Riding the Katy Trail

Riding bikes with ArtistCarola!

Railroading Merit Badge!

My son is a boy scout and as a requirement for his railroading merit badge he had to build and weather a model railroad structure. He chose to complete one of the road bridges.



He also had to place scenery around it!

The scene is complete with the vehicles!

More Grass.

After letting the dust take over for far too long I have began getting back to work on the scenery.

Formerly the area around the house and warehouse did not have grass but now they do.

Track Cleaning Car! Yeah!

It has been a while since I worked on my railroad....You Know, Life gets in the way...I have had operating sessions and done maintenance but I hadn't built anything new until now.

Tired of had cleaning the track and my engines suddenly stopping while running slowly. Dirty track is hard to combat but this car helps.

I made this car by drilling two holes in the bottom then building the "Bright Boy" equipped sled from polystyrene.

After running the car i have found that, while it needs weight, it keeps the track  pretty clean.

Real men of Genius!

Uncle Clinchfield Comes for a Visit

My friend Mike came over to visit the Branchline and brought over his Athearne Clinchfield Challenger. This is a superbly detailed engine, it is DCC equiped with sound, and is a blast to operate. Thanks Mike for bringing Uncle Clinchfield over and letting him run.

Visiting the Ohio & Southern

Derailed and waiting to be scrapped.

 Last night I had the privilege of visiting my friend Mike’s Ohio and Southern N- Gauge model railroad. Mike’s layout has a different theme than many modelers in the scale 1:160. In his layout he captures the joy of a Lionel train set of years past, the railroad empire made of shiny new cars and engines circling about the room, a town of tiny plastic buildings equipped with lights, bridges, a station and even a searchlight. It is a true nostalgic joy for any model railroad enthusiast. I had a great time.  Mike Thanks for the tour.

King of the Empire and his domain!

A 4-6-6-4 Waiting to pull a long coal

How do you go for a beer run?

New York Central F-T

The Farm At Night.

B&O Caboose

A 4-6-4 waits at the coaling tower 

I am primarily a winter modeler!

I tend to only model during the winter when it is too cold to ride my bicycle and business slows down at work so if there are fewer posts during the summer you might want to check my other blog about my bicycle exploits!

Bicycling in a world built for cars!

Every bit of Track is laid.

A while back I laid the last bit of track in the roundhouse and forgot to post the pictures.

as you can see all the stalls have track and the programming track is also installed. I weathered the brick and painted the track and turntable.

Making the Cars Dirty!

The car on the left has been made dirty …

The car on the right is still clean…

I accomplished this using chalk pastels, a little water, and old blush brushes. The technique is very easy.

These cars are Atlas with Intermountain wheel sets.

Painting the big rock!

I finally got the big rock painted, but i still need to build the tall bridge and install the crossing. I will scratch build the bridge from timber and the crossing will be made using foam putty and then sanding it down smooth.

The warehouse gets a fresh coat of faded paint.

I painted this plastic model with enamels and pastel washes to get a weathered look.

I think i might paint the door slider with rust colored paint.

on the street side of the warehouse I will install a loading dock with steps on one end and detail it with pallets and barrels.

The warehouse has one boxcar spot but the track will hold two for switching purposes.

Final Placement of the Big House

I have finally decided the place that the big two story house kit that my wife built.
 
The kit is a laser cut wood kit from Branchline trains. Their website has the description: 
N Suburban House & Hudson Garage
The Suburban is based on a plan shown in the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

“The Suburban” they said, “is well named, because how attractively this modern house will adorn the most desirable lot in the residential part of any of our progressive cities!” How can we say more?
The Suburban house kit listed at $1,132.00 less mortar and masonry. With a 5% pre-payment discount it could be had for $1075.40.

Item# 873
Dimensions - 2"x2-3/4"x2"

After my wife assembled the kit I painted it but never decide where was the best spot for it on the layout. After quite a bit of moving it from place to place I settled on a place in the foreground of the layout because the house is such a good little model.

