Your golden-era model railroads!

[p51]

I'm still pondering where the Army unit sign will go but I think this works. Really, the sign should face completely away from the viewer but from this angle, the viewer can see it and it does make some sense why it would be placed like this:

If it stays there, I'm going to make a pile of earth around the feet of the posts, to show where it'd been recently placed there.
This is the graphic I used, though printed out you just can't see all the detail I put into it:

This is the image I used, and I have decided that I will be making a small run of patches from this:

 

[p51]

Over the weekend, I was busy with a bunch of detail stuff.
I took a couple of coaches I bought it a show for next to nothing, Christmas patterns, and turn them both into Maintenance of Way cars. I didn't really need them, and I probably won't use them in any op sessions, but I just wanted to mess around with them because I had almost no money in them.

Take a look at the soda bottles in the pallet, each was an individual piece. That took quite a while to get those together...

I also added a LOT of new detail, including some tarps, tarped loads, damaged oil drums, and several other things...

I also ran my trench locomotive:

 

[p51]

Did a couple of new videos...
https://youtu.be/vrUnfQN7kYw
https://youtu.be/rt3AOIDfmqI

 

[p51]

Over the last couple of days, I've been playing around with some lighting ideas...

I really like how this turned out:

 

[p51]

These photos aren't the best quality, but yesterday I added a Pyle steam-powered generator to the roof of my Baldwin 'trench' Class 10 locomotive. The Davenport copies all had generators by the 1940s, so I figured this needed one as well.

And as an afterthought once the glue and paint was drying on the locomotive, I took the rest of the castings I had (mostly small hand tools and such) and made a scale work bench from scale lumber, trying to make a 'field expedient' bench of the type I often saw in my own Army days.

Later, I took these better shots with my 'real' camera:

 

[p51]

Over the weekend, the 796th Railway Operating Battalion ready their 2-6-2T for another day's duty...

Meanwhile, some of the tools have been spread out for some much-needed journal work on a boxcar:

Nearby, the wheeled vehicles for the unit remain silent for now, safely secured within their motor pool area:

 

[p51]

Last night I decided to test the pulling power of my new locomotive. I put almost all the freight cars on the layout behind it and it only slipped once I put a passenger car onto the end of that. Once I pulled that coach back off, I had 14 cars in tow, making it the longest train I’ve ever run here:

I'm quite sure the real Baldwin Class 10s couldn't pull that many cars.

My ET&WNC ten-wheelers, I’m sure, could handle this with ease but I’ve never pulled more than about 6-7 cars behind one of those.

 

[p51]

As part of the Army presence, I finished several 55-gallon drums, and dozens of Jerry cans.

This Tamaiya kit included several German cans, so I glued them in rows together, with American cans on each end, so it wasn't obvious.
The empty drums are made by Tichy Train Group.
I added some hand crank pumps to a couple of the barrels, but I don't remember who made those.
I also designed a small open sided structure, which will sit roughly where all these drums are sitting. It will provide cover for a workbench, and several loose items on the layout, including most of these drums and cans...

 

[p51]

I finished the shed in the Army compound and put lighting into it tonight after placing it on the layout with all the detail stuff I'd gotten ready for it.
Now it's DONE.

 

[Robieman]

I finished the shed in the Army compound and put lighting into it tonight after placing it on the layout with all the detail stuff I'd gotten ready for it.
Now it's DONE.

I've enjoyed watching all this. You have put a lot of work & detail into it. Was just looking back thru your posts, and not sure how I missed this, but post 1028 with the headlight effect across the pic. That's just too cool! Thanks for all these. I look forward to more.

 

[p51]

I've enjoyed watching all this. You have put a lot of work & detail into it. Was just looking back thru your posts, and not sure how I missed this, but post 1028 with the headlight effect across the pic. That's just too cool! Thanks for all these. I look forward to more.

Thanks! I assume by "post 1028" you mean this shot?

