Workshop Wednesday

Discussion in 'General' started by yardmaster, Nov 15, 2017.

  1. gna

    gna Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Just take your time cleaning and testing. Say you'll be done after the holidays.
     
  2. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Hi Bob!

    That’s a neat little set. Shame it got away.

    I still think Postwar-type Lionel and other similar makes, could be a viable way to extend one’s model railroading years when the hands and eyes aren’t cooperating in regards to smaller, more exacting scales. Thus, I’m allowing myself to dabble with some 3-rail acquisitions every now and then.
     
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  3. rjthomas909

    rjthomas909 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Well, I tried, but he wanted to do the restoration....that's the fun part!

    -Bob T.
     
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  4. Sirfoldalot

    Sirfoldalot Frisco.org Supporter Frisco.org Supporter

    YAY -- on the restoration part.
    I think I will try and get mine out again this year?
    MARX 999 loco and three cars + cab. My original '48 set!
    upload_2020-12-12_10-6-1.png
     
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  5. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Wow, Sherrel! You still have your original Marx 25225 set!

    When I was about 7 or 8 years old I had a hand-me-down Marx set given to me from friends of our family. (Their boy had out-grown it, as he was graduated from high school and prepping for college.)

    Never could play it to death. That set was tough as nails. Had so much fun with it. For Christmas of '62 I received a Lindberg Lines HO set and that set eventually set the hook for me in HO. I ended up giving my Marx set to my younger cousin to play with it. I don't know what happened to it.

    This past summer, through the help of some online Marx enthusiasts, I learned just what kind of set I had. I had a 25225 Marx "NYC" set circa 1946 or '47. Imagine my surprise to see such a set in the box on eBay! I had to purchase it.

    Here's my NYC 25225 set doing Christmas tree honors this season:

    Christmas2020b.jpg

    This little set will stay with me until I can't play trains anymore. Very good memories surround it.

    Merry Christmas everybody!
     
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  6. gstout

    gstout Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I think those #2026 were pretty common.

    GS
     
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  7. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    The #2026-type engines are still quite available and reasonably priced. Though not true to any prototype, they are good little engines and run forever.

    Postwar 3-rail (Lionel, Marx, Kusan, etc) is a rabbit hole. Hard to stop if you start down it. American Flyer S is the same way: Can be addictive.

    Andre
     
  8. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Son Kurt and I are having the same interests in the Lionel Polar Express set Santa brought for our three granddaughters in 2012. It was pretty much the same setup for the first 5 years. But recent times have brought added interest to Kurt (son) and Pops (me) that the girls are having fun with. We've added significantly to the track, have added another Polar Express coach, and last year, added a Polar Express baggage car. I kept telling them that a decent passenger train needs a baggage car up at the head end, North Pole or not. Santa finally agreed last Christmas. Now I'm hinting about the possible addition of the Polar Express combine to ride behind the baggage car. We'll see wha Santa thinks of the idea.
    This railroading hobby is just plain addictive!
    K
     
  9. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Since the above, I have also been piddlin' out in the train room on various projects, such as:

    * Adding weight to the lighter cars and even adding some additional weight to house cars/etc. This for two reasons: A. To add weight so most full length upgrade trains will need helpers. B. To help their tracking qualities.

    * Added weight to all drop-in loads for open top cars (coal, gravel, ties, logs, pulpwood, etc.) This is so a loaded car translates into more weight. Again, this has impact on switching towns on grade as well as moving tonnage upgrade... just as it should be.

    * Adding some engineers to some of the engines. Here's two. First up is the 594 I purchased off my long time friend:

    SLSF_GP7_594.jpg

    And added one to my decades old KC&G #412:

    KCnG_GP7_412.jpg


    * Sent off two Atlas RS-3 engines to The Whiz for upgrades to TSU2's.

    * Lastly, piddling in my photo software creating some quick n' simple photoflats as place holders for backdrop mounted industries as well as some photoflats in the pipeline just for scenic purposes.

