Thanks Old Guy. Sherrel, this thing could probably eat itself alive. I bet their mileage wasn't very impressive. Good news today. I met Keith Robinson and Greg Stout for lunch (good times) and Keith actually bestowed upon me a Tsunami Light Steam logging decoder and that sucker plugged right into my Shay's circuit board and runs and sounds like a champ. Big shout out to Keith and he also brought me plenty of sagebrush for tons of tree making. It was like Christmas in August! This forum and the folks on it has been a blessing.
Making O scale trees is a lot easier when a buddy goes to Colorado and brings back a bunch of dried sagebrush material. Thanks Keith! You're the man. You too,Tom.
Okay, Murphy. I couldn't resist the allure of the corrugated metal roof. Here she is so far. I know it's tacky as heck to show the decoder in a loco photo but I haven't tackled that hurdle yet.
Thought you might enjoy this Jim. It's a logging train somewhere in the area swamps. That's my great, great uncle Joe Story on the far right on the floating log.
Thanks, that's a great photo! It's especially nice that you have a relative in the picture. I'll have to model some some water coming right up to the rails at some place along the line. That log loader also begs to be modeled. Old photos like this one are priceless.
Good looking tree, Jim, and the Shay is pretty cool too. You might try using a black Sharpie to "paint" the decoder and its wires black. You might be able to hide them down low under a pile of firewood.
That roof looks great!!! That little shay is coming along pretty well. I agree with Keith, you could be able to make a little wood load to cover the decoder. I've seen some fake wood loads, made to cover propane tanks on 1:1 scale Crown Metal 4-4-0s.
Thanks. In addition to some wood fuel I might paint it flat black and add a crew to help hide the decoder but I will probably replace it with the Micro Tsunami eventually. It is way smaller and will make all the difference in the world.
Okay I switched gears tonight and did some more On30 modeling. I made an effort to hide the decoder and electronics that is stuffed into the fuel bunker by painting the purple decoder and its wires flat black and added a black deck with a wood load covering it. Not perfect but I'll get an O scale figure to stand by the decoder to help hide it a little better. I'm dropping the idea of switching to a smaller TSU micro decoder and I'm going to call it "good enough" and move on to adding some handrails, grab irons, couplers and weathering.
Daytime only. It would be simple because the light is tucked inside the boiler and it's functional but the only prototype photo I've seen of a Dark Cypress area tram loco shows no headlight.
