Fellow modelers,
Sunday, March 26th, about 4:00 in the afternoon, my favorite uncle passed on. It was no surprise as he'd been fighting for many years. All the same, that did not make it any easier to accept. I think he was about 65 years old, married, with one surviving son. His name was Daniel MacDonald and he is the reason I am so hopelessly obsessed with this great hobby we all enjoy. He got me started in N scale when I was only 10 or so. He never forgot my birthday and always got me something having to do with trains for each one... diesel spotters guides, N scale trolley, coal tower kits, a boxcar here, a gondola there... etc. etc. etc.
He was an avid armchair railroader himself and was also a rivet counter! His passion was the logging RR's... steam... although come to think of it, he liked the old diesels as well so maybe he was a transition era kind of guy! He would spend hours and hours and hours getting the handrails just right, or the chains to hang just so. He would take an old steam engine and set the throttle to 1 so he could see how long it would take to travel from point A to point B grinning from ear to ear the whole time! I'll miss him something terrible but let it be known, his passion lives on through me!

I've been trying to replicate some hopper door latches and they're not turning out so well.

Here is what I'm trying to replicate.



Here's how they've come out. I've painted them so I could see the detail or other imperfections.


If you look closely, you'll see air bubbles. Either molded on or small cavities. Some maybe usable but many are not.

I've been using this to make the mold.


And using this to make the casting.


Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thx,

Mark

One of the old time cars I recently purchased was this V&T Anniversary car:

   

It doesn't have truss rods; it has a fishbelly frame. It was different, so I bought it, but as far as I can tell it's a complete foobie. I am thinking of converting it to a PRR XL car, or a B&O M-12:



I found a description of a mod in the B&O Historical Society Newsletter:

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It has a date with some brake fluid...

As I mentioned in my last post on TM cars, I've been acquiring some older freight cars and kits from some acquaintances. I purchased a lot of MDC Roundhouse Old Time cars, many of which are reefers:

   

I also bought this mystery Swift reefer, and the old Mantua reefers were thrown in. A little crude, but I like them. I plan on painting the roofs and ends mineral brown.
   

The Swift Reefer scales out to about 37 feet long, and has some nice detail, like a Miner lever hand brake. Unfortunately, grabs and ladders are missing and/or broken. My Googling leads me to believe it is a Red Caboose Mather Reefer. They seem to belong to Intermountain now, but the kit is OOP and parts don't seem to be available. I was going to try Tichy ladders and grabs from my LHS. Any advice? Anyone have the car and could take a few pics for me?

I know, I'm biased, but I never imagined that my own country could be this beautiful..!: https://sedenne.no/v/44244/nyt-synet-av-norge

Good morning all.

I found this video on the web and thought I would share. I hope I am not breaking any rules here. :o

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Enjoy

Brent

Does anyone else know about this??
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They start running her on weekly trips in August!

I have several Atlas MP15DC and they are all smooth and silent runners except the last one I got with a Loksound decoder.
The decoder was humming like crazy. That was surprising because the Loksound decoder's humming becomes so loud only with poor drives. I expected an acceptable level of humming with a high quality Atlas MP15DC drive.

I started to replace the board and the underneath mounted 21 pin Loksound with a Tsunami 2 plug in decoder. That worked fine and the bare drive without lights and speaker did a test drive.
The drive was very noisy. Something made the motor working very hard. There must be somewhere a mayor resistance in the drive.
I removed the trucks and rolled them on the table. They did not roll a tad! It was hard to roll the wheels with a finger.

Disassembling the trucks showed the problem:

Each truck has piece of brass in each side frame acting as a bearing at both ends and as a connector to the wire in the center. The ends of the brass forming the bearings are inwards aligned and press against the wheels on the axis. The ends of the piece of brass need to bend a tad outwards to let the axis with the wheels free spin in the bearings.

That is all. After that the drive runs as good as all other Atlas MP15DC drives and the Loksound humming is barely noticeable and acceptable. About the same level as the GMD-1.

I assume Atlas made an error mounting the trucks in one or more series of younger MP15DC. Don't worry you can fix it in 20 minutes ;-)

ps. Shocking lesson for me: An awfully humming Loksound can be caused by one of my beloved Atlas engines.....

Hi Guys,

I'm working on the foam below my track and have questions about what others are doing or should I just purchase the WS foam risers and not bother with this myself.

I'm trying to create a grade about 2°. When I cut the foam I'm not getting a even surface to run my track. I was thinking I could smooth out the surface with hydrocal or plaster or even sculptymold to get the smooth level grade for my track to run. I was thinking it shouldn't matter much as the cork will be on this surface and the track on that. As long as the grade done evenly the surface material shouldn't mater. CORRECT?

The other option I can purchase the WS foam risers and just use them. I would love to hear what others have done or are doing.

Dave