My wife arranged it for my birthday! We spent a night at the Northern Rails B&B near Two Harbors, MN on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Northern Rails is made of a two rows of old boxcars that have a finished hall way between then and an enclosed roof overhead. On the outside they look industrial and weathered while the insides are well appointed and comfortable. The staff there love what they do and are very hospitable. We had a fun stay at a very unique place that any rail fan would enjoy.

The station-like house is the reception area and lobby...


Outside views. Most of the cars are former Southern Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Northwestern cars.


The rooms inside are narrow as you might expect, but long. They decided not to go too heavy on the rail theme in the rooms themselves. Windows offer pleasant views of trees and wilderness.




They did think to staff a "con-duck-tor" in the bathroom.


Here's the interior hallway...


Me at the door to our room. Its the small wooden door..not the big metal one!


What a great place to wake up 50!

Ralph

I guess ill be the first to submit my entry for the Summer '09 contest. I have entered the kit build contest, and the kitbash contest. This thread is for my Kitbash part of the summer challenge

Railroader9731 (Harry) had me build a structure for him, his dimensions that he had available for a structure were 7" wide x 17" long max with a large train door on the right side of the structure. This is all he told me, and i worked from there. I decided on the Walthers Cornerstone Series Peterson Tool Specialties kit (http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3091) for the structure. I liked this kit, and it makes a nice structure/warehouse. i would need to do some altering to the kit though to get the dimensions Harry needed.

Here was the start of one of the walls, in this case, the front of the warehouse:




I also had to do some wall panel cutting for this structure to be the right length and width Harry said he had for his layout space, this pic shows one of the wall panels cut down to 2 panels instead of 3:




The length of the structure is a total of 5 panels long....

I then moved onto the side walls of the structure. Remembering what Harry said about the rail door on the right side, i assembled the right and left side walls for the structure:




Then i added the door and windows/window "glass":




Next came the installation of the windows/window "glass" on the front walls:




Followed by the brick detail along the bottoms of the front and side walls:








After that, i assembled one of the front wall sections to the base, and then attached the left side wall to the front wall and base:






Followed by the other front wall panel and the right side wall, both glued together and to the other base:




I then took them and set them on a level table and glued the 2 front wall sections together so that the front wall became one panel. While these were drying, i worked on the rear wall, again i had to cut one of the panels down so the structure would be under the dimensions Harry gave me:






I then proceeded to glue the windows, window "glass", brick details, and wall panel tops to the panels shown above. After that, i took the completed 5 panel wall section inside to the level table and glued it in place on the rest of the structure. Allowed drying time.....

Here were a couple shots after the walls had dried and it was brought back to my workbench lol. As you can see, there were a few touch ups that needed to be fixed....










I then proceeded to glue the roof in place, and again, touch ups were needed....




I then sprayed the structure with Valspar Clear Flat Finish to glaze the window "glass" so you could not see inside the structure that well. I do this with all my structures, and it really makes them look neat in my opinion, plus it stops people from seeing the insides of the walls and such....

However, i accidentally applied to much of the clear, and since its a Lacquer and the other paints were not Lacquer, the paint on the cargo doors along the front of the structure began to crack and give a peeling paint effect. This would have been fine if Harry had told me he wanted me to weather the structure too.... lol. fixing them was no easy task let me tell you. I had to scrap down the paint layers i had applied previously to get down to the bare plastic. I did this with a tapered bamboo skewer and a sharp toothpick. Let it dry over night, and then sanded down with 220 sandpaper this morning. The doors did not turn out perfect, but they look okay. Here are a couple pics, the first showing the before Lacquer reaction causing the wrinkled paint. and the rest are in the process shots of taking the paint off and repainting them:
















After the doors were repainted, the roof trim had to be painted, so i sprayed it gray to match the rest of the structure:




Then it was time to paint the roof, i masked off the gray roof trim i had just sprayed and then sprayed the roof with a flat black:





The structure was now completed, and here are a few shots of it finished:










The structure measures 6" wide x just over 15" long x 4" tall


This concludes my Kitbash Summer '09 Summer Challenge

:hey: OK All.... This is it ,Our trip to Steam Town is this Saturday June 13. We will meet here at 9:00 am, Reading T-1 #2124         In Steam Town's parking lot.
Here she is in revenue service.<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_rdg2121.jpg">http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_rdg2121.jpg</a><!-- m -->
The entrance fee is $6.00 17 and older. That gets you into the park grounds, rail yard, museum theater, round house, and guided walking tours etc. There is also a short excursion for $3.00 per person 6 and over.
If we have the time there is also a small trolley museum across the lot from Steam Town that we could check out too.
So have a safe trip, Bring Your Camera, And pray for good weather. See you there:
Steve.

