Mike Boucher

Found one more. The Penn Central boxcar has moved.

SPOILER ALERT: 1) Diesel has moved 2) White stake bed truck has moved 3) crossbucks added on both sides of tracks 4) white line on street added 5) green sign added above window on building behind hot dog cart 6) person on "far left" side of track is gone (replaced by crossbuck!) 7) Tan car added (behind black car) 8 ) Tardis has gone to a different place in space/time. Did I miss any?

Over the past week, there were a few dry days, so I was able to put a few coats of Humbrol on the 3 GWR cars, and also two coats of glosscote, so they were ready for lettering. Today, that's mostly what I did. I only got 1 side lettered on the fruit van and container flat, but the open wagon has most of the lettering on both sides. Transfers and I don't get along very well, and these were no exception. They were pressfix, but the first few the carrier paper (when separated from the thick backing paper) curled quite a bit, and I couldn't get them to stick down. So, I took out the spirits I use for methfix, and treated these as methfix. Also, if you look at the lettering on the boxes for the chains on the container flat, the lettering has some "waves" to it. When I was pressing down, I invariably shift the paper slightly, and on a transfer that long, its very obvious. I tried straightening them, but for once they refused to move after I pressed into place. :mad: Looks like that van will get some heavier weathering to try to hide this. Also, the methfix fluid seems to soften the glosscote just a little, so pressing down I leave slight fingerprint marks (you can see those if you look closely at the photo of the open wagon. These usually disappear when I spray dullcote to seal in the transfers, but I'm always nervous that they won't. I still can't figure out why waterside decals are so disliked by British modelers… I also attached the brake lever on the container flat after the transfers were applied. I should be able to get the lettering finished next week. Also note that I haven't painted the container itself yet. I just bought the paint for that, so hopefully I'll get it painted for next week. While waiting for the transfers to "dry", I started working on the next project. I've selected a 1975 vintage Quality Craft wood and whitemetal kit of a Chesapeake and Ohio wooden caboose. How do I know its that old, its printed right on the box! Here's a prototype photo (found elsewhere on the web). I have a Sunset/3rd Rail C&O allegheny (Lima built 2-6-6-6 articulated beast) and I've needed a caboose for it for a while. The only ones available that I know of are this wood kit, or Rich Yoder imported brass. The brass one sold out quickly, and I didn't have the $$ for it when it was announced, and I had already bought this kit. Even with the cost for extra detail parts, I'm still WAY cheaper than brass. Here's the obligatory photos of the parts. (note some were taken at home, others at the hospital, for some reason some of the photos were all severely out of focus, so I re-took them when I was home) The instructions are sparse... Being 1975 vintage, there's not a lot of detail parts, but I plan on adding some additional parts. I bought a set of extra sprue of Intermountain kit brake gear parts, which I'll use, along with wire, to model the brakes. I'll also get some Grandt Line NBW parts for the ends of the grab irons, where necessary. I've found a book about these caboose, which I've ordered but hasn't arrived yet. I'll use that as a reference for detailing. (BTW - note that I believe the plural of caboose is caboose, much like the plural of moose is moose!) Couplers will be standard Kadee, trucks are still TBD. I've found some photos showing "Bettendorf" trucks with leaf springs, but also other references that they rode on arch bar. If I can use bettendorf, I have some Red Caboose trucks which will be suitable. If its arch bar, the only source I've found are brass ones from Protocraft. I'm doing things slightly out of order than the instructions. The instructions have you build the body and roof first, and then work on the underframe. I feel that its a lot easier to work on the underframe while everything is flat, rather than deal holding it upside down when the copula is on. That's what I started getting done today. I glued on the "inner floor", the bolsters and the "steel" girder between the bolsters. The main purpose of the inner floor seems to be to keep the ends square and at the proper body length. As you can see, the bolsters are longer than required. Have to trim those to the width of the floor before I attach the sides. I'm going to assemble as much as reasonable, so I can get the main structural wood pieces glued together with wood glue, and then apply a few coats of sanding sealer, so the body doesn't warp over time (or even when I paint it). After that, I'll start glueing the whitemetal pieces on, and any additional wood pieces, with ACC. Until next time...

