WPMA-19 at Absegami Plastics.

Bruce

   

Spruce/fir trees 2.0
Faller's fir trees are really not at all good looking, but they are cheap! With a few minutes of work their appearance can be much improved.
I use Polak model turf and some spray adhesive for this project.


They are very coarse as they are...


I trim the armatures to avoid the cone shape.


Less is more...


I applied some spray glue and two layers of turf.


This group of five trees took me 10 minutes to do, a time that can be reduced severely if made in a series.
I have over 1000 trees to do, so any savings of time and money are very welcome.

I am repainting a few passenger cars and I am wondering how to remove the window strips on AF passenger cars.  They are glued in real tight.  I was thinking of trying to pry them off with a hobby knife but I am afraid I may crack the car body.  Any suggestions? 

Has anyone had experience with the new fiber optic Dwarvin lighting system? I'm interested in your take on it and how it's performing for you.

Thanks!

I visited a fairly large club layout today in Palatka, FL. I noticed they were using lots of Pecos which has plastic frogs....insulfrog. I noticed they DID NOT use insulated jointers on their track. They run DCC, and all seemed to work fine.

It did appear that they had coated the frog area with something,...I believe someone may have  mentioned nail polish.
I think Bill's solution with the very thin vinyl sign shop tape is the most appealing to me. as a back up perhaps also utilize some insulated rail joiners on some of them, But where does one find some decent ones that aren't those big bulky soft plastic ones?

I also intend to add shims to the flangeway guides on a number of mine, particularly were I will run steam engines and where I will use smaller radi turnouts. I've experimented with both metal shim material and plastic by K&S. I'm leaning towards the plastic material. If one were shimming a fair number of these turnouts, can they suggest a good procedure for getting the shim bonded thoroughly to the guide plastic??...perhaps some sort of teflon shim that could hold the plastic shim tight against the stock guide while gluing it,...without have the whole mess glued together??

With the arrival of diesels many main-line railroads sold off their steam power and many of these locomotives found very productive new lives on other roads.The Elora Gorge & Eastern took advantage of this opportunity and purchased two classic steamers which have out-performed many of their diesel counterparts on the Leetown Division 

       

if the old paint on a plastic model is in good shape is it still necessary to remove the old paint before applying the new paint?

I had a couple of questions that I wanted to post here, then I remember back when someone would ask a question on a train forum and invariably, someone would reply, “hey, are you too lazy to look it up? Just Google it fool.” I don’t every remember seeing that kind of response on Big Blue or it’s predecessors. One of my questions was about the capacity of an Auto Carrier car; there is a vehicle staging yard that I drive by almost every day and frequently see some 50 empties waiting on one track to be picked up. There are several more tracks with empties and a bunch of cars inside the fence being unloaded. I’m guessing maybe 150 cars in all on any given day. Anyway, I decided to do a Google search first, and sure enough, I got my answer. Then, a few days ago I was watching a show on TV and it answered my second question, “how long can a train be?” I could have asked these questions here and I’m sure I would have answers within a short time, but it was fascinating to find that this information was lying around and I could have tripped over it if I wasn’t careful. The one thing that attracted me to these forums back when I started in the hobby, was that regardless of how simple or how often a question had been answered, someone would always jump in to help. The one thing I didn’t get from either Google or the TV was the good feeling or the little smile that goes along with reading an answer on Big Blue. So although those trolls may have been right, it really wasn’t the best answer.

What’s my point? Well, you can always find the answer to your question somewhere, but you miss out on the camaraderie, genuineness and friendship if you don’t ask on train forums where trolls may lurk, but don’t dare challenge. Thank you all for your participation, your insight, your knowledge and most of all, your friendly smiles....

Oh, the answers I got:
1. A two-tier car can hold around eight trucks, vans or full-size SUV’s, while a three-tier car can hold up to fifteen automobiles, depending the type. That means there could be between 1500 and 2000 vehicles on this lot awaiting distribution to parts of Arizona, which is why I was curious in the first place. That’s a lot of new cars.

2. A 1.6 mile consist with 240 iron ore cars in Canada is the longest pull in North America on record, and they’re doing it several times a day with two EMD F40’s and a mid-consist helper. The load is 24,000 tons.

Posted with a smile....

If you had to restart the hobby from ground zero knowing what you know now what would you do?
Would you:
A: Choose another era? All steam? All early diesel? Both? The 60s? 70s? 80s? 90s? Today?
B. Downsize your "dream" layout and use the "kiss" method?
C. Prototype or freelance?
D. Go with how you currently model?
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For me:
A. I would model the 60s or if freelanced 1958/59.. 
B. I would stick with industrial switching layouts..
C. This is a tough question for me to answer. While I like and did model the C&O, I always had a secret desire to model either the U.P or M.P-I like M.Ps Jenks Blue scheme.
D. No way! I would cut out the multi road names and return to my roots-one road name prototype or freelance.
As far as freelance I would stay with Summerset Ry with a twist.. I would use two Atlas RS-1s for motive power since the era would be 58/59.. What can I say? I like those West India Fruit & Steamship boxcars with the railroad car ferry on the side.
I would without a doubt keep Kiss in mind and probably stay with simple DC operation since I still enjoy using my Control Master 2 or Control Master 20.
 
 

WPMA-40 works Pier 32W.

Bruce