Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO)

[steinjr]

Slow as always, but I did a little more work on the scenery along the left wall:



and then got started on the terrain down to the barge terminal and smooth-it for the track-in-concrete for the barge terminal:



Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

Hmmm - some one feels somewhat less than totally bright ....

Seems like when the instructions for hydrocal says to mix "2.5 parts hydrocal to 1 part water", they don't really mean "mix 2.5 waters with 1 part hydrocal". I did think "that looks kinda thin", but shrugged and poured it on anyways.

Instant runoff through some very small cracks that hadn't leaked when it did the first coat of hydrocal. Said something my wife would not have approved of me saying in front of the kids, got a bunch of rags and started wiping up the gunk.

Then mixed a new batch - this time using the correct proportions of hydrocal and water, and did a second coat on the harbor area.

Oh well - at least we (me, wife and our two boys) got to take part in kitbashing a 99 1/4 foot tall Lego tower in downtown Oslo yesterday - Norway now has the current record for tallest lego structure (for as long as it lasts). Here is the tower at the half way mark, at 10:30 am on Saturday - it was twice as tall by 4:30 pm:



Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

Not that much done on the layout recently.

Lots of things to do at work, lots of things to do when getting the yard and the neighborhood straightened out for constitution day on May 17th, and my oldest son and my wife has been at school camp for this last week. The school camp was at a former coastal fortress site on an island in the Oslo fjord.

Might be a cool thing to model for someone interested in military models , btw - here is my oldest son standing on a coastal defense gun camoflaged as a boulder:




I have also worked a little on a MR diorama for the kids - they suddenly got interested in helping to build stuff, so I decided this was a good time to introduce them to various techniques. Current status of the diorama:




Also, I was playing a little with the digital camera to try to make some short movie clips showing trains moving on my layout. Quality is so-so, will try with the newer camera when I find it.

A GE 44-tonner with a single tank car holds on the spur up from the yard while a freight train passes:


A local pulled by a GE 70-ton switcher holds on the main while a transfer run pulls into the River Avenue yard:


A railfan filmed this scene from the River Avenue overpass, as the Warehouse job holds on the main (left) while a freight train from the north snakes past it to head in the direction of the River Avenue yard:


Smile,
Stein

[ocalicreek]

Stein,

Great job on the videos! Not bad for a quikie with a camera.

That's a very colorful train of box cars...but no caboose!

Galen

[steinjr]

Stein,

Great job on the videos! Not bad for a quikie with a camera.

Thank you.

That's a very colorful train of box cars...but no caboose!

Well, I just got a paycheck with some extra cash from a few too many nights worked during the last month.

Maybe time to invest in the steam engine recommended by Reinhard a while back and a couple of cabooses?

But what would be appropriate cabooses for my trains?

Say for cabooses for transfer runs from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific in the Twin Cities in the late 1950s, maybe a CNW/Omaha Road caboose too.

Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

But what would be appropriate cabooses for my trains?

Say for cabooses for transfer runs from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific in the Twin Cities in the late 1950s, maybe a CNW/Omaha Road caboose too.

After a quick (quite possibly too quick) round, I decided to go buy these two cabooses, which hopefully won't look too obviously crazy for the late 50s.

1) Frisco caboose (will change decals to GN): http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/ProductDe...=ATH-74189

The Frisco caboose seems like a reasonable approximation to to this GN caboose, which was built between 1941 and 1951 at the GN shops at St. Cloud, MN:



2) NP 3-window cupola caboose: http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/84269_30_...-84269.htm

Smile,
Stein

[Russ Bellinis]

But what would be appropriate cabooses for my trains?

Say for cabooses for transfer runs from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific in the Twin Cities in the late 1950s, maybe a CNW/Omaha Road caboose too.

After a quick (quite possibly too quick) round, I decided to go buy these two cabooses, which hopefully won't look too obviously crazy for the late 50s.