Here's the results of my attempt. I think I didn't thin the paint with the liquin enough, as it came out much darker than your examples. It looks more like the weathered teak, but I didn't use the black wash... I'm pondering if I should strip it and try again... Comments/criticisms welcome!

Not a problem. I'd be curious to see how you could GET 6 ounces into that wagon...

I'm not too worried. If my math is right, 150 grams is just over 5 ounces. So a 6 ounce car is only about 20% overweight. If you look at the US NMRA specs, they say 5 ounces, plus 1 more for each inch, so these P.O. wagons would weigh 9 ounces if I kept to that standard. So from one viewpoint, they're underweighted. If my loco can't pull them all, I'll make a smaller train BTW - My US prototype cars are weighted to around 13 ounces, and I've pulled 20 of those with a single Diesel loco. My 2-6-6-6 has pulled 50 cars up a 1% grade... Nice! I haven't gotten the latest yet. I'll have to look in the mailbox when I get home.

I'm a bit confused by this statement. I thought that hard water meant that it had an above average amount of minerals in it. If that's true, boiling will make some of the H2O evaporate away, but the minerals don't, so whatever is left in the pot would be even harder than when you started! How does boiling help?

This week's update finds the construction of the GWR container flat pretty much completed. A few things the sharp eyed viewer might notice in the picture... 1) One of the buffers is missing. The kit contained 4 springs for the buffers, but one of them had a huge kink in it. I was able to get it over the buffer shank, but once compressed, the friction between the buffer body, spring, and shank was greater than the "push" of the spring. So, the buffer head would go in, but not spring back out. I glued the body in place, and have to contact Parkside Dundas about how to get a new spring. Hopefully they'll send a few spares to the US... 2) The brake levers aren't on. The instructions suggest to paint and letter the area behind the brake levers before attaching them, as the "return to GWR not common user" is pretty much directly behind the brake lever, making it hard to apply the transfer. So, I've drilled the appropriate holes, in the V hanger and the levers, and I'll glue them on with ACC once lettering is finished. 3) The "tie down loops" aren't installed on the container yet. I want to blacken the brass before I do that. Might do that tonight. 4) It has 3 link couplings. Like the fruit van, the kit came with 3 link, but the prototype photos I've found online show screw couplings. So, for now, I've installed the 3 link for now, but next time I place an order with Tower Models (my usual source for Parkside/Slaters kits, standard disclaimer applies) I'll get a set of screw couplings for this car. 5) The container roof is already painted. Last week we had a warm day, so I painted the roofs for the MR cattle van, the GWR fruit van, and the container's roof. Its not glued on, its just sitting in place. I still need to paint the container body GWR brown, and then put some lead weight in it. (I've decided that the container will be chained down, and non-removable, so its much easier to put the weight in there rather than in the underside like one the P.O. wagons and the open container wagon.) Hopefully by next Monday, I'll have a coat of GWR grey on the 3 Parkside kits (fruit van, open goods, and container flat), followed by some glosscote, so I can work on the lettering. I learned the hard way that transfers don't stick to flat paint, and the Humbrol I have dries VERY flat... I've also decided on the next project. I brought it in on Monday, but finished the container flat with only about 20 minutes left before the infusion finished, and didn't think it was worth starting with that little time. Stay tuned next week and hopefully I'll have started on it!

Today, I had a lot of people come to talk during my treatment; a massage therapist, a chaplain, and a councilor. So, I only worked on kits for about 2 hours of the 5 I was sitting there for. That was enough to finish assembly of the GWR fruit van, and start on the next kit. First, the fruit van. At home, I had folded, soldered, and blackened the small step. All I needed to do was superglue it onto the solebars. Bit fiddly to hold it in place, square, while the slow-drying superglue solidified. All that was left to do was glue on the small door hooks (which I forgot on one side last week), and its ready for paint... The next kit was a a Parkside GWR container flat. Got the "body" assembled, bearings assembled and wheels attached, and started on the brake gear. On the side you can't see in the photo, the brakes are glued on, but not the safety straps, they're pushed over the brake assembly but not glued to the underframe. And as you can see, the brass rod I use for the brake rod isn't cut to length. I drilled holes in the V irons, and as the brake gear gets assembled, I'm constantly pulling that brass rod out, and then using it to make sure everything is aligned correctly. Hopefully I should be able to basically finish construction on this next week... Hope everyone over there in the UK is OK after the hurricane-force storm which hit hard a few days ago. From the few news reports I've seen, looks like it was a pretty hard storm.

