I had a first meeting with the carpenter about the frame work of the new layout. The carpenter will take the lead over the electrician and painter and coordinate the schedules (they did a fantastic job coordinating all crafts for the apartment last year).

The new frame work will be mainly unchanged in the 4,20m * 2,75m (13,7' * 9) room.
The south side will be 4,20m * 0,60m (2') with scenery. The north side will be 4,20m * 0,27m (.9') with a four track staging yard without scenery. The west and east sides will be 0,15m (.5') connections without scenery with hatches for the balcony and room door. The top will be unchanged 0,81m (31.8") to permit train operation under the open window.

The north, west and east sides will reside on brackets mounted at the wall. The wider south side will be bolted to the wall and have 2 to 3 legs for safety reasons as today.

The south side will be a solid frame covered by four easy to exchange 12mm (.45") plywood boards (0,60m * 1,00m/1,20m).

I will use Atlas Code 83 tracks and switches. The staging yard will use six #4 switches and simple top mounted Atlas switch machines. The frogs will not be powered. Simple operation with four push buttons and a diode matrix to power the switch machines. The south side with scenery will be #6 switches and tortoise switch machines.

Next appointment is Monday with the electrician. I need a remote control for the window shutter and outlets for the layout lights mounted under the cabinets.

The forgotten box

Declan Grain Elevator had a string of Shore River hoppers on the siding.

Bruce

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While driving thru the Pinelands Industrial Park caught Shore River working.

Bruce

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Our AMREG friends group was member of a large exhition mostly with other railroad groups and dealers on last weekend.
First time we built an large oval with an switching appendix where all modules of our friends were arranged to a large layout with dimensions of 92ft length and a wide of over 30ft.
See some pictures.

The layout in a drawing!


Small baggage - for me as a member without own modules.




Where is to find the other end? - Around 90 away!


The complete layout near to finishing!


A view from the other end.


After five hours of installation the model trains have been set onto the tracks! Ready for model train running! The railroad museum on the left and our new station Shelbyville on the right.


Again the museum a piece more behind including our station Shelbyville.


The museum in oposite direction.


The museum again in a 3/4 view. Good to see the row of exhibited steam locomotives and an excursion train very close to the Sacramento Daylight with the SP #3000 Atlantic.


Trains are running, steam like diesel engines as motive power. The presentation of models was a good mixture over a time period from 1900 until to present time.


The new old time coal tower of Shelbyville railway museum, a need for the steam locomotives serving the historic excursion trains including locos for the switching jobs in the museum.
Sorry, not the best picture.


I think that I can show some more pictures in galleries and links to videos in next days. Enjoy!

I could not leave it! The price was resonably and so I must have this nice model of a UP SA-C class "Bull Moose".







The UP started a rebuilding project in 1937 where the 70 original MC class mallets were rebuilt to single articulateds. So I think that this model will be a well usable motive power for my 1930 (+) train. The original MC class mallet was imported as a brass model by Overland however my loco is a Sunset modell, built already in 1984 however with a good and stable detailing so that I can transport the model without a large danger of damages.
However before it must be digitazed yet and this will need a bit of time yet. Too many projects are laying on my worktable and should be finished as first.

As some of you that have been with us a long time, as far back as the original Gauge, you might remember Sumpter250 (Pete Juengst) as a moderator and a very active contributor from the get-go. Well, Pete has been having some health problems, both with his memory and physically, and will most likely not be able to visit Big Blue anything soon. We've discussed Pete's situation among the staff and his two daughters and decided to honor Pete by making him an honorary moderator as well as opening this sub-forum to feature Pete's work as a modeler. His modeling works are what I would consider, museum quality, both in model railroading and ship building.

We will gather what we can of what Pete has shown us on Big Blue, and his daughters, Tiffanie and Heather, will post what they can as well.

Please stick around, if you're not familiar with Pete's work you will be amazed at what he has done over the years.

We wish Pete the best with dealing with his illness, and that he gets the care that he needs.

I usually have the answer on which way to go but,in this case I don't. :o :oops:

The gears in my Mule Creek Industrial Railroad's Bachmann GE 70 Tonner is crack/stripped so, here's my dilemma.

While checking the gears I manage to drop the shell and damage the cab steps and pilot.

Here's it is.

New gears and shell will be around $50.00 with shipping.

A new 44 Tonner is $44.95 plus shipping.

A Walthers SW1 can be had for $49.99 plus shipping.

What say you?

Three years ago I purchased a prebuilt container ship model (BBC Anglia) through Ebay that I wanted to use on my Miami River layout. While the scale was 1/100 I thought it met the size of the smaller container ships that traverse the islands in the Caribbean. While the length was right at 39 inches and the beam within specifications, I was extremely disappointed in the superstructure of the ship. I considered trashing the entire ship but decided to hold back and not act hastily.

The ship when purchased came as a HO scale waterline model and also a display model. The waterline model had the wood hull shaved down while the display model was perched on a wooden stand. However both were 1/100 scale. The prototype ship was 101M long (329ft.) For this model to be correct HO scale 1/87, the model needed to be 45 inches long. Working with the model as is, the 39 inch model came at 86.6 M in length (286ft.)

Around November, 2017 I decided that I would revamp the superstructure. After removing it from the hull, the stack and command bridge were all the items I was going to keep. The rest was discarded including crew quarters, enclosed life boat, antenna superstructure and several other "do dads" that didn't serve any purpose when the model was built. I didn't want the superstructure to be the same as the prototype, but instead reflect the sleeker prototypical structures observed on many of the inter-island container ships. The work is nearly done and now I am attempting to carve out a enclosed lifeboat from balsa block.