I had to grade the hill (with a rasp and sandpaper) so the little house and garage would sit level. I am pleased with the outcome.

Some good old fashioned Modeling

Now that the cold weather hit here again, I have been busy working on the Model Railroad . A while back my son Aaron built this little house. I painted it then my wife and I started on dressing the  scene.

The house is an old run down shack with a yard that hasn’t  been maintained  for quite a while. It’s like many that I see along the tracks in quite a few locations.

The paint is flat enamel and the weathering is chalks. The model is a Grandt Line plastic model. These models are in the advanced catigory of plastic models due to the small door frames and windows that are separately applied.

I think the final result is a very good model.

Weathering the Old Katy!

While passing time in the hotel in Mcalester,Oklahoma, I decided to see if I could research one of my model locomotives.

The MKT 174 is an EMD GP40, built August 1966 and was used by the Missouri Kansas and Texas  Railroad in this paint scheme till the mid 70’s then it was repainted to the green and yellow scheme and was used till the UP and MKT merged on August 12, 1988 the UP then repainted and renumbered it used it for a few years and then sold it to the Nebraska Central.

I decided I needed to make my loco more like its prototype so I searched for some pictures of it in the red scheme and found this one.

I used this picture as a guide and weathered my loco like the picture.

I think It turned out pretty good, I’ll try to make some pictures in the sunlight as soon as we get some here.
According to a website I found the Locomotive is still in use by the Nebraska Central Railroad and has been renumbered and repainted.

Its still red though!

Painted Switchstands make a Big Difference!

I needed a little project for today that was agreeable to my lazy demeanor, so I got the little switchstands that came with the Micro Engineering Turnouts and Painted them. I think they came out very agreeable.

Click on the Picture for a larger Pic.

Tracks in the Roundhouse & a New Engine

Finally the end of the track work is in sight. I installed four of the seven tracks that are needed for the Terminal.
Two of them are the roundhouse tracks and one of them is the programming track.
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I met another n-scaler while at the hobby shop getting supplies and negotiated a trade of my Santa Fe Northern 4-8-4 and some Rivarosssi coaches for this Kato C44-9W the engine is void of an engine # and needs a little work but I think my new friend and I made a good trade.

N-Scale Ditch Lights

This project was perhaps the most difficult modeling I have ever done. I had been looking for a kit to convert my Atlas Locomotives, But after a futile search, I had to build ditch lights from scratch. My son likes to take things apart and had been given several cell phones. After combing through his cell phone junkyard I found the small LED’s that I needed.

My scratch built kit consists of three parts diode, wire, and housing.
1.The diode came from the lighted keypad on a Samsung cell phone.
2.Wiring was donated from an old can motor that was disassembled.
3.Housing for the ditch lights was created using sheet styrene.

I soldered the wires to the diode. Twisted the wires together and tested the connections. It works (the motor wires have a very thin layer of insulator) They run on 3V DC so I tested them using them two AA batteries wired in series.
 
After testing the LED’s I glued (using Cyanoacrylate) the front and back housing pieces to the diode. Due to the thickness of the LED there is a gap between the styrene sheets so i filled that with body filler putty, taking care not to accidentally fill in the hole in the face drilled for the light to escape.  I sanded the putty down flat and ended up with a little box with a hole in the front.

Then I drilled holes in the loco shell for the wires to go through and glued the little cubes to the front of the loco. I then identified the anode and cathode ends of the wires and soldered them to the Decoder at the places provided.

After programming the associated cv’s in the decoder. I tested the locomotive and I was pleased with the look. The bonus is when you press the “horn” button the lights pulse back and forth just like a real train. I just wish I had sound.

A new locomotive seen on the branch!

Shortly after Christmas Day a Katy loco was seen delivering an ore car to Miltonburg.

A big thank you to my father for getting me a new Atlas GP-40 in Katy livery and also a big thank you to my grandpa for helping with the cost of the decoder. I went by Angelo Hobbies today and picked up the TCS AMD4 for the little loco. I installed it and it ran fine but it seemed a little too noisy… however it should do.