1) Frisco caboose (will change decals to GN): http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/ProductDe...=ATH-74189

The Frisco caboose seems like a reasonable approximation to to this GN caboose, which was built between 1941 and 1951 at the GN shops at St. Cloud, MN:



2) NP 3-window cupola caboose: http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/84269_30_...-84269.htm

Smile,
Stein

I think they would work, Stein. Those are modeled from a Santa Fe prototype, but I think a little sanding on the cupola to remove the overhanging roof and round the corners, and reshaping or fabricating new ladders for the ends would render it pretty close to the prototype you are looking for.

[steinjr]

Hmmm - Santa Fe prototype. I have a couple of old Santa Fe Cabooses, one of which has been stripped down:



The Santa Fe cabooses are surplus - I was not planning to use them for anything - just got them in a box of other stuff I got a while back. Wouldn't cost me anything to try to modify one of the old Santa Fe cabooses to look more like the GN caboose.

GN caboose looks like this:


Side look pretty good. The leftmost of the three windows should have been closed and a new third window cut closer to the end. But the window frames would be hard to get right, so maybe leave that as it is.

Rear platform window - close off small left window, make a bigger window the same size as on the other side of the door.

Cupola - has curved front (and read) with two windows, should have had straight front without windows - just louvers. Cut straight across the roof down to the roof, make new straight front and rear on the cupola. See if I can get some louvers off anything I am not planning to use?

Side of cupola - just one window instead of two - but maybe let that ride, too.

Shorter distance from end of cupola to end of car at short end. Again - let it ride.

Mmmm - I am going to go play a little with that and see how it works out. The cabooses I ordered won't be here for at least a week, anyways. Maybe more, if that Icelandic volcano keeps acting up :-/

Smile,
Stein

[doctorwayne]

Stein, unless you can see more on that photo of the prototype than is visible on my screen, there are windows on the ends of the cupola. The whole purpose of the cupola was to provide an unobstructed view over the train without having to stick your head out the side window, especially in the winter.

I dunno: if you're thinking about kitbashing that caboose to more closely ressemble an NP one, you're a lot more ambitious than I am. A better staring point for such a project would be the Athearn wide vision caboose with a replacement standard-width cupola from Moloco. You'd might still want to alter the windows on the body, although I believe they're useable as-is.

Wayne

[steinjr]

Stein, unless you can see more on that photo of the prototype than is visible on my screen, there are windows on the ends of the cupola. The whole purpose of the cupola was to provide an unobstructed view over the train without having to stick your head out the side window, especially in the winter.

Good point!

I dunno: if you're thinking about kitbashing that caboose to more closely ressemble an NP one, you're a lot more ambitious than I am. A better staring point for such a project would be the Athearn wide vision caboose with a replacement standard-width cupola from Moloco. You'd might still want to alter the windows on the body, although I believe they're useable as-is.

Mmm - I am a little confused (as should be obvious from my thinking about cupola windows :-).

Are we talking about kitbashing an NP caboose or a GN caboose? The one I had a prototype picture of was a GN caboose. And since I had a couple of surplus cheap Santa Fe cabooses, I thought I would play a little with those.

But looking up Moloco at Walthers, I see what you mean about replacement cupola. This one? http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/504-1502

As for the Athearn wide vision caboose - were you thinking something like this one? :
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Athearn_H...-75228.htm

Stein

[doctorwayne]

I dunno: if you're thinking about kitbashing that caboose to more closely ressemble an NP one, you're a lot more ambitious than I am. A better staring point for such a project would be the Athearn wide vision caboose with a replacement standard-width cupola from Moloco. You'd might still want to alter the windows on the body, although I believe they're useable as-is.

Are we talking about kitbashing an NP caboose or a GN caboose? The one I had a prototype picture of was a GN caboose. And since I had a couple of surplus cheap Santa Fe cabooses, I thought I would play a little with those.