Its a Great Eastern horsebox, diag. 16. Built from a D&S kit. According to the instruction sheet, they were first introduced in 1888, a total of 355 were built, with 152 existing in 1936 and the last withdrawn in 1948. Once again, the instructions say that initially the body would have been finished in varnished teak, but by the time the LNER took over the GE, they would have been painted teak color paint, which the LNER would have continued. For my purposes, I'm going to have a go at painting it in teak, GE lettering, and wait until someone over this side of the ocean tells me it doesn't fit in with the time period of the rest of my rolling stock. But when I get my 5 car rake of GWR clerestory coaches assembled (and buy a GWR City to go pull it), I figure that horsebox would look just fine tacked to the end of that train. and when in doubt, model RR rule #1 applies...

One thing I meant to ask in my previous post... The GWR fruit van instructions say to put on the 3 link couplings, and the photo on the box shows 3 link. That didn't make sense to me, as the van is vacuum fitted, and I thought they would be instanters at least, and probably screw couplings. There were a set of screw couplings in the box (which I'll admit I might have put there myself when I got the kit and forgot), so I put those on. Would there have been 3 link couplings on this vacuum fitted van? Or instead of the screw couplings should I use instanters like on the D033 open goods? And a word of warning. I blackened the brass bits of those couplings, rinsed them off well in water, then let them dry overnight. In the morning, I put them back into a small container (like an Altoids box) so all the pieces would be together. A few days later, when I went to assemble the couplings, all the steel parts had developed a case of rust! I was able to get them mostly together, but one of them wouldn't thread, to the point that I snapped the threaded part of the turnbuckle. *#$%*#$%*@!#$!!! There was enough left for me to superglue the parts together, I don't consider it all that important as I don't actually tighten the couplings! So, I've learned to keep the blackened brass separate from the steel until after you get everything assembled!

I'm about to try this technique on a 7mm horsebox, mainly because I can get these paints in the US, while precision paint and ronseal teak varnish are all but impossible to get. So, thanx for giving me something to try! I bought craft store acrylic, Pumpkin like you suggested, and then two others close to your Sunny Skin and Orange brown, and I've painted the body with these base colors. I used an airbrush for the orange, two coats, but a brush for the alternate panels. Few questions for you... 1) When you put on the Humbrol clear to protect the base coat, is that a gloss or matte finish? My choices over here are testors Dullcote or Glosscote.... 2) Any suggestion for paint color for the teak wheel centers? It appears to be a very different color than the teak graining... Thanx!

Been a few weeks since I posted. On the one day I went 2 weeks ago, got nothing done because I forgot the bag of kits as I went out the door running late in the morning. Did catch up on watching a bunch of you tube videos, like a 1 hour one of British Industrial RRs posted elsewhere on RMWeb, but that was about it. This week was the first 3 days of my 3rd cycle. So Monday was a long day, and Tuesday and Wednesday were short. On Tuesday, my two kids (9 and 4) and ex-wife came in for the treatment, to help acclimate the kids to the hospital, and so they see that each treatment isn't that scary. So I didn't do any kit buidling on that day either. But, between Monday and Wednesday, I just about finished assembly of the GWR fruit van, and did finish a Parkside GWR Diag 033 open goods wagon. The only thing left to do on the fruit van is to fold, solder, blacken, and attach the etched step which goes below the door, then add weight, paint, letter, and glue on the roof. Most of that I won't be able to do at Dana Faber. The open goods wagon just needs weight, paint and lettering. At home over the past two weeks, I have done more work on finishing up the Parkside P.O. wagons. I've added weight to the underside, getting them to just about 6 oz. I've also made the coal loads for the P.O. wagons. All they need now is weathering, which I'll do in a batch once I finish all the 6 kits in the queue. I also weighted the Slaters cattle van. Still haven't gotten the cattle yet. There's a few shows coming up between now and Christmas, so I'll probably look at those shows before I resort to mail order, where the shipping will cost almost as much as the cows themselves… Next week, I'll start working on the Parkside GWR Container Wagon, and should be able to glue on the afore mentioned steps on the fruit van. After that, I have to decide which of two projects to work on next. Neither is British prototype, but might be interesting to some. One thing I found interesting about this week is a LOT of people noticed I was working on these models and asked about them. Not just nurses and other hospital workers, but other patients. The treatment room is arranged where there are 6 chairs with curtains between them, but with how nice of a day Monday was, most people were leaving the curtains pulled back a little bit so they could see outside (I had a window seat) and that allowed them to see the table in front of me. I was there for 6 hours or so, but the other chairs were mostly people getting shorter treatments, 1-2 hours, so there was a constant rotation of other patients. Over the course of the day, I probably talked to 6 or 7 other patients about my projects, and got a lot of positive comments.

