Layout Odds and Ends

 Greetings All,

Layout Odds & Ends

Yard Power

I really like these U23Cs that work Terminal Yard and the Penn Central rolling stock that greeted me for several days when entering this part of the train room.

New Bi Level Auto Racks

ModelTrainStuff.com offered a 30% off anniversary sale in early July at which time I had $25.00 in accumulated bonus points. Who could resist. Here is a PRR auto rack.

Two B&O auto racks. 

Loaded with new cars from the Bedford Park Ford Plant.

Thirty six new cars head to Terminal Yard for movement to Selkirk.

1:87 Conductor John gives 1:87 Sir Neal a close up the auto racks and the 1:100 scale automobile loads. 

Six 1/100 scale cars glued to a piece of strip wood for easy loading and unloading.

Making the car loads is pretty straight forward.  A 1/8" x 1/16" piece of strip wood cut to length and painted rattle can flat black and Aileen's tacky glue to attach the cars.

The Walthers bilevel auto racks look good empty and even better with the automobile loads! They looked so good to me I ordered three more!!!

Paint Shop Project / More Rodney's

In early July 1:1 Sir Neal sent down a pair of undecorated Athearn Blue Box gondolas for painting and lettering by the Patti O Paint Shop.

Here is the sneak peek sent to 1:1 Sir Neal who likes to be surprised at what the Patti O Paint Shop creates. This let him know the paint and lettering job was complete with a little humor.

Penn Central gondola #524718 is fresh out of the shop with Kadee couplers and metal wheelsets that were furnished by Sir Neal installed.

The pair prepare to go on a test run. As of this writing the 524718 on the right is now at the APRR's Rock Ridge Yard and both cars are ready for PCCM service.

Container Chassis

I have a good amount of containers that I like to run on chassis to create TOFC loads. I built a group of these Walthers Extendable Chassis a decade ago and when I came across the last two on sale at ModelTrainStuff I made my move.

Each package contains two chassis kits. Here is one open package with the assembly just beginning. I have to admit that I had a hard time building these two kits and spent a good amount of time ungluing my fingers.

With patience and some rattle can orange paint here are two completed and painted chassis kits doing what I intended them to do.

The newly painted and completed chassis look great around the TOFC / COFC / Intermodal Ramp. The other pair should be built soon.

Crankshaft and Cradle Flatcar Load

I grabbed this last American Model Builders kit #288 in the ModelTrainStuff sale. The kit according to the instruction sheet is based on an article in the June, 1960 Model Railroader magazine written by the late Gordon Odegard. 

According to AMB the article primarily described how to build a heavy duty flatcar. But, the load itself is interesting and could be found traveling around any layout no matter the era.

In the article Mr. Odegard speculated that the crankshaft was from a large hoist, a pump or stationary steam engine. I've had this NYC Heavy Duty flatcar for a long time. It came with a load of plastic logs that looked ridiculous but the car itself is quite prototypical. Now it finally has a load worthy of the car.  

Over the years I kept tweaking the car to make it a more reliable runner by using screws to attach and control the trucks, adding metal wheelsets, body mounted Kadee couplers and additional weight.

Wheel Cleaning Station

Locomotive and rolling stock wheel cleaning is one of those chores that is part of being a model railroader. Clean wheels and clean track  make any train running session that much better. 

An old power pack, a 3' piece of flex track attacked to a scrap piece of 2x4 that is attached to a scrap piece of plywood.

A piece of paper towel cut wide enough to clean a six wheel truck and soaked with rubbing alcohol makes fast work cleaning the sintered Athearn BB wheels. Just hold the locomotive with one truck on the paper towel and power up cleaning one truck at a time. Fast and easy!  

Coming Soon

An HO Scale Tribute to the EMD SD locomotives is in the works with special guest HO scale SD units from the Sir Neal's APRR and PC Ralph's KPD and KP&W and I'll explain why I consider the SD35 to be "the gateway engine".

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!