As I mentioned in my last post on TM cars, I've been acquiring some older freight cars and kits from some acquaintances. I purchased a lot of MDC Roundhouse Old Time cars, many of which are reefers:

   

I also bought this mystery Swift reefer, and the old Mantua reefers were thrown in. A little crude, but I like them. I plan on painting the roofs and ends mineral brown.
   

The Swift Reefer scales out to about 37 feet long, and has some nice detail, like a Miner lever hand brake. Unfortunately, grabs and ladders are missing and/or broken. My Googling leads me to believe it is a Red Caboose Mather Reefer. They seem to belong to Intermountain now, but the kit is OOP and parts don't seem to be available. I was going to try Tichy ladders and grabs from my LHS. Any advice? Anyone have the car and could take a few pics for me?

I know, I'm biased, but I never imagined that my own country could be this beautiful..!: https://sedenne.no/v/44244/nyt-synet-av-norge

Good morning all.

I found this video on the web and thought I would share. I hope I am not breaking any rules here. :o

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5bgzwf_rocky-mountain-express_tv">http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5bgzw ... express_tv</a><!-- m -->

Enjoy

Brent

Does anyone else know about this??
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.wmsr.com/restoring-1309/">https://www.wmsr.com/restoring-1309/</a><!-- m -->


They start running her on weekly trips in August!

I have several Atlas MP15DC and they are all smooth and silent runners except the last one I got with a Loksound decoder.
The decoder was humming like crazy. That was surprising because the Loksound decoder's humming becomes so loud only with poor drives. I expected an acceptable level of humming with a high quality Atlas MP15DC drive.

I started to replace the board and the underneath mounted 21 pin Loksound with a Tsunami 2 plug in decoder. That worked fine and the bare drive without lights and speaker did a test drive.
The drive was very noisy. Something made the motor working very hard. There must be somewhere a mayor resistance in the drive.
I removed the trucks and rolled them on the table. They did not roll a tad! It was hard to roll the wheels with a finger.

Disassembling the trucks showed the problem:

Each truck has piece of brass in each side frame acting as a bearing at both ends and as a connector to the wire in the center. The ends of the brass forming the bearings are inwards aligned and press against the wheels on the axis. The ends of the piece of brass need to bend a tad outwards to let the axis with the wheels free spin in the bearings.

That is all. After that the drive runs as good as all other Atlas MP15DC drives and the Loksound humming is barely noticeable and acceptable. About the same level as the GMD-1.

I assume Atlas made an error mounting the trucks in one or more series of younger MP15DC. Don't worry you can fix it in 20 minutes ;-)

ps. Shocking lesson for me: An awfully humming Loksound can be caused by one of my beloved Atlas engines.....

Hi Guys,

I'm working on the foam below my track and have questions about what others are doing or should I just purchase the WS foam risers and not bother with this myself.

I'm trying to create a grade about 2°. When I cut the foam I'm not getting a even surface to run my track. I was thinking I could smooth out the surface with hydrocal or plaster or even sculptymold to get the smooth level grade for my track to run. I was thinking it shouldn't matter much as the cork will be on this surface and the track on that. As long as the grade done evenly the surface material shouldn't mater. CORRECT?

The other option I can purchase the WS foam risers and just use them. I would love to hear what others have done or are doing.

Dave

Blue GP10 at work

Hey folks,, I looking for prototype photos of a Reading gondola, I think it's a gon... But it left the paint shop with the company name spelled wrong printed in large letters right there on the side for all to see. I believe they reversed the ''d'' and ''n'' in the logo , and I'm not sure if it was done like that on both sides. I think it rode around like that for a while, as I have seen a few pics of the offending car . But of course, now that I am planning to model said car, I can't find any .

If you have any pics, or any info on the car let me know, or just post them here. Thanks a bunch for the help.

Today I would like to start a thirt part of the contest - digitalizing of my N&W class M 4-8-0 with this picture how the model looked in August 2016 before the first movement was done.



I think that this is a nice model imported by Sunset models and now around 18 years in my shocase. Really, it was time to digitalize it and to add some motive power for my 1930 trains. The prototype was built a first time in 1906 already however they were coupled with 6-axle tenders not before 1930/35 so that I ought to use it only with my 1930 (+) freight train. However this is the time where I did not have an own digitalized model loco fitting this time - until now. However some more models will follow!
First modifications of model are ...



... a too wide distance from engine to tender,



... and a wrong hight of foot board on tender and the missing cab apron, which were to correct!
This is the result, a lowered foot board and a new shoveling bord and an added cab apron.



Or seen from the side.



This picture shows a good realized solution on the model. The wheels are relatively softly sprung so the wheels follow also heavy track unevennesses without problems!



Adding a working front coupler without the large Kadee coupler box where I glued a very thin phosphor-bronce wire into a pre-drilled hole of shaft.



However the end of spring wire must be fixed in a hole or a slot where it is freely movababely!



To be continued.

I knocked over a bottle of rosin flux today. It landed on a bit of track and flowed onto the Homasote and onto some fabric and the rug.
It also got on some tools and my fingers.
I managed to get a lot of it into a container. I got it off my hands with soap and hot water, alcohol, and talcum powder. Also used a bunch of cleaning wipes.

So what do I do with the rest? A lot is sitting (and gelling?) between the ties of the track. Is the track and roadbed now toast?

Dayle ran the curtains through the washer and the stuff is still in them; they were thrown out and replaced with spares.

Can I paint over what's left?