San Antonio, Austin, and along the way to Palestine. Now when you see this one in any photos of a NELTC layout, know there's a little piece of TBRR there.

Serves All Canada

@#$% me that was a pain in the...better part of a half hour just getting that logo on. Dry Transfers by CDS Lettering.

Where have you been all my life?

One of the rate limiting factors for more rolling stock for me is building trucks. One of the biggest PitAs for nice rolling trucks is having sufficient quantities of 32mm brass tube. To this day, I've been taking a hobby saw to the tube and through a long and painful process, making butchered lengths of brass work for me. On a recent trip to the hobby store to pick up more tubing, instead of my typical anti-social get my stuff and leave, I actually asked for help. Particularly if there was a better way to make quick work of my cutting. The knowledgeable woman at the counter pointed me in the direction of this handy device. A few minutes later, and I'd reduced a foot of brass tube to 2.5 boxcars worth of axles. They still need some cleaning with a needle file, but they're way nicer than I had before.

New England Stream Study

Okay, I get it Lego. Blue is for water. The problem is, in this part of the country, the only water that's blue is from open pit mining or swimming pools. Model railroaders have all kinds of tricks to make the water on their layout look as it does in nature. I thought I'd try the same. New England streams are these clear, shallow bodies of water inviting fly fishermen to cast their lines or passersby to jump in on a hot summer day. I thought trans clear tiles would be best, but the plates are a fraction of the cost and found in every PAB wall I've visited in the past year. I wish olive green was more common, but green works here as well. Let me know what you think. Looking to scale this for a bridge project.

ALCO RS-11 Nose

Pulled this out of the scrapyard to show Patrick how I tackled all the weird angles in the nose.

Glory Days 2015: D+1

Central Vermont Locomotive 455 on the move with a local freight. Upgraded the batteries to some energizer rechargeables rated for 730 mAh and got almost a good 2 hours out of it. Bill's GATX Geep works another freight in the opposite direction.

Glory Days 2015: D+1

Central Vermont Locomotive 455 on the move with a local freight. Upgraded the batteries to some energizer rechargeables rated for 730 mAh and got almost a good 2 hours out of it. Bill's GATX Geep works another freight in the opposite direction.

Glory Days 2015: D-3

Finished the last of my MILS modules this morning. A few of the decorative modules will just have to be green baseplates propped up to MILS height. Ran out of time, technic bricks, and well, green plates. You can see one of the modules finished this morning in this pic. Now what's the big deal with this locomotive? Surely this picture looks exactly like this one, right. That in itself is the accomplishment! Because in between the two photos, CV 455 looked more like this. So now she's back the way she was built...more or less. I've added some 1/8" white automotive pinstriping to the sides to get the white running board edges common to the Canadian National and subsidiary locomotives. More decal and detail work tomorrow.

Glory Days 2015: D-5

Glory Days 2015: D-6

Only had an hour to work on this the past two mornings, but it's starting to look alright.

Glory Days 2015: D-8

Took a bit of fiddling to figure out how to make this work with what I had on hand, but I'm on a roll now. I am a few days behind schedule, so the detail that was going to be built into the outside of the turn will have to be replaced by a cow or sheep pasture.

Glory Days 2015: D-9

MILS modules for my corner of the layout.

Glory Days 2015: D-10

Finished the R88s and a switch this morning... Almost a wordless Wednesday.

Glory Days 2015: D-11

Wow, only 11 days to go. No progress yesterday due to needing to be in to work for nursing shift change (I don't know how they do it.) Anyway, today was all about minding my business and following the instructions. Instructions provided courtesy of l-gauge.org that is. Thanks to Michael for hosting and Tony Sava for pioneering the ballasting technique. I have my quarter turn of R104 done and some of my R40. Just need to finish the R88s and rest of the 40s tomorrow. Then I can wrap up my MILS modules.