Hi guys,

I bought a proto 2000 SD50 on Saturday rom my LHS ....... great detail and like all y locos it will be DCC converted using a Digitrax DH165LO
i have noticed lights on the hood front as in the video here <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApWQQTAdeE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApWQQTAdeE</a><!-- m --> but they dont light up has anyone done this with particularly this loco and whats is their function on the loco ? as no ditch lights are present would be nice while doing the decoder install to possibly sort them out either from the main light with light pipes if they remain on solid with the headlight or fit LED'S to suit not sure where on the decoder function tabs they fit F1/2/3/4 ?

I will post some videos to let you see the general picture how things went.

1. A CSX Westbound

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHi-FDNHlgY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHi-FDNHlgY</a><!-- m -->


2.Even the U.P got in on the act.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvoN6i2kFjM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvoN6i2kFjM</a><!-- m -->


3. Eastbound CSX

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b9aZGI1wcg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b9aZGI1wcg</a><!-- m -->

4.Then NS.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AfzadmW6lY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AfzadmW6lY</a><!-- m -->

It was like that from(around) 7:30 AM to around noon..


Then yesterday on my walk "rest" on the NS I caught these former CR units rounding the connector toward Bellevue.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nND8okz99K4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nND8okz99K4</a><!-- m -->


Overall it was a great trip..A return trip is planned.

However...

Like all things Brakie I forgot to format my memory card to my camcorder..

Quote:The primary focus of my annual disappearing act is to see the things we all drive, run, fly by, and never get to enjoy. Not the cities, theme parks, in-law's houses, fancy hotels, casinos, etc., but the simple things like the quiet streams, rolling hills, SKY!!!
Has anyone ever modeled a beaver dam?....I saw several. When one can take the time to look.......forests also have fallen trees! do we ever model those? Wetlands, meadows, and on, and on.
Pictures?....nope, only those that are in my mind's eye.
I've seen, again, all the things that trains pass, that we never "look" at. Do you know just how far away a Cardinal can be and still be seen?

I shot this in Stratford Ontario last weekend after a train show.
This appears to be some sort of Hazardous Material training car. Check out the different types of accesses/hatches on the top as well as the access doors on each side.
It also seems to be heavily sponsored by some heavyweights in the chemical / transportation business. I'm not sure if it is part of a display or actually used for training but it was all clean and shiny.
I couldn't access the Canadian website - but the US site has info on the 'safety tour' they are/were promoting.

http://www.transcaer.com

Well, Its been forever since anything has even been touched here in the land of the mighty maroon missabe land.

Anyway, I my last day of highschool was two weeks ago Tuesday, and my actuall Ceremony was on Mondy. Anyway, Ive been getting a ton done, (not a thing to the railroad) but Ive been looking at it. Last I checked, there was a short somewhere, and Im kinda at a stand still with what to do, a few locos need to be reprogrammed, and I have no clue how to, and I have no clue how to do any further scenry work. Im leaving for a week of on Friday, but when I come back I hope to get it running again. Now that Im done with school, I have a lot more time to mess with it. Just havent been around much and wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone.

After reading , re-reading and looking at the pictures in my last post about yard tracks I went to my LHS for supplies and after thinking about what I wanted to do I go to work. I chose to do the two yard tracks,switchbacks and the industrial spurs. The only tracks I left alone was the track coming into the industrial park and which also makes up part of the run around track.
I first applied a layer of fine cinders,trying to cover as much of the ties as I could.I then hit it with 70% alcohol and the WS scenic glue.While this was still wet I applied some course ground cover (weeds). After everything had dried I hit it with another application of glue. I still have some more work to do on the track like adding oil streaks and perhaps weathering some of the visible ties.The pictures are not in any order.
Enjoy-Bob