A lick of paint...

[sarge]

The last couple days have seen me in a painting mood.

This started life as a Precision Scale brass import of a NYC express box. NYC rebuilt a number of WWII troop sleepers as express boxcars after the war and PSC's model represents them as rebuilt. This one has been detailed and the Allied trucks replaced with ASF Ride-control trucks as the former were on the prototype when they were de-certified for interchange (might even have been outlawed). This one is in the paintscheme used from 1962 for these cars, dark grey body, white lettering, F1 car-cement on the roof.

I used Kadee's ASF truck, Testors flat grey as a primer, Trucolor for the colors and finishes, Micro-scale decals from various sets and scraps.

[sarge]

I'm glad to have finally gotten decals for this car. Overland did them in O and HO, a very neat little car for hauling something dense as it actually is a 70-ton capacity car in those two little 2000 gallon tanks. These were leased to Pennzoil, so I'm guessing drilling fluids containing bromine.

Anyway, I tried getting decals made after gathering a large package of info and images, but for some reason the project never gained any traction. Meanwhile, I finally scored a couple sets Protocals did years ago for these cars after a two-year search, so through the paintshop 'e went!

[steamaheadstephen59]

Well ! paint maketh the car for sure ! Sarge, and a few decals make it all come together, nice work. Is that Peco track I see under those cars ?

[sarge]

Thanks for the kind words, Stephen.

It is indeed Peco track, a conscious (and somewhat unusual) choice based on a couple conditions.

I'm somewhat the lone cry in the bush for an O scaler in America as I personally find the very idea of many happy hours whiled away hand-laying track not so much an avenue to mindfulness but a death march. I can do it when I have to (and that's as good as it gets) but I truly hate it and no amount of strong drink can take the edge off that most mind-numbing of tasks, inner peace be damned.

The second is this railroad was built from the off as an operations platform rather than a work of art or photography platform, these photographs showing the overall design and flavour:





We host a regular (albeit an informally organised) operations club here as well as visiting ops groups, so reliability becomes arguably the most important of competing criteria, a reliability that the likes of Atlas turnouts fail to achieve.

I'm an old 7mm modeller so not only was I heavily invested in Peco (especially points/turnouts) but very comfortable with the reliability, especially as compared to my experiences with the consistency of the likes of Atlas or my abilities to suffer the purgatory of handlaying this with even a pious hope of achieving the quality the desired reliability would require.

One thing that further enhances reliability in an ops platform is standardisation. We use a standard coupler, standard trucks and wheels, standard power supply components, all of which are backed up with spares to hand. Same goes for turnouts; not only are Peco reliable onto themselves, but I keep spares of the frog-power microswitches and of complete turnouts on the shelf.

While the track in between is a mix of Roco and Peco, the points are standardised on Peco and they have given me no cause to regret the decision.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.........little 2000 gallon tanks. These were leased to Pennzoil, so I'm guessing drilling fluids containing bromine.

They were for transporting bromine itself. Lovely fun stuff.....

...the very idea of many happy hours whiled away hand-laying track ...

A very Zen thing...mine is all hand laid, but then a much smaller and compact layout that required switches to be laid in place to get every to its destination.

[HONDO74]

Sarge

In the last picture is that a gantry crane in the left of the picture. Do you have anymore pictures of it and info about it. Is it operated manually or remotely. It looks to be quite elaborate. Did you construct it.

[sarge]

The crane was built by Nev Rossiter for his old Bay Ridge Harbor railroad. When he decided to change up for his current steel railroad, it became surplus to his needs. It first was put to use here on my 7mm railway as a quayside crane, then carried over to this one.

He built it as a static model of styrene; just a lovely job.

[sarge]

Today saw this one out of the shop; started with a Weaver car, Athearn trucks with USH leaf springs, old Champ decals on Trucolor paint.





Got two more cafeteria trays of disassembled models coming in this group. One is an Overland PC N8a, a rebuild of a New Haven caboose with a blanked off coop and bay windows cut in. That one is in colour (green and black) awaiting the arrival of decals. The other is the transfer caboose we built in the caboose thread. It's in primer now and curing before it gets shot in Conrail blue.

[sarge]

Decals arrived today both for the N8a and the transfer cab, so we'll pick this up next week.

Viewers might wonder what the driver is of the rather un-associated subjects being shown. None of this is being done commercially; I'm retired from the industry and that includes custom-painting. I'm now "just" a hobbiest, which is far more enjoyable, if I'm honest.

I find myself the builder of, and perhaps the more important bit, the maintainer of the roster for an operations-oriented club. We run various scenarios set in the mostly northeastern region of the country during the 1960-1980 timeframe. One session might be Eastern Massachusetts (NYC and NH) in 1966, the next Maine (BAR, B&M, and MEC) in 1975, then the Elmira Branch around Southport (PRR, NYC, EL) in 1961.

There are probably a dozen scenarios written (each one different in work done as well as setting and timeperiod) so the variety keeps things not only fresh and interesting but allows me a pretty much unlimited number of models to build to populate each scenario I might decide to write. I theoretically never finish the equipment needed to operate the layout. In practice the only limitation is storage for those models not in use at any given time.

So, the NYC express car is for the 1966 NYC/NH in western Mass scenario, the tank for pretty much any of the mid-70s on, the Reading caboose for a 1961 PRR and Reading in the Harrisburg area scenario being written for our November session, the transfer caboose a 1980 Upstate New York regional interchanging Conrail, and the N8a a future scenario featuring the action in Buffalo, PC, LV, EL, B&O, a host of others.

It all has purpose after the build; nothing stays here if it doesn't have a job.

[steamaheadstephen59]

It all looks great Sarge, and the Peco track though British in style, its very hard to pick once the ballast is down. I like there code 143 flat bottom rail, but I personal dont mind hand laying track, and Peco's points are good, its strange they haven't found a market in the US.

[sarge]

The N8a is done, other than picking out some of the grabs in yellow:

Overland brass import, K4 decals over Trucolor, a fair amount of weak butt-soldered joints in the frame to fix, I'm afraid...





These were ex-NH cars that had the cupolas blanked off, most windows welded up, bays cut in on either side. Not a beauty queen by any means, but interesting conversions.

[healey36]

Butt-ugly for sure, but a nice paint job. Is that a wiper I see on that small side window of the bay?

[sarge]

Yep, they had wipers on the windows facing in both directions.

An artsy shot after the grabs got yellowed:

[Rufus T. Firefly]

These were ex-NH cars that had the cupolas blanked off.........

So what purpose did a cupola with blanked out windows serve?

[sarge]

None whatsoever, but the cupola was structural so cutting them off to a flush roof would become a rebuild of the entire carbody; might just as well filet them to the frame and start over, which rather defeats the "budget-build" aim of the project.

Out on the western end of PC, they somehow got something like a half-dozen of those standard steel ATSF cars, cut down the cupola to the structural "ring" around the hole in the main roof, added bay-windows and classed them as N5k. As I understand it, these were used on locals out on the west end; never saw one of them in Syracuse although the ex-NH conversions ran in the caboose pool and were as common as any of the mainline classes there.

Although both the NH and ATSF cars looked dreadful, they were well-done such that they lasted through Conrail's use of cabooses and weren't the first to go.