I was wondering why Roy's Train World in Mesa wasn't advertising in MRR anymore, so I went to their website to find that they've closed after 40 years. Apparently, Roy's son was no longer interested in running the business, so all is gone. He did take the cats home with him though, which, was one of the reasons I didn't got there that often. The place smelled of cat litter and you'd reach for something on a shelf only to find a cat laying on it. :o Still, it's a pity to see the store closing. But then there's one that just opened, Obie's in Apache Junction, which is probably a good ten more miles to go, or about a 70 mile drive from our house. Now you know the other reason I don't get to go that way very often.

Schraddel, I think you may have mentioned that you were a roundhouse foreman (or roughly equivalent job title) for the German rail system. I'm curious about the piles of "stuff" I'm seeing in the photos I took of German roundhouses, etc (Bws) in 1971. What are they? Coal? Ashes? How did they get there? Thanks!


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I'm taking more interest in work on the German section of my layout and am wondering if I can add something like this.

I bought a Santa Fe depot kit a few months ago. it was a great deal and I have an attraction to that style depot. There are a few of them left here in the southwest, and I'd like to see them all preserved. The one up in Winslow, Arizona is going to pot. Two church benches in the middle of the waiting room, the ticket counters have been removed and the wall boarded up and not even a working restroom to use. But, it has the same footprint as the one in the picture, just that it's all been stuccoed, probably because the adjacent Harvey House is also stucco. Two trains a day stop there, one heading east, the other west.

Anyway, the depot is too big and I don't have a place to put it on my layout. It measures about 12" by 3 1/2", so what I've decided to do is to put it on a diorama. I have idea what it's going to look like, but here's a picture of the depot that's on the box. I want to leave it true to what the structure represents, so any original ideas will go to the surrounding areas.


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We had a weird thing happen around here yesterday. A young girl living in Tempe was playing a game on the Internet a few days ago and showed everyone that she had an assault rifle. Well, yesterday, she was playing the same game when a couple of guys broke into her apartment holding a gun on her and then stacking up stuff to take, including the rifle. Well, the screen showed everything that was going on, so someone in Europe that was also playing the game, called a friend in Tempe, who in turn, called 911 to report the home invasion. The bad guys were going to hang around until the banks opened in hopes of getting this girl to take out some money, but that didn't happen. The police got there in time to get one of them, the other was able to run away.

I'm sorry, but she used very bad judgment letting everyone know she had guns in the house. That is not a deterrent but a magnet for robbers. She was just lucky, the game had the live video in one corner of the game screen, and so someone saw what was going on and had the wherewithal to do something about it, even from the other side of the globe.

BTW, the entire incident was recorded, so I'm guessing it'll soon be a big deal on YouTube.

My Mom and Dad and I went railfanning in Athens, Tx on Mothers Day and shot some pics of what we thought was an abandoned warehouse right on a spur on the old Cotton Belt (now UP) line....imagining what might have been stored here in the day...

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....turns out it was full of several tons of ammonium nitrate ala West, Tex.....burned to the ground. FD wisely just let it burn vs putting water on it which contributed to the destruction in West...glad Mom put the cig out as we were stomping around there....

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Well I'm staying out of this years summer structure challenge, I just finished up a large cement plant and I'm a little burnt-out on structure building.
So I'm going to do what I enjoy most,,,, Building steam power .
This is one of those I'll get to it one day projects that has been sitting around for years and I'm happy to finally be getting it under way. Here's a few pics of what I'm going for...CNJ #903 M-3s class heavy 2-8-2.

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She is one of a small group of experimental rebuilds done by the Jersey Central to improve performance on heavy grades. They had one purpose,, pull tonnage in and out of Ashley PA over the section of the line known as the Back Track. The Back Track roes 1,013 feet in 13.5 miles with grades over 2.5 % as the norm. Normally this work was done by the Ashley Planes, <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7580">viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7580</a><!-- l --> but a better way was needed. in 1945 The CNJ took a group of Heavy 2-8-2 and rebuilt them with Thermic syphons, Arch Tubes, Twin cross compound air compressors, extra large air reservoirs, and as much weight as they could squeeze into the frame. The Central called them Back-Track Behemoths...There were a bunch more changes made to these hogs that I will get into later, but for now I'll start with the tender.

I started with the tender on this build which is a monster all to itself, 24 tons of coal and 21,000 gallons of water. They were from a special order built by Alco for the long runs from the coal fields in PA. to New York harbor. One of these super mikes could do this run without stopping for coal or water with one of these tenders in tow. They did use several other tenders with these engines but these are the coolest, one of them even survived into Conrail as a fire fighting car. Overland did produce this tender in small amounts and included them behind the wrong class of CNJ 2-8-2's. I wish I could afford to buy one of these overland models, but I don't have the extra $1,000 to spend on toy trains. So lets splice and dice one together.

I started with two of the Model Gram Berkshire tenders, removing all the unnecessary details and grafted them together to get the proper length.

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You'll notice in the last pic I have a set of scale drawings that are a great help in this build.

In this pic I have added the rim around the cistern and checked my seam with some rattle can primer. I also started playing around with the brackets that seam to hold the water tank to the frame on the prototype. They will need a little tweaking before I am happy with them.