My thoughts - reading the rest of the thread, you're up to 5 foot long trains. A 40' boxcar is about 3 inches in N scale. So, you're looking at a loco and about 20 cars for freights. Bit short for a manifest freight, good size for a local, way too short for a unit train. For passenger trains, its a loco and 8-9 cars, which is a good size. About the think blue line for more scenery, personally I would do it. One of the strengths of N scale is being able to have a large scenery to train ratio, just like reality. If you've got the space available, take advantage of it! 8) Can't help you on the switch dimensions...

You wouldn't lose that much track if the crossover went this way: And keeping the main clear is part of the challenge! But also consider that with yard limits, a switcher can block the main for a short period of time. The train on the main has to be able to stop...

I would put a crossover in the left end of the 4 track yard, making 1 track the "through mainline" and the corresponding track the "yard lead" track, the other two being yard tracks. Then you don't need to push the cut of cars back to the yard, you can use the run around track in the industrial area to get the loco back to the front of the train. The train heads back to the yard and pulls into the yard lead track, and uses the crossover to get the loco out so you can break up the train onto the other two yard tracks. This also adds to operation on the yard side, as you have to leave that track open for through freights. (I'm assuming the straight track at the lower right is a mainline to somewhere else. If its a loco storage track, then putting in another switch with a track continuing to the wall to represent the mainline is pretty easy.) and yes, I know the yard lead should be outside the yard ladder, but for this exercise, it'll work as it is. For a little more fun, if you dated the layout in the 70s or earlier, you would also have the required switching moves to get the caboose back on the end of the train.

Love that 3rd photo of the H10-44. Almost "eye level" photo, appropriate level of debris in and around the track, and not your typical 3/4 front shot...

This weeks installment has the lettering completed on the cattle van, and a good amount of progress on the fruit van... First, a picture of finishing up the lettering on the MR cattle van: I've tried in the past to apply transfers onto other transfers, to try to get the numbering on the number plate attached to the solebar, with no success. I've considered finding some waterslide decals of the appropriate height, but I'm not sure that'll work either. Might just have to leave the number plate blank like I did on the other van. The roof is not glued on yet, its just sitting there by gravity. If you look closely, you'll notice that I've also glued in the internal dividing wall. Can't do much more on this wagon until I get a few O scale cows (I've found a source, just have to order) and get some "hay" to put on the inside. After that I can paint and attach the roof, add weight, and finish up with some weathering. Might be a few weeks before I get the cows... The GWR fruit van is much closer to completion now: When I started the day, I noticed the instructions said to install the roof first and attach the vents so they're up against the roof. I tried putting the roof on, and found that I glued on the 2 vents too high, they caused quite a gap between the roof and the ends. So, I carefully cut off those two vents, held the roof in place, and glued on all the vents. I then continued on and assembled the underside. Did a few things slightly differently than the instructions say. First, I use brass wire for the brake rod, I find that the plastic rod that comes with Parkside and Slaters kits is almost never straight, and brass is much less prone to damage from handling. So I drill holes through all the brake parts, including the brake levers, and use the rod. The other thing I was I diverged from the order of assembly in the instructions. The instructions say to assemble all the brakes except the vacuum cylinder, then add the buffers, couplings, vacuum pipe, lamp irons, etc, before completing the brake gear. I decided to glue on the vacuum cylinder and get the brakes finished. Before my next session (on Thursday instead of Monday, as Monday is a US holiday), I'll blacken the screw couplings which come with the kit, and also fold, solder and blacken the brass steps, and glue in some weight. Should be able to finish assembly next week and move on to start assembly of the next kit in the pile. Until then, thanks for reading!

