Tetter's Layout Progress and Other Pics.

[tetters]

First off. I changed my handle. I used to be cyclingshane73, however thanks to one of the gracious mods here at The Gauge (Thanks N Gauger) its been changed to my nickname. The one that was given to me by most of my friends and the name they know me by. So now you know it too. :thumb:

Also. Instead of plugging up the board with a new thread of every achievement during the progress of my adventures in model rail-roading I decided to devout one thread to all of it. Hopefully it will grow to be long but fun and interesting to read.

So far, I finally managed to sit down at my work-bench (more-like stand...I need a stool to sit on...my shoulders are a bit sore...ouch) and build up one of my Proto 2000 kits. To start I picked a gondola. Why? Well because: 1) It's the only one I have so far, and 2) It seemed to have fewer parts then the other kits.

I managed to break a couple of the plastic grab irons but was able to "salvage" one so it looks bent, which I guess is to be expected in the real world. I'd like to thank Doc Wayne for the tip on using the laquer thinner. It dries quicker then contact cement and seems to leave less residue. Which actually sped up the build up process. Hope you like the pictures. It's not weathered yet. Remember baby steps for now...

One down...14 to go.

New track plan and cars soon to follow. I'm reworking it again. I'll post up a pics of my very first locos in over 20 years which will be soon be DCC equipped. Eventually I'll get around to getting to the real meat and potatos, but for now I've got to keep myself amused.

Comments, opinions and gratutious praise always welcomed. sign1

Shane

 

[doctorwayne]

Nice neat job on the gondola, Shane; glad to see that you tried the lacquer thinner. I keep mine in an old Testors cement bottle, with the brush in the cap, but any small glass bottle with a good-sealing lid will work. This will cut down on the amount that's lost to evaporation from the wider opening in the can, which will also cut down on the amount of it that you breathe. It also makes a smaller mess if you knock over the container. Don't ask!!ops:

Wayne

 

[tetters]

Thanks a lot Doc. That's certainly high praise coming from you. I put a small bit of the thinner in an open container, just enough to get the job done, and applied the thinner with a cheap paint brush that had a small tip trying to keep the application conservative. I'll have to find a more suitable container soon though.

According to the instructions because of the road name, the braking system was a bit different. Hence the brake wheel. Which I thought was a nice touch. I tried to take my time. In all the model took about 2 hours to complete.

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

Good looking model. I can relate to the fragile grabs, I broke a couple when I built my gon last year.

 

[CCT70]

Can't go wrong with your first model being WP. Now you need about 39 more and a trio of Silver and Orange F7's and a brass wooden Bay Window caboose to go with it.

I have several of those being a WP modeler myself and for a first kit, you picked one that is a little challenging, but you did a great job on it. I'd say you're off to a great start! :thumb:

 

[tetters]

Thanks for the kind words gents. I appreciate it.

Here's a Hopper I started last night and finished this morning...must have taken close to 5 hours to complete! I might do one more this weekend. Hopefully something easy...Maybe a box car.

More to come! :thumb:

 

[tetters]

Man, this tank car sure had some really small bits to it. I broke a few of the grab irons, but some how just managed to break only the "extra" ones included in the sprues. So I got them all placed. Build time was about 4 hours.

 

[viperman]

I have got to get me some P2K kits! How much they run? I like the Athearn BB kits, (a little too) easy to assemble, easy to find, and easy on the pocketbook! They roll nice too, but I would like to upgrade them all to metal wheels

 

[cnw1961]

Hi tetters. Great job on your cars. I have this tank car as a RTR, sweet little thing. But like you, I found out that the fine parts on the LL cars break easily :curse: . I think LL should do something about the mixture of their plastic. It should be a bit more flexible. Anyway, good idea to start a thread to show your progress.

 

[tetters]

Thanks for the compliments guys. They help keep me motivated.

Viperman. You can get entire lots of them on e-bay. 5-10 or 10-20 in some cases. When I did the math on the ones I picked up it worked out to roughly 5 bucks US per car. Which I figured wasn't too shabby. The detail is incredible.

