Athearn HO scale 200 ton crane, Strasburg Railroad...

Yup...it's football season...time for some model work to get done...


...can you believe that this kind of delicate stuff actually is a restful activity for me?

Walther's HO scale Impact Test Car #933-6892...

Though you wouldn't know it from how often my Blackberry has been going off, I've been on vacation the last 3 daze. Spent some time fixing this old kit from the 70s, upgrading the wheelsets and trucks and adding an onboard button cell battery power source rather than relying on track pickup. I repaired the missing corner steps and touched up all the paint with a 1 to 6 mix of Humbrol Matt 60 and 154, an almost perfect match.

I installed a flasher circuit that has a 15 second timer on it as well, the problem with the original being that the penalty flash was momentary most times. This one will flash long enough to see that the bad operator move can be noted without a doubt as to what happened.




The basic car is an Athearn bulkhead flat painted especially for Walther's. I'm not concerned that I've "ruint a classic", it was a bit rough when I got it, so I felt free to do as I pleased with it while retaining the original spirit of the car.

Ambroid and Walther's HO scale Russel Plows...

...spent last weekend just catching up on some long on the back burner projects...




Built by a long gone modeler, this is an Ambroid B&M plow that I received as a throw in with a box lot I bought at a swap meet 3 years ago. It was filled with about one hundred 10 penny nails (?) for weight. I removed those, added weight just behind the front truck and under the blade, added the missing ladder and smoke stack and then touched up its original paint applied by the first owner/builder.




This is a Walther's Russel Plow that was in yet another junk box. Over the past four years, I replaced the missing horns, carved off the cast on grabs and added wire ones, replacing the broken stirrups as well. It has a working strobe and headlight that run off of batteries and are controlled by onboard switches. It will probably be another four years before I paint it...sigh...

N scale transfer caboose and post 1972 converted boxcar...

Transfer cabooses were used primarily in large yards and short moves on trains that needed little more than an office to run out of. Like this one, they were often cobbled together out of the scrap box, albeit a somewhat larger one than we modelers are used to.

The box car models a converted car from the late 60s/early 70s, when railroads were forced to remove the roof walks and all new cars had to be built with lower ladders and brake wheels, something that would have eventually been done when this car was shopped.

These were given to me as an unsolicited "Thank you" from another modeler for parts I had sent him. That the one was built by him and the other sports his weathering work makes them cherished members of my N scale roster.

Bachmann HO scale "Trackster" Jeep Hi-railer, circa 1985...

...they actually run very well for only two wheel pickup. They also came as a van and a box-type step van...very desirable in HO collector circles, they often fetch $20+ at swap meets for mint examples.

10 daze, 2,000+ miles 'til home...

My first overnighter completed...

Most of my modeling friends are also avid rail fans, folks who chase down real trains as a side hobby to their model work. While I do enjoy the sight of locomotives doing their thing on the rails, I've never been much of a chaser.

Thursday night found me in a Holiday Inn overlooking the Red River near a major UP/KCS rail hub. The first sight to greet me was an old UP SD40-2 idling in the shade of an overpass, no doubt assigned to run out her last daze sorting cars in the yard.

My car's parking buddy was a real treat...


...not often one can get so close to a Hi-railer.

My room had an impressive view as well...


...leaving me to think that I would enjoy a pleasant night's rest, blissfully lulled to sleep by an occasional distant air horn, accompanied by the low rumble of EMD prime movers and clatter of running gear.

Was I in for a rude awakening---literally every 30-45 minutes, all night long.

You see, downtowns are generally crowded with traffic during the day, something city fathers wish to keep moving freely during regular business hours for very obvious reasons. 100+ car trains coming and going don't help this flow and so are relegated to running at night, making the required horn blasts at grade crossings---right under my window---every 30-45 minutes---all-night-long...sigh.

Nathan Airchime M5s are not designed to make rail fans out of people looking for a good night's sleep.

I'm praying that my boss gets his next hotel room alongside a Slipknot/Marilyn Manson/Seether allnighter...

Moving a model railroad...

...is hard work...

Walthers HO scale Russell plow...

...been pining to be finished for a couple years now, I've already replaced the grabs with wire ones...guess I should think of finishing it before the snow hits tomorrow---here on the Gulf of Mexico.

Roundhouse 3-in-1 rotary plow kit...

...I'm hearin' ya'll up nawth are fixin' to need a couple o' these---reeeeeal quick like...



