What’s on your Workbench?

[PRRK4s]

Next project....PRR X23b. The PRR took over 700 aging X23 outside braced wooden boxcars and converted them to X23b class by adding a steel round roof, similar to the newer X31a class. This gained some interior height for loading. This model is a Pacific Limited, the only importer of this car. This was also acquired via cell phone from the recent York TCA show. After a trip to the blasting booth to remove the older paint and a few minor solder repairs, the new finish is being applied. Trying to get the aged board look on this one. I'll revisit that once the decals are applied. Still gathering up those and other supplies needed to finish the car.

[robert.]

With colder coming. I'll break this out of storage and try to finish it.

[sarge]

Robert, what is the prototype?

[robert.]

N6A cabin car

[sarge]

Cool! You’ll keep us posted on that build, won’t you?

[up148]

Is it scratch built or kit? Either way it looks great....love wood sided cabooses.

[robert.]

Kit. A box. Quality craft

[De Bruin]

One of the now longest toothed (and largest) projects on my bench is a CGW Mill Cities Ltd; one passenger F unit, four (or five) composite heavyweights and maybe an express box car.

For the required passenger F unit, I’m recycling an Atwater “F7” picked up at the Chicago Meet in 2016, a well-worn veteran of the famous Smokey Mountain Lines club's.

It had both trucks powered, ran and pulled great but needed some plastic surgery to CGW-ize it into one of their 150 series F3’s, specifically large number boards, a second door headlight and the early version dynamic brake slots removed, or specifically here covered over.

Dipped the paint off in brake fluid and cut some inserts out of sheet brass, applied a two-part stick epoxy that works like bondo, sanded off smooth.
More to follow, I go back to this in between the rebuilds for ebay and custom paint work.
ooo sooo lucky

[sarge]

Ahh, that’s my kind of build; seeing what you can make of a more-mainstream level model, not that I’m the least bit hesitant about taking a torch and saw to something brass and exotic! GRIN!


The backscene painting project finished yesterday, so now re-siting structures and shallow-relief items. Starting from one end and working my way to the other:





There is a fair amount of thought and re-arrangement going on in this entire node/diorama, more-so than the other two. I’m very interested in the balance between structures that actually are part of the railway operations and those residential and commercial that really have no relationship to the railroad itself. So many model railroads seem to have only doors facing a siding on anything industrial, and no thought to commercial and residential areas other than plopping a house down here and a car-dealer or something there…

[PRRK4s]

A quickie side project while I await supplies to finish the PRR X23b. Heres another tca york pickup. A PSC 4 track PRR Waterbridge. These things are notorious for cold solder joints. Or maybe it was just the use of bare minimum of solder on the delicate structure pieces. If you look at it wrong pieces just fall off! So the resistance soldering unit came in handy once again. Still though you heat up one piece not quickly enough and you have another brace or rivet plate come loose. Ugh! But I got it, about 12 areas needed resoldered or secured a bit better. Also rigged all the chains so the spouts pivot, raise and lower. Previous owner had everything glued into the stowe away position. Painting it is next.

[sarge]

That is one of the most bizarre structures ever done in brass; screams “PRR” and naught else. Grin!

The railroad is now re-assembled after the backscene exercise.



While it was empty, gave the while thing its annual clean, then pulled down and staged a scenario. Time to test what might have suffered from tarps, the odd required knee, things that go crash; so far a couple siding bumpers and a toggle switch the only casualties.

[Chris Rock]

Wow, you guys are flying along. Really nice. Hopefully I can get to work on something this weekend.

[PRRK4s]

Finished painting the waterbridge. Not sure how many of these were on the PRR system or all the locations where they were in use. I'm not even sure if these pre-dated track pans where the locomotive could scoop water on the fly or were used where track pans could not be located. I included a photo (somewhere east of Pittsburgh) that actually had both the bridge type watering system AND track pans. Pretty unique.

[R.K. Maroon]

Love that photo of the PRR coal drag under the waterbridge. Thanks for posting the pic and the project. I was unfamiliar with these structures.

My last post on this thread was a Bob Hall custom-built CB&Q Mountain. Bob built at least eleven CB&Q steamers. Many were models of prototypes that the Q had a lot of, such as the O-1A Mikado. Bob built three of these: one for Richard Garberson, one for Jim Seacrest, and one for himself. He did however build a few less common locomotives. My favorite is this Class T-2 2-6-6-2, shown here on my workbench for inspection, cleaning, and lubrication:


I was very happy to find that the gearboxes turned freely and the locomotive ran smoothly on a short straight track. As such, this one did not stay on the workbench very long. Here it is running light on the layout at the OKC show:


Most of the layout is parallel double-track. The locomotive is running on the inside main, which of course has tighter curves (the track in front is a yard lead). I was hoping that, being a short articulated with six drivers per engine, it would negotiate the tight curves. It ran fine on the 60" curve seen here, but that wasn't the acid test. We haven't finished the layout upgrade yet, so for now the inside main passes through the diverging track of a #5 switch and then a #6 S-curve. I failed to get video of the T-2 snaking through these, but it ran for about an hour with not a single problem.

I do have some video of it on the rest of the layout, though, and will post soon.

Jim

[sarge]

Talented builder.

Burlington truly had a unique look to their steam. I’ve never been a fan, but the model work is first class. I really like it when someone’s work crosses the bench who was a talented builder. Here is one such model:







It’s a Lehigh New England RS-2 built by Ben Brown using the Weaver RS-3 as a start. He not only visually nailed it, but his drive is just as nice. Ben was a very talent builder and a proto-ops practitioner. His railroad was a joy to operate.