The entire time I've been building these, comments like;

"Awww crap!"
"Holy **** that's small!"
"You've got to be kidding me!"
"phew...(sigh) ...just eight more grab irons to go!"
and
"Man, these sure are cool super little details."

All came to mind quite frequently.

Looky what came in the mail today.

Fast Tracks # 5 code 83 Turnout Assembly Jig. The "kit" came with the jig, frog point filing tool, enough PCB boards to make 10 turnouts, 15ft of .015 rosin core solder, and five sets of their Quicksticks to use as ties for five turnouts. Now all I need is for my LHS to get in some ME # 83 rail, then I'll be all set. I can't wait to try this thing out.

They included this neat little billboard as some schwag. Now I'll have to find a building to place it on when I get some buildings on my future layout.

Yee Haw! Giddy-up!!!

 

[tetters]

Look a box car!

I apologize if this is getting annoying. I mean once you've seen one box car kit you've seen them all right? This one kinda cheesed me off a bit actually. A bunch of the stirrup steps were broken while still in the sprues out-of-the-box. So this is the good side, the other side is missing its steps. Also I broke a part call the retainer valve and piping which goes next to the ladder when I tried to place it in the pre-drilled holes and it wouldn't go quietly. :curse: The little pins are still in the holes too I just shaved them down flush with a straight blade. Guess its time to invest in a pin vice. I e-mailed Walthers about getting some replacement parts. Hopefully they can help me out.

Question:

I glued the right side of the car with the door open. It wasn't until I put the top and bottom together did it dawn on me that the weight screwed to the floor is now blatantly visible on the inside. Can anyone give me some creative ways of hiding the weight. I wanted to have the versatility of flipping the car to show it open one day, then closed the next. Any ideas? I was thinking maybe some small boxes at the front or something. I know Doc Wayne will have something truely unique up his creative sleeve.

One more thing, then I'll shut up... for now. The more experienced modelers and rivet counters are probably saying by now, "What in tar-nation is with all the different road names dammit?"

Well, that is what happens when you couple (pun intended) a great deal on e-bay, inexperience and a good dose of unbridled enthusiasm. So sue me. Actually. I'll get around to re-painting some of the rolling stock. Right now I'm in construction/build mode. I picture this car as one of my brewery cars in the far but not too distant future.

Bye for now.

...still waiting on that rail from my LHS...better get here soon!

 

[viperman]

Ever actually watch a mixed freight? See all the different road names there? enough said

 

[doctorwayne]

Viperman is right about the mix of roadnames in a typical train, at least before today's mega-mergers. If your road has an interchange with even just a single prototype, it's a gateway for cars from any common carrier railroad in North America, including Mexico and Canada.
As for the open door on the boxcar, I have a number of Proto 50' doubledoor cars, but they were all built with the doors closed. I just had a look at one of them: the weight doesn't appear to be too thick, although I can't really see if it sticks up too high. If it doesn't, paint it a dirty wood colour, then add a few pieces of scrap wood, some bits of paper or thin cardboard to represent dunnage and bits of junk left-over from having been recently unloaded. A car with cargo still in it would have the door sealed, unless it was in a scene being unloaded. The junk on the car floor will draw the viewer's eye away from noticing the details of the floor itself. If the weight is too high to use this trick, you could always replace the stock weight with separate weights, one placed in each end of the car, away from the door. I cast my own from lead, but A-Line offers various sizes that would work.
The drop steps are pretty fragile: I use the metal ones, also from A-Line, that are meant to be installed in holes that you drill in the bottom edge of the carside. The Proto cars, however, have very thin sides, so you'll need to use pliers to bend the mounting pins on the metal steps so that you can use the manufacturer's pre-cast holes in the car sides.
Hope this info is of some use.

Wayne

 

[MasonJar]

I like the P2K kits, and you've found a great deal on eBay...!