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My challenge this summer is this Atlas Station that's been on my "Get too it some day" shelf for about 5 or 6 years.
This challenge got me pumped to finally build this kit straight from the box....or not. As you will see later.

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Since I model "right now..today", using this a train station for passenger service, would be far reaching, maybe a station that was renovated into a commuter station. But like most stations found today, that weren't torn down, I plan on making this one a repurposed one. Renovated into a private business.

... easy to build, how I think.

First here two pictures of my O&W coal gondolas which I showed already.



Inside I added door chains - which will not be visible by a load of coal.



Repaired and equipped with some new details,replaced brake wheels, a new brake staff support including chain connected to brake cylinder, retainer valve and new uncoupling levers over whole car wide.
But there was a great mistake on models that I could not accept - corner rivet strips at wall edges which were etched into wall planks and which were be not set onto planks.

The final idea was given by my friend Joerg from Leipzig who will paint and age the models at end.
The basic idea is to use thin plastic strips where rivet heads were pressed into strips and to glue them on corners of planks after. He has read about this technique in an earlier MR and he had realized it with a few small gusset plates on his own models. See last picture.

First what you need is a lighted working table.



After a few thoughts for self-build I purchased the smallest LED-panel (this has a size 1' by 1' and is large enough for scale 1 modeling but it was not available in smaller sizes) and it was relative cheap purchase on Ebay.

Second what you need is a pattern sheet from thin brass or nickel silver where you must drill small holes (many small holes) so how your rivet strips or gusset plates should look at end.



I used thin brass of 0.5 mm thickness or 0.02", pre-drilled with drill bits of 0.3 mm (this is between #83 and #84) and I finished the holes with 0.4 mm - close to a #78 drill bit. Here you should work so exactly how you can and working with a crosswise working mechanical support for drill presses or a milling machine would be very helpful. I do not own such machines and I worked by my ordinary hand-manner. However by pre-drilling the holes I could make small corrections before the second drilling. I would like to say that everyone can get good results also without expansive machines, maybe by a second attempt.

Because I needed strips only with one and two lines of rivets the pattern is very simple, I think. However after first samples I must made a simple correction at pattern sheet. All holes have had very sharp edges and so I pressed holes in a few cases into plastic strips. Using a drill bit #75 or a similar one I removed the sharp edges on holes on one side where the rivet heads are pressed. Thus the holes (and the rivet heads) will be a little bit enlarged but you will get well looking rivet heads.



In order to get straight rivet rows which are exactly positioned in center on the plastic strips I soldered metal strips on the pattern sheet for guiding the plastic strips. Here I must say a second time that you should work very exactly. And I must say also that I corrected each of these strips two or three times until they have reached all their exact position. But this was a simpler job as drilling the holes.



Thus it looks, if the jig lies on lighted work table where I masked all other areas in order to avoid eyes dazzling.



Here I have laid a plastic strip into two-row channel and now you can see how the rivet positions are shining through the holes. That is that what I need for pressing the small rivet heads. Look the results in next picture.



The pressing tool is an old screw driver that I shortened and where I ground a tip to it - and after I ground a small rounded tip. Here I can not declare how you should reduce the tip to roundness. Start with a sharp tip, press a few rivet heads until you get nice looking rivets without that you press holes through the plastic.
A word yet about plastic strips. I tried to use the thinnest Evergreen Scale strips which are 0.01" (0.25mm) thick. However I tried also strips which I cut from 0.005" sheets - and these rivet strips looked better in my eyes. See ...



Upper angles are made from sheet 0.005" material while angle below is made from a 0.01" strip. I have selected the upper angle for using at my gondolas then the lower one is looking too heavy for this scale, I think. Calculate back into reality and I think that we should agree.
However I must say also that you can not good see the through-shining holes if you use thicker strips or sheets. Maybe larger holes will help and these will be well suitable again for larger scale rivets than for my HO-models. There you should make a few attempts to find your own way.



Strips have been divided and bent ...



... and glued onto model. And as last I have trimmed the length of angles after ca-glue has set. Ready for painting, the first model!



This is the last picture of this short description and it shows a model that my friend Joerg has detailed.

He has made the small gusset plates after same technique how I have written and these rivet patterns can made easier yet as my strips. You can press these rivet patterns in whole plastic sheets without such guidance how I soldered on my pattern sheet. You can press these rivet patterns in whole even plstic sheets without such guidance how I soldered on my pattern sheet. And so you can cut the plates and give them their size after. However you can add also a single metal strip as a strike or also two strips fixed in an angle and so there are many opportunities to receive good looking and very exact modeled gusset plates with identical positions of rivets to the edges.
I think there are a large number of possibilities for making own rivet strips and gusset plates and also different sized rivets are not a big problem. Drill larger holes into your pattern sheet and you will receive a fast result - in one step. I would like to see your attempts. Or write a mail.

Thanks also to Doc Wayne for the personal mails on search for a good solution for these rivet strips. There were a lot of ideas and hints getting the best solution that we have discussed.

Time to remember some real heroes who gave all they had for us.