Freelance 2012

[faraway]

@Ed, no problem but where precise will I find the coral reefs in the Kentucky river and the beach resort for my wife?
@Mike, thank you
@jwb, no posting under water, I promise. Data transmission via iPhone is extreme expensive in Egypt if available at all in the deep south.
@Andy, that will become a great layout. May be 2013 is the year I do a clean restart with a track plan more aligned to the prototype (in Vernon)

Thank you all again. It is a pleasure to be part of and to communicate with the big blue community

[FCIN]

@Ed, no problem but where precise will I find the coral reefs in the Kentucky river and the beach resort for my wife?

No coral reefs, but the river is full of stuff you can step on and end up with a cut foot! As for the beach resort, no problem. There are some small stretches of sand and some nice homes with balconies facing the river :-)

[radivil]

@jwb, no posting under water, I promise. Data transmission via iPhone is extreme expensive in Egypt if available at all in the deep south.

Kentucky? Deep South?

That doesn't sound right.

[faraway]

Kentucky? Deep South? That doesn't sound right.

Egypt deep south! Closer to the Sudanese boarder About 1.5 hours drive south of Marsa Alam airport will be one of the hotels and dive spots. The other is closer to the airport.

[faraway]

I got it (from a photo shot by Chris Walker)

[jwb]

Isn't it upside down?    

[faraway]

Isn't it upside down?...

Not really. I did post the South African and Australian version first This one is for North America and Europe:

[alcanman]

Reinhard,

It's been a pleasure to watch the progress of your superbly modelled layout, a great inspiration.

The photobucket pics show to great effect the spaciousness of the layout, which gives it a prototypical look.




regards,

Mal

[faraway]

Note that the J yard office has a porta-potty adjoining (BLMA), although many yard offices in fact do have indoor plumbing (or maybe just indoor plumbing that actually works). Another interesting challenge is what kind of vehicles to park outside.
UP pickups are ubiquitous:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]UP and other railroads use Renzenberger to pick up and deliver crews -- I think this is a Chevy van, I don't know if anyone makes a model:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]Seems like this would be a drop-dead detail if anyone could come up with something close. However, the railroads use their own vans[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]And also unmarked white SUVs[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]Which are also used by security. Another issue is figures for workers, passers-by, and railfans.[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]Rail workers these days all seem to wear reflective green or orange vests, and the supervisors wear white hard hats. Bachmann has had a set of modern rail workers 160-33106 out for a year or so, and Walthers has a set 949-6013 coming in September, though I'm not sure if I like either the colors or the poses.

We have been at the next LHS (about 100 miles north west) yesterday. Two Trident models attracted my attention. They were decorated for Sherif and Military Police but the decals/paint were removed quickly and the plan ones are useful decoration at the yard office and my get some more details, decals and paint.

[jwb]

Also don't neglect the remaining white Boley items at 3000toys.com. Walthers seems to have picked up mostly red items for its SceneMaster trucks, but there's other Boley colors and body types kicking around, especially at 3000toys.

Also, Bachmann announced an HO powered/DCC hi-rail truck at the NMRA annual. The make is apparently generic, leaning toward GMC. You can download their new product announcement pdf at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bachmanntrains.com/NMRA_2012.pdf">http://www.bachmanntrains.com/NMRA_2012.pdf</a><!-- m --> This could be enough to make me start converting to DCC, considering the extra operating possibilities something like this provides.

[faraway]

Also don't neglect the remaining white Boley items at 3000toys.com. Walthers seems to have picked up mostly red items for its SceneMaster trucks, but there's other Boley colors and body types kicking around, especially at 3000toys.

Also, Bachmann announced an HO powered/DCC hi-rail truck at the NMRA annual. The make is apparently generic, leaning toward GMC. You can download their new product announcement pdf at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bachmanntrains.com/NMRA_2012.pdf">http://www.bachmanntrains.com/NMRA_2012.pdf</a><!-- m --> This could be enough to make me start converting to DCC, considering the extra operating possibilities something like this provides.

The Bachmann hi-rail truck looks very good indeed!
Going DCC with Bachmann is ok if you know
- 1a the plain DCC decoders are very old Lenz decoders with no BMF and create the worse noise I have ever heard
- 1b you get a nice running engine if you replace it with a quality DCC decoder. Just add that cost to the bare engine price. It will be still acceptable.

- 2a the some what limited DCC sound decoders sold at very attractive prices in the newer engines are a real bargain if you are a sound lover
- 2b visit a friend with sound equipped engines and operate an engine with sound for more then an hours. Do you still love it? ok, you are a sound lover ;-)

[sailormatlac]

Good old MoW trucks!

@Faraway : I went through all this thread again recently. I was curious about your experience on photoshopped buildings. How do they hold with the time. I once tried with Elmer’s spray glue. It started to peel off few month later. At our offices, we use 3M adhesive for gluing presentation images on 1/4mm foamcore, so far, so good. What are your thoughts about it?

I ask because I’m always dissatisfied with my brick work. Styrene sheets with brick pattern aren’t cheap for large buildings. Walthers and DPM also have their limits. Using glued brick images would be a nice trick, almost in the same way as Faller cardboard.

Matt

[faraway]

Matt, I am using UHU Spruehkleber. They have a web page in english language http://www.uhu.com/en/products/power-and...4&step=693 but I assume UHU is one of the very German companies.
It is a mess... glues like hell after you spray it on both sides, wait 10 minutes and press it together. However, each and every tiny drop that misses the target will stay for days and stick to everything.

[jwb]

On vehicles, here are two Boley white dump trucks I recently got from 3000toys:     I think either one of these could credibly get railroad logos, and probably wouldn't need to be converted to hi-rail, either. I'll probably paint the dump body on the larger truck white.

Here's another interesting item, some Boley brush pumpers that I've gotten over a period of time:     The yellow one is for the US Bureau of Land Management, the red one would be a local community fire department, and the green one is for the US Forest Service. Boley did others in other schemes. I wouldn't use these for an urban scene, as most of Boley's fire apparatus is for western brush or forest fire type activity. But here are some similar units I caught last year staging for a brush fire near Tehachapi:     Note the prototype units have crew cabs, but the models don't.

[MountainMan]

That river in Egypt is full of parasites capable of penetrating the skin, which is of far greater concern than merely "stepping on something".