My 8000 gallon tankers were a pain to assemble, and I came up with just about every phrase on your handy list some time ago... I have since discovered the "TimeSaver" version, and while you still have to do many of the grabs, overall it takes less time (go figure - with a name like TimeSaver, whoda thunk!? hamr).

I like doc's suggestion for the junk in the open door of the boxcar. You could also paper across the door like a box car that would have hauled grain, but I think that 1) yours might be too new, and 2) a railroad that claims to serve "the steel centres" might not be hauling much grain.

Great stuff - keep it up!

Andrew

 

[nhguy]

Man, this tank car sure had some really small bits to it. I broke a few of the grab irons, but some how just managed to break only the "extra" ones included in the sprues. So I got them all placed. Build time was about 4 hours.

Those cars come out nice. I have about 20 of the 8K and 10K tanks to put together myself. Once you put one together the rest come easier because you know how. I've aready done 6.

 

[tetters]

Thanks for the ideas and encouragement Gents! I'll sure find them/it handy in the time to come.

I was little worried about the different road names for my rolling stock as my switchers are will be P2K GP 7's and 9's (Still have to post pictures of my "fleet" of 4 locos) all Canadian Pacific livery in the old maroon/grey/yellow paint. I've ordered some decoders for them which will have to be installed when the arrive.

I've been using some cheap brass track that came with our PC train. I connected four straight sections and made a small train "mock-up". So that is what got me thinking about that. Oddly enough after I read viper's post a freight train went by our building...and it certainly was a mix of hoppers, tanks, boxes and gondolas. Really neat to watch. Took well over five minutes for it to slowly rumble on by. If it wasn't soo damn cold out I would have grabbed the camera and snapped a couple of photos.

On the track laying front. I'm having a hell of a time getting the ME code # 83 rail from my LHS.
They said bscially it will get here when it gets here...??? What the...? :curse:

So I ordered some from the Fast Tracks (www.handlaidtrack.com) website. Enough to last awhile and get me going. As well as some additional PCB tiles. I should have it all next week. Then I can tell you how well the turnout jig works in the hands of absolute total newbie. In the meantime expect more P2K models to get posted over the days ahead.

 

[MasonJar]

Shane,

No experience myself, but a few of the guys from the modular club brought in curved turnouts they had made with a FastTracks jig. Peter's assessment was basically that half the value of it is the teaching. Once the first one was done carefully as per the instructions, he did a few more in an evening. He also speculated that it would not be hard to hand lay turnouts of different sizes given what he had learned.

I know that's second hand knowledge, but I hope it helps.

Andrew

 

[tetters]

Finally!!!

Not much to post on the progress part except I've built a couple more frieght cars. I'm also waiting on some Decoders which will get installed in my loco's when they arrive. Also going to detail the locos a bit when I get the decoders in. That way hopefully I won't have to take them appart and risk damaging the shells.

I got my order of 33 pieces of Cd 83 Rail in the mail today and ordered some more PCB Ties as well. Fast Tracks taped the rail to a piece of wood to protect it and keep it straight. Nice idea. Hopefully I can lay a turnout tonight and see how well this all "turns out" (groans... no pun intended) in the end. I'll post up when I've made some real progress.

 

[tetters]

One Down....

21 Left to go! (sigh...)

All kidding aside. This didn't go too bad. I made some mistakes. But I think I was able to "salvage" my efforts into a working turnout. I tested out a wheelset on it and a 40' car doing some roll throughs and it seems to be o.k. The next ones will only get better for sure. This took me about 2 hours to build. I think I can get the frog sharper then it is. Although the wheels do not drop into it when they cross it so that is a good sign. I had to install the throw bar out of the fixture because I didn't make the points long enough. However, I can roll a wheelset and a car through them without it picking the rails so another small victory there. If I may be too critical I think the overall look is quite sloppy though. I definately need to improve my soldering technique. Tell me what you think. It is just the skeleton, as I'm sure it will look better with some wood ties on it.

 

[MilesWestern]

I'm frankly quite impressed with all your effort, and certianly by JUMPING RIGHT INTO THE DEEP END!! :thumb: No R-T-R crap for you! That's great!