I also model On3 (not 30), so I understand the affection to narrow gauge! But I gotta admit I'm really tempted to get that On30 double fairlie kit just produced, even though it wouldn't be able to run on my track... I was just surprised that you thought that layout looked more "British design" than American. I couldn't disagree more, but that's just my opinion. About single line signaling... For a narrow gauge line turn of the century, it would almost certainly be by train orders rather than signals. That is, at station X, the train gets a piece of paper from the dispatcher (via the operator at that station) saying he had rights on the track to station Y, or passing siding Z, where he would meet the train in the opposite direction. Stations would have a manual signal called a "train order signal" which would notify the engineer that they should stop and pick up a new train order, which may override the one they were given at the previous station, based on info the dispatcher got after he issued the previous train order. This practice would last until the demise of the narrow gauge lines. Try to find photos of signals on any of the Colorado 3 foot lines...

That, to my American eyes, looks like a classic "4x8 sheet of plywood" layout design. Very much a standard "first layout" design over here. To me, to make it look British, it would have an off-scene fiddle yard and/or sector plate, and NOT have the continuous run capability.

What can I say. I REALLY like the A3s, and that model just looks fantastic with the 2nd tender and that marvelous paint job. Been following this thread for a long time, and that's the best loco I've seen yet...

all I can say is That looks bloody marvelous! If I knew when you were going to run it, I would fly to the UK to watch that go around a layout... Please, for the love of god, take a video of it!

How many does he need to fold?

The first time one of the nurses see it, they ask what I'm working on. I explain its "toy train kits", and they just let me keep working. As long as I put down the tools when they need to take my blood pressure, or hook up the next bottle to the IV, doesn't seem to phase them at all. The councilor/social worker who comes by occasionally to see if I need to talk about anything thinks its great.

Yesterday was another day at Dana Farber. The good news is that since I've handled the infusion rate well during the first cycle, they've speed up the rate. So, now I'm only sitting there hooked to the IV for about 5 hours. Which means less time for modelling, but I'll take the trade off... Over the weekend, I took out some spray paint and painted the Midland cattle van. Everything below the solebars black, everything above, inside and out, a glossy light gray. Glossy because the transfers don't stick to flat. I did put a coat of dullcote on the inside, but not the outside. While being treated, I glued the body together. Then, I took a bottle of flat black and touched up where there was a little grey overspray, and also where the rattle can missed. Next was to clean the wheel treads, getting all the paint off those. Finally, I started lettering the sides. Got the MR, Large, and 1 digit of the number on both sides. Should be able to get the lettering finished next week. I haven't done anything with the roof yet, as once the lettering is finished, I'm going to weather both the inside and outside of the van. The photo posted earlier in the thread shows a very clean, freshly painted wagon, but right next to it, and behind it, shows some rather severe lime drips down the sides, and it really struck me how distinct they were. Some boards are absolutely filthy, but the next board up is completely clean, and the ends are clean as well. Hopefully I'll be able to achieve the same result with thinned white paint. After that I'll add some cattle and hay, and glue on the roof. While I was waiting the 15 minutes between pressing down the transfer and being able to soak off the carrier film, I started on the next van in the pile, a Parkside Dundas GWR fruit van. Cleaned up the sides and ends, which took quite a bit longer than I expected. I then assembled them to the floor, and started gluing on the vents. When the IV machine beeped that I was free to go, here's what it looked like: I don't have a big "backlog" of plastic kits right now. I've pulled 3 GWR kits from Parkside (fruit van, open goods wagon D032/033, and container wagon) out of the "to do" pile. I'm planning on assembling all three of them, and then painting them GRW grey in one airbrushing session. So that's the plan for the next few sessions. I had considered building 3 Slaters 6 wheel milk vans, but looking at the kits there seems to be quite a bit of soldering involved in the chassis, which I can't do during treatment. So, they'll stay in the pile for a while longer. But, other than the 6 kits I've mentioned, there's only a Slaters salt wagon and everything else is etched brass. I might jump to some US prototype stuff that's been on the back burner... We'll see what strikes my fancy after the 3 GWR kits are assembled...