But looking up Moloco at Walthers, I see what you mean about replacement cupola. This one? http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/504-1502

As for the Athearn wide vision caboose - were you thinking something like this one? :
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Athearn_H...-75228.htm

Stein

I was thinking that the GN caboose in the proto photo might be easier to kitbash if you started with the Athearn wide vision caboose, which is too modern for your chosen era. It could be given a more '50s look by using the Moloco kit that's available to turn the Athearn wide cupola into a standard one. It wouldn't be an exact replica, but with paint and lettering would be a better stand-in than I'd be able to kitbash from that Santa Fe car. Of course, if you like the challenge, go for it.

Wayne

[steinjr]

I was thinking that the GN caboose in the proto photo might be easier to kitbash if you started with the Athearn wide vision caboose, which is too modern for your chosen era. It could be given a more '50s look by using the Moloco kit that's available to turn the Athearn wide cupola into a standard one. It wouldn't be an exact replica, but with paint and lettering would be a better stand-in than I'd be able to kitbash from that Santa Fe car. Of course, if you like the challenge, go for it.

I see your point, and have ordered one of the Moloco cupola kits and the Athearn Wide cupola caboose, too. So now I have gone from not actually planning any cabooses for the layout to planning 4 different approaches - of which hopefully a couple will work:

- Old Santa Fe caboose with some surgery, made into a very rough approximation of the GN caboose
- Athearn Frisco standard cupola caboose, re-decaled (is there such a word?) for the GN
- Athearn modern NP wide vision caboose + Moloco standard cupola replacement, repainted to 50s colors (red) and decaled for the GN

- Roundhouse older three window caboose for the NP

We'll see how it goes. I was able to carve a couple of windows into the new straight front cupola wall for the Santa Fe caboose. Not necessarily the prettiest I have ever seen, but this is a test on a very cheap throwaway car - I have another where I can redo this when I figure out what works (if it works) :-)

Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

Haven't done any work on my own layout these last few days - have been spending my modeling time on coaching my oldest kid, who is 12 years old (or will be in two weeks) and who wanted to learn how to build landscapes.

Here is my oldest son starting out on painting a retaining wall on Saturday morning:




Saturday afternoon. And yeah - he (like his younger brother and myself) got a much needed haircut on Saturday, in preparation for the Constitution Day parade on Monday May 17th :-)


Wall didn't turn out half bad for a first try for a 12 year old - just some blue foam, using a knife to carve a couple of lines along the wall, and then some short lines to make "brick pattern" (or rather stone block pattern) in the vertical direction, followed by some gray paint. Tip we saw in an article by Rick Wade in Model Railroad Hobbyist May/June 2010.

Sunday morning - some paint, some dirt, some grass, some trees and bushes (with still wet glue at the time I took the picture) - still quite a bit to do, but it is starting to look more like a diorama:


Best part is that the kid has done most of the work - with me first demonstrating, and then he doing at least 75% (or more) of the work. Only part I have done alone is painting the building - he doesn't yet have the patience for dry brushing a building.

Didn't have time to do anything more this long weekend - the rest of Sunday and all day Monday was spent on the Constitution day festivities (in remembrance of the signing of our constitution at Eidsvold on May 17th 1814).

Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

Very cool that the boys are involved in the project. Thanks for sharing the photos. And, I am enjoying your thoughts on the caboose mods too.

[steinjr]

Well, the cabooses I ordered a while back has just arrived. Still waiting for the standard cupola replacement for the wide vision cupola, but the rest has arrived. And I discovered a box I had forgotten about with an NP bay window caboose.

So now my layout has gone from not running with cabooses, to having four reasonably presentable cabooses. These are the ones I have now (in addition to some old Santa Fe cabooses that I have decided to just leave off the layout - the mod did not turn out very well).

NP 1743 - a three window caboose:


NP 10404 - wide cupola - waiting for standard width replacement cupola (and a repaint)


NP X-184 - bay window caboose


SL-SF 1115 - will remove decals and decal for the Great Northern:



Smile,
Stein