It's a shame ya know, all that global warming and stuff, buryin' you guys like that...

...still printing calenders...

...so, back to my store of unposted Photobucket pictures...



...a TYCO Rock Island 250 ton crane, a "Thank you" gift from a fellow modeler.

Tyco/Athearn Hi-Railer kitbash...

...one of my first from about 18 years ago. Its base is a frame, front wheels and stake body from a very cheaply made toy truck of no known make. Can you believe the stake bed was chrome plated!? I added the cab of an old Tyco truck and the rear axles off of an Athearn 45' trailer. Assorted kibbles and bits were used for the remainder of the details including the wheels off of a discarded N scale car...





It now graces the MOW shed on the Gulf Coast and Western Railroad.

Some kitbash work, ...

...projects I've done in the past that some of my readers haven't seen. I modified cheap toys for these, using various styrene shapes and bits. The 'dozer has taken a beating but still holds up, the backhoe features a scratchbuilt cab made by scribing clear styrene, then painting a frame around it.





I'd like to do more but time constraints have me modifying my hobby into more of a collector/tinkerer phase. One cannot follow a calling to "Preach the Word" and spend an inordinate amount of time on such temporal things.

Ertl 1/87 John Deere 310SE Backhoe Loader...

...picked up at a local festival some time back. The torches are scratchbuilt from a hand truck, using carved sprues for tanks. Gauges were made from sliced styrene rod with levers made from lift rings and hoses from fine wire.

Canadian National Russell wedge plow hard at work...

...from Chris over at 2 Guyz...the pictures say all that needs to be said...

HOn30 Rio Grande Southern "Galloping Goose"...

...or at least my rendition of it. It was built onto an N scale deisel mechanism several years ago. It ran 8 straight hours without a hitch on its debut at a local train show. I've since reconfigured it in a way that more closely follows the original RGS build, placing the mechanism completely under the trailer and filling in the rear wheel wells.

Kitabashed HO scale tunnel clearance car...

...made from a Life-Like track cleaning car and built onto an MDC/Roundhouse 32' flat car. The superstructure is built from scrap picket fencing, ladder stock and Plastruct stock.





More on the real ones can be found here...

Tyco Amtrak crane with kitbashed boom tender...

...painted over for my road's MOW train.

Walther's HO scale C&NW Jordan spreader...

...one of my favorite pieces of MOW equipment, now serving another road faithfully. A nice kit, if carefully assembled. I regularly spread the wings on it for an impressive show sitting in a siding.



Dude, after an already eventful hurricane season, I am so ready for winter...

A video of one at play...

Tsunami sound and an IHC "Sound of Steam" gondola...

One of the most annoying trends in the hobby, to me anyway, is sound equipped locomotives. My first introduction to this marvel of technology was in a club house setting. The owner of said marvel felt it necessary to step out for a smoke---no problem to me, I chuffed many a cig in my day. The problem was that he left his little engineering masterpiece, an A-B-B-A set of E8s, idling in the yard...for a half hour...with the bell going. I was desperately in search of a brick, sporting a nervous tick that I still carry to this day, when he came back lost in his nicotine high, oblivious to the carnage he had wrought on my auditory faculties.

My counter to this has been inexpensive yet priceless. Every time one of these high dollar marvels starts to pillage my audio sensibilities and grate my nerves, I whip out this old school throw back, a steam sound car made by IHC some time ago. I find it most effective lashed up to my Athearn C44-9Ws for a fantastic "You Are There" type audio experience.





It's done wonders for my nervous tick... Oh, the sticker? That's my boy's work...you see, there's a kindred spirit in the club. He's got one just like mine so my boy thought the sticker would help us figure out whose is who's at the end of a run.

Scratchbuilt HOn30 Climax...

I built this some years back, one of the first online tutorials I ever did, spurred on by of all things the rack of antlers on the headlight. Someone needed a rack just like that to put on his loco's headlight and I cobbled a set together using some parts from the scrap box. Before I knew what hit me, the rack had to have a headlight which, of course needed a lokey to adorn. The rest, as they say, is history...



The locomotive was built onto the mechanism from a Model Power RS15---not a wise choice for such a model if one wishes to run said model. Poorly engineered from the start, Model Power diesels did their best work as static displays and not as working motive power. In the end I had to reluctantly make a flatcar load out of it---a great model still but not what I had originally intended.

The flatcar is a Revell model from the 1960s and includes the original sprung trucks. I added C70 rail to the deck, eventually I'll chain it down...eventually.