The On30 Reading & Union City Eastern railroad needed a small locomotive to service a new customer.Since no loco manufacturer is making modern day narrow gauge locomotives the RUCE shop crew built their own.Loco is 10'2" long by 7' wide.Power is one motor/truck assembly from a older Bachmann HO 70 ton switcher.Pulling power as she sets has not been tested yet though she pushed a 40' boxcar around with no help last Saturday.She has been reballasted since then but will not be tested till Thursday evening.This project is far from done ,but she is going to work anyway.

I don't know if this bothers anyone else, but have you noticed how the roller bearings on modern blomberg trucks never seem to be put on models? I have an 2 N scale CSX GP40-2's and, while I can't speak for other parts of the US, I have seen almost every Geep in Tampa with these roller bearing type side frames:


My models from Atlas have these type M's on them:


To me it just feels like having bettendorf journal boxes on a TrinCool