Arched windows galor!

I now have 54 windows sitting on my self healing mat. They are of two designs: single and double pane. The single pane variety are for the South Park's 1879 chair cars. They require 15 per side plus 2 per end (17 minimum to produce the necessary kit parts). Combine #6 requires the double pane variety, 11 per side plus 2 per end, while the 1879 baggage cars require 4 per side. I'm looking forward to building the car sides quite soon. I'll then need to create a 40'4" car version of the roof and continue with the odds and ends (end beams, roof vents, etc).


These are 2" scale wider than the original version.

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On a related note, my Oahu Railway coach is coming together. Here's a photo of here:


The wavy roof is an optical illusion created by a slight bow in the not-yet-attached and missing-the-interior-wall side. When pressed into place, it is beautifully straight.

I really love the Oahu Railway, DSP&P and Colorado Central. That were such interesting roads.

On3 resumed

Christmas has come and gone, and the skeleton of an 1871 2-4-0 was very well received by a toddler as it raced around the tree. Still plenty of work to put into it, but I have resumed my On3 work.

I chose to go 50/50 coach green/pullman green for the OR&L coach and I love it. I made the horrendous mistake (realizing it at the time) in going with Testor's yellow for the windows. I won't do that again. My air brush allows me to to a far better job than those spray cans. Regardless, it was acceptable with some brush touchups. So, I'm assembling the OR&L coach now.



For Christmas, I received a variety of goodies. I will be had pressed to resist the temptation to build my new Grandt Line stock car kit. I can do it in around 4-6hrs, but there are other projects I should give a higher priority to. I plan on building it as a truss rod car since I already have two with steel underframes. The excess parts will go to a C&S SUF boxcar.

On3 work on hold

I'm currently engaged in the mad rush to get my son's 1:20.3 scale 2-4-0 built. I plan on resuming my On3 work (and blogging about it) after Christmas. It really isn't a good idea to perform 90% of the work on scratch building a locomotive in the 30 days leading up to when it needs to be done.

The decals will be from Stan Cedarleaf and are the same ones he developed with David Fletcher (mylargescale.com Masterclass Master Builder) for David's gorgeous model of the 1871 D&RG Shou-wa-no. The Shou-wa-no was one of the freight engines while the 2-4-0s were passenger power. The initial freight and passenger cars where four wheeled and more like LGB cars than the B-man, Aristocraft, and such.

Waiting game

I'm currently in the process of ordering some higher grade rubber for my molds. The prior stuff degraded too rapidly. I could start punching out OR&L kits, but I'd prefer to get my first car assembled first to see if anything needs to be changed. I ran out of primer, and so it is on hold until I can get to my LHS.

The South Park windows still need to be widened, but there isn't much sense in getting them ready prior to the arrival of the better rubber.

In the meantime, I resumed working on what I hope will be my son's Christmas present this year:


Again, the wheels and motor are from a junk B-man Big Hauler chassis I picked up on ebay. I started off building a Cooke 2-6-0, but decided that it would be a bit large for the tight curves it'll run around and so one of the D&RG's 1871 2-4-0s will be the engine. The particular motor/gearbox set included on the axle is know to strip over time, and so I have a simple modification planned to prevent it. I'm designing it with space for a sound decoder in the frame or in the firebox. I'll leave a space for the speaker in the smokebox (I can't stand sound coming from the speaker in larger scales). I probably won't add sound for a few years. To protect it, I'll exercise care in limiting the weight so that she'll prefer slipping to gear grinding...

Window spacing?

I used four reject windows to check the spacing:



The far right is 5" between the frames, and then 4" and 3" at left. I like 3" the best, but changing the spacing would force me to widen the windows to compensate or else there'll be too much space at the ends of the cars. I'll probably try wider windows with 4" posts and see how that looks.

My caster's regular work has picked up and so I'll be bringing the work in house. I'll have to decide if I want to get the Oahu Railway coaches into production now or get the South Park kits together first. I'll probably start producing the Oahu Railway coaches and then work on the South Park cars in between filling orders. The Oahu Railway kits are time consuming to cast...I don't see how most of these kits could be commercially viable if the pattern work wasn't donated (as a part of my regular hobby pursuits).

windows-765-CT

Sometimes, the pace of life really flies. I've been home two weekends in the past six weeks or so, and been sick both of them. Two of the other weekends, I had the pleasure of smelling coal smoke.


Here are my windows for the 1879 South Park 34' and 40' cars. The 34' cars have the single hung sash windows, the 40' chair cars get the single hung sash windows. I tried dozens of different arches (and different techniques to produce them)...these are the ones I like best.


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Back in mid-September, 765 ran a series of excursions on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic (Cleveland to Canton...yes it is quite scenic). Currently, 765 is up in Michigan hauling some excursions (my dad called me last night to let me hear her...sounded like he was in the cab...lucky dog).

On the way up, I stopped by the 8th wonder of the world:


And then boarded 765 at the very nice CVSRR maintenance facility:

You can see the Viscose #6 who ran past with her two car train and then returned to the yards while we were waiting for clearance.


The photo run-by was after dark.


When we returned that night, the Viscoso engine was loaded on its flatbed and spent Sunday there as well.


The trip to Canton (passed the PF HoF) was very enjoyable.


765 looks pretty cool from the front of a dome car.


I had a brief cab ride on the main...always fun.

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A week ago, we were in Hartford, CT for a wedding. Naturally, we made our way down to Essex for the Valley Railroad.


Their handsome 2-8-2 had a nice train of heavyweights. Considering that she has the tractive effort of a D&RGW K-36 and the size of a D&RGW K-28, not to mention the drivers and good looks of an EBT 2-8-2, I bet they have a level (but pretty) piece of railroad.


They had their handsome 2-8-0 in the well groomed yards.

I spotted their Chinese 2-8-2 drivers...but she was inside...

Plan to post again

I have been very busy the past couple months. I have done some model railroading, but not really accomplished a whole lot. Haven't heard from my caster for a while...I need to find out how things are going. I can't get too far into the next few projects until he provides me with some feedback.

I've got some photos to upload from my trip to Cleveland a month ago...765 of the Cuyahoga Valley. Last weekend, I was up in the Hartford area and stopped by the Valley Railroad in Essex...so I have a couple photos from there as well...they were running their tiny but handsome 2-8-2.