    SO, there you have it. I think I'm getting the bug again.

    Andre
     
  10. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Some of the weight antics that was going on...

    Weights1.jpg
    Weights2.jpg

    Lastly, some little quickie place holder photoflats...

    MiscPhotoFlats.jpg

    All fer this 'un!
     
  11. rjthomas909

    rjthomas909 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Happy Workshop Wednesday Eve Frisco Friends,

    Andre, great to see you back at the layout. I am going to need some engineers for my GP7s.

    Looks like a long day at work tomorrow, so I thought I would post photos a bit early this week.

    Yesterday I started on this resin boxcar kit, keeping me busy while on some long teleconferences where I was really only needed for a short time. I spent some time in the evening on it and made it this far:

    Resin-Car.JPG

    This is a Funaro and Camerlengo kit (sorry that the photo is a bit washed out -- white resin).

    Resin-Car-2.JPG

    I am debating on whether to make this a FRISCO car or maybe another El Paso and Southwestern. When I posted my earlier EP&SW car on the Pre-Depression Era Facebook page, they noted that a truss rod car might be a better fit. We will see.....

    I also have prepped for weathering a couple of more Accurail stand-ins for a Frisco acquaintance....

    Boxcars-Accurail-Terry.JPG
    I was going to weather these up over the weekend, in batch-mode along with four or five others I have done for myself, but the wind was blowing so hard here in San Antonio that I did not want to leave the garage open and have stuff flying around. Maybe later this week.

    I also have been working on this kit from BEST models. It is a simple lumber yard building --"Aspen Lumber" is what they call it. I will make a "Long-Bell Lumber" sign for it and use it in Weir City.

    Aspen-Lumber-Front.JPG

    Aspen-Lumber-Back.JPG

    I am currently working on the roof, trying this material from KC Models that represents corrugated metal roofing:

    https://kcworkshop.com/products/corrugated-material-roofingsiding-ho

    Roofing-Material-KC-Models.JPG

    It is a paper material with a metallic coating. I cut a bunch of panels and will weather them up prior to install. Looks promising.

    OK, well that's it for this week. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hopefully, I will catch you all again once or twice in 2020.

    Take Care All,

    -Bob T.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2020
  12. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Bob T:

    What I've been doing with the weights and coupler heights has been needed for a long time. It seems that apparently I got quite lackadaisical during my acquisition phase and didn't hold tight enough tolerances when checking coupler heights. It bit me on the butt big time this past operating session...

    My friend Jimmy had ask me a question about an industry or something at the upper town of Mountain Springs. I was in the process of doubling loads up to Piney and the train was moving at a snail's pace, so I stepped around the end of the peninsula to take a look-see at what he was talking about and give him an answer. (Or at the least make something up.)

    Well, while my attention was diverted (not standing near nor watching my train), a coupler mismatch break-in-two took place... I heard a swooshing noise (the hoppers w/weighted loads flying back down the mountain!) and a loud WHAP!... followed immediately by the sickening sound of equipment hitting the floor. The runaway cars had smacked into the secured empties sitting on the main that were waiting to be spotted after I had all the loads up to Piney. Upon impact, the caboose on the string of empties climbed the stop that was placed behind it and hit the floor, along with several of the empties. The entire incident only took a couple of seconds. What a mess.

    All of this would have been prevented had I been more fastidious during the coupler height work previously. Even at that, the incident COULD have been avoided IF I was tending to business and near the moving train and watching it. (I could have quickly intercepted the runaway cars and gently let them down the grade by hand and couple them into the standing and secured string of empties... then return to attend to the low coupler issue.)

    Mountain railroading is no place for gawking and inattention. :ROFLMAO:

    Anyway, the still-ongoing coupler height work is needful, but not exactly "fun". I might be half done.

    Andre
     
  13. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    The slaving on the coupler heights continues...

    121620a.jpg

    This consumes inordinate amounts of Kadee fiber washers. Looks as if I've already used nearly half of the 10 packs (5 red 5 gray) that arrived Monday!

    Break time over. Back to the salt mine.

    :ROFLMAO:
     
  14. rjthomas909

    rjthomas909 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Solution: Model Levelland, TX: In the words of James McMurtry, "Flatter than a table top. Makes you wonder why they stopped here. Wagon must have lost a wheel, or they lacked ambition one."

    :D
     
  15. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Bob T:

    LOL!

    Actually, my early "serious" years in this hobby (mid-teenager during the mid-60s), I modeled the ATSF. The ATSF was readily available in model form, and I saw it often in KC. Then, owing to a day spent down at the Mop's Neff(?) Yard touring the shops and riding a switch engine, I came home and started the process of converting to the Mop. (This Mop outing was courtesy of a part time guy that worked at dad's supermarket whose day job was being a Car Man at the Mop. What an experience he shared with me!)

    I remained a Mop modeler even after our move to Arkansas in Jan of '69. Later that year, once I got up close and personal with the Frisco's operations in Fort Smith, I painted a Frisco GP7 in black w/yellow stripes. BUT I was still a Mop/flatland modeler.

    That all changed forever after my first road trip with a Frisco crew. In November of '74 I was invited by Ralph McAdams to ride with him on the "Winslow Turn". The "Winslow Turn" took surplus tonnage up "The Mountain" to Winslow and set it out for train #731 to pick up later that night. Along the way the Winslow Turn did the local switching. It was that trip that I had my first opportunity to sit at the throttle of an engine. Here's a poor pic I shot that day as we passed over Bridge No. 1:

    trip2.jpg

    That trip on the Winslow Turn changed everything. I IMMEDIATELY was hooked on mountain railroading... Frisco style! From that point on the Frisco became my all-time favorite railroad. The Mop-painted stuff disappeared, replaced with Frisco models that I modified, painted/decaled/weathered myself. I modeled the Frisco on two different layouts over the decades and to this day, it is still firmly in 1st place as my "favorite" railroad.

    Irony: Little did I realize at the time that later in my life I would be railroading over the very same rails that I rode/helped the crews many times in the Fort Smith area as well as time spent on the line up to Winslow.

    Wow... didn't mean to type a mini-novel... but that happens with me often. :ROFLMAO:

    Okay, I'll shut my trap for now.
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2020
  16. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett Member

    Great story Andre!!! I became a Frisco fan in Aurora MO hanging out at the Frisco and Missouri Pacific yard with a large MFA Grain Mill. MP is my second favorite.

    Joe
     
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  17. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Glad you enjoyed it, Joe. Decades ago I wrote an essay concerning my first Winslow Turn experience, but it hasn't survived the many changes within word processing software and thus it's partially "lost".

    Make no mistake, I still very much like the Mop. My free/proto-lance KC&G paint schemes and colors are a mixture of Frisco AND Mop influence. In fact, I'm in the process now of amassing the needed items to create a beast for the KC&G similar to the Mop one pictured below.

    I like so many railroads it would be easier to name the ones I don't like, such as... uh... give me a minute... I'll think of one.

    It's all good!

    MP_AS16_938-4329_PalistineTX_011964.jpg
     
  18. frisco1522

    frisco1522 Staff Member Staff Member

    I managed to spend an afternoon with the 4010. Got the covers made and soldered to the sand domes and made an extension into the cab and put a backhead with a firebox door and seats in the cab. Will just be minimal detail. in there unless I order a bunch of castings..
     
  19. Great picture Andre. Don I cant wait to see your 4010. I am sure it will be a work of art. Bob you never stop for a second do you. Cars look great.

    Nothing spectacular got done this week here. I did get the 1700 burrito wagon caboose far enough I could mock up most of the body for some pictures. I wish I had another stock caboose to compare to so all the changes are easier to spot.

    [​IMG]
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    Last edited: Dec 16, 2020
  20. For customer work I got a box dropped off tonight. In it is the new release Chessie hopper cars from Tangent. Should be neat projects.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     

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