Workshop Wednesday

After I got all of the cables installed on the Frisco Arkansas River Bridge only had a few scraps left out of 28 feet of brown nylon string. In the photo you can see the 5 inch mark on the 12 inch scale to get an idea of what is left. I estimated there is five feet of brown nylon string in the photo.

Now it's back to work on the coal trestle.

Joe

 

Don,
If I model as good as your mistakes, regardless of your age, I would be one good happy camper!

 

Don, that 3804 makes me want to hit my Proto Heritage model with a hammer. I thought it pretty nice until now.

Joe, I am envious of your progress.

A day late, but a couple of small updates. Last weekend, I built up another Tichy gondola/flatcar to use as a coal hauler. These are nice models, with good detail. Even if a bit lightweight. Still need to install the brake wheel, but coming along up to being primed. The other hoppers are some Bowser models that I showed earlier. Still trying to decide if I want to fix the wrong-sided brake assembly. Probably so.




I had made another one of these as a Frisco model previously.



I also worked on repairs to the South Cherokee section, which had to have some track re-routed for the new version of the Lightning Creek Mine section to connect at a right angle. This is one of my favorites for photos, and have been missing having it as a diorama.



Getting close to having the track repainted and weathered. Hope to have the static grass, etc back and blended in this weekend.



Take Care All and have a Happy Easter!

-Bob T.

 

Bob, you make more progress on your layout faster than I do. The bridge project was started on December 1st when I was working on the new cross bràces for the main span and I just finished about 95% of the bridge. Of course it's not a race to see who finished first, the only problem is a layout is never done. Haha

Joe

 

Well, not Wednesday, but I wanted to say Happy Easter All.

Managed a little hobby time this weekend and worked on the detailing of these two versions of a "Muley" Caboose. These are built from the old Roundhouse/MDC kits with some modification and additional details. Still need windows and roof walk braces for 657. I also have marker lamps to add. Decals are from K4 Supply Company (trying to get all of the bubbles out still before dullcoat and weathering. Not really prototypical, but the Crawford and Cherokee needed something a bit earlier than the 3-window wood caboose AMB kit.

P.S. Anyone know where to get some pre-formed uncoupler levers?



Take Care,

-Bob T.

 

I got my 729 done and a few pictures. Nothing good though. The weather was terrible, rain off and on and high winds, Not much for model photography!
Anyway here is a couple of the 1:1 from the archives here and then my attempt. Enjoy

 

I also finished the weathering work on these for my regular my buddy in Toledo.

 

Worked on my underframes some more:

Found an IHC/Rivarossi Texas Special car, the George G. Vest, in an auction lot. Needs a little work:

Had to trim the shell on a non-Frisco kitbash of a FM CPA-24-5, to allow the rear truck to swivel better:

Removed lettering from an Athearn baggage car and redecaled for Frisco (I also painted my Scotch Tape oil tanks, seen behind):

I used solvaset and pencil eraser, and it worked really well to remove the factory lettering, so I also tried it on a Rivarossi baggage car and a Bachmann Spectrum coach, to good effect. I cleaned them up and painted some Future as a gloss coat and let it dry, and looked for my Champ passenger car decals...and only found one set.

I managed to get them on and only tore the "C" on the other side. Now to find more PH-50s...

 

How tall were the Frisco telegraph poles?

I have been making poles, temporarily installed them with about 30 feet showing and it looks like it may be too tall.

Your help with this is greatly appreciated!!!

Joe

 

From another forum.

Common real life practice is 75' or so in urban areas for 40-foot poles.
Rural areas would be 75' to 100'.

In HO scale, a spacing of 80-90 scale feet looks fairly realistic.

Trackside poles are generally about 40 poles to the mile. Decades ago, pole-to-pole distance was considered 3 car lengths. Before radios the head-end crew would count off the poles to determine when to slow down, so the trainman could get off the caboose to realign a switch and get back on without stopping.

Trackside poles should be 18 to 20 feet from the closest rail. They should be erect or with a slight tilt away from the track and have an average height to render wires about 22 feet above grade.
Where lines cross a highway or a track, pole-height is gradually increased to provide minimum clearance under the lines -- 18 feet for highways, 25 feet for rails.

 

Thank you Bob for the information about telegraph poles, this helps alot.

Edit: I installed the N scale poles about 6 inches or 80 feet apart and 2.2 inches or 30 feet tall.

Joe

 

Bob,
I like these cabooses, so I'm copying you. Where did you get the caboose archbar trucks? The kit I got has Fox trucks, which are cool, but I want to put them on another car.

 

Gary,

These are Kadee Caboose Archbar Trucks. I think part number 583. I probably ordered them from Midwest Model Railroad in KC area, or from ebay.

-Bob T.

 

Thanks Bob
Kadee 1583
I'd love to find trucks like the ones in this photo that you posted:

 

Maybe I could use one of these Passenger car trucks:




I think #2 is the closest....

 

Well, the response to the health crisis has turned my job into 14+ hours per day most days. I decided to go completely mad scientist in the garage and set up multiple projects to hit whenever I could get 5-10 minutes. After all, my telework desk is my workbench and I am only 10 feet away from the layout work. All that junk on the modules to the right is weight to hold stuff in place while it glues.



Over the weekend, and during a few coffee breaks, I managed to start the scenery for the Lightning Creek Mine area (version 2).





You can see that there is a bit of terraforming going on, including a small hill which will have trees and shrubs, and I am using cork sheets (only 2 weeks for delivery, thanks Amazon) to bring up the ground level where there will be buildings and roads. Just started a bit of track weathering this evening.

Speaking of trees, I thought that I was going to have to restart the SuperTree production line, but I found one last bag from the old layout stashed in a storage bin. Woohoo.



OK, maybe I HAVE been on lockdown for toooooo long.

Take care all, hope you are all healthy and safe,

-Bob T.

 

Oh, and I finally got to present to the South Texas Model Railroad Social (by Zoom). Ha. Attached are my slides if you need something to get you to sleep tonight. I had to delete a couple of slides to fit the file size limit.

-Bob T.

 

Passenger cars this week. The Texas Special car rolled poorly, so I tried to install 36" metal wheels. I had to carve and file the brake shoes to get them to fit (breaking a couple in the process), but got the trucks squared away. I installed McHenry passenger car couplers. It was really light, so I glued some weights down:

A window was missing, so I cut some clear styrene and glued it in. While waiting for the glue to dry, I tried a tip I read somewhere and cut some "window shades" from an old file folder, and tacked them in place with craft glue:

Reassembled:

I couldn't find Champ passenger car decals, but I found a few Walthers sets. They're a little crude, but I was able to decal a Bachmann coach and a Rivarossi baggage car:


Haven't Dullcoated anything yet. Got a few more Rivarossi and Bachmann cars to do.