I'll tell you how I did that. I used a clear plastic drinking straw. I held it by hand, up to the edge of the headlight. The exposure was almost 2 minutes, so I had to hold it very carefully.
Back when people shot in film, they had to use all kinds of tricks to get everything in the image itself. I use very little photo editing on a computer, usually just cropping and color/contrast tweaking. Almost all my effects like this are in the images directly.

 

[Robieman]

Thanks! I assume by "post 1028" you mean this shot?

I'll tell you how I did that. I used a clear plastic drinking straw. I held it by hand, up to the edge of the headlight. The exposure was almost 2 minutes, so I had to hold it very carefully.
Back when people shot in film, they had to use all kinds of tricks to get everything in the image itself. I use very little photo editing on a computer, usually just cropping and color/contrast tweaking. Almost all my effects like this are in the images directly.

That’s it. I wondered how you did it. It’s a great pic and even after you tell it, I still don’t see a straw!

 

[p51]

Playing around with the camera again last night:

Caboose 505 trails the afternoon freight to Johnson City, Tennessee while passing through the rural community of Sadie. At the Grindstaff store, the old men ponder the "war across the water," circa 1943...

 

[p51]

Meanwhile, the other end of the train just clears the edge of the small corn field on it's way to Winner, TN:

 

[Robieman]

Meanwhile, the other end of the train just clears the edge of the small corn field on it's way to Winner, TN:

That's a nice shot. It appears as tho there is shade from trees, or possibly from an errant cloud. I'm curious about the smoke effect.

 

[p51]

That's a tree to the far left, just the edge of it.
the smoke was a paper funnel I covered in cotton balls and spray painted black.
These exposures are almost 2 minutes long, so I hover and move the cone around so it' blurred and partially translucent. It's how they did it back in the film days and worked well then, too. I only use photoshop to get rid of upper backgrounds, crop and maybe do some contrast/color balancing.

 

[p51]

Ever since the pandemic forced us all indoors, I’ve been mostly either working from home, doing whatever house cleaning chores my wife comes up with, or working on these.
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They’re laser kits made by On30IMA. They’re quite challenging to work on as a lot of it you just have to figure out on your own, so I built only one at first, to use as a guide to building the rest. I’m glad I did that.
The remaining 4 I have (two more shorties and two ‘normal’ length) were done in an assembly line manner, all repetitive tasks for each type of part for each car. Now, the subassemblies are done and I need to put them all together into the shape of ET&WNC hopper cars.
I’ll be happy when these are done, as I’ve always wanted some of the Tweetsie’s ubiquitous wood hoppers but before recently nobody made them in O scale. There are at least two people I know who’ll make them as 3D prints, but only in O scale. Heck, I’d have paid a premium price for these as one piece, but nobody wanted to take the money. The kits aren’t exactly cheap, but once they’re done, I think they’ll be worth it. Only one (the near on in this photo) will not be carrying a load. They need weights and there’s NO place to put them but inside without being seen. So I did the detailed interior bottoms of the one, and the rest will permanently carry coal loads.

 

[p51]

I completed the build of the last of my five ET&WNC hopper car kits (from On30IMA) over the weekend. They weren’t exactly easy kits to make, but now that they’re done, I’m glad I went through the effort as I’ve desperately wanted representations of these hoppers ever since I started the layout.

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Hopefully the decaling will go well (one character at a time, but thankfully I have horizontal boards to use as a guide) once they get into the paint shop. I am still lacking one set of trucks that I’m ordering this week but once the weather obliges (and I have some gloss black on hand to make the decal work a little easier), I’ll start the paint!

 

[p51]

Today, I finally finished the five ET&WNC wood hopper kits from On30IMA.
While testing how they handle on a train, I couldn't resist taking video:

 

[p51]

Here are some more shots of the new hoppers. They were not easy builds but now they're here, I am glad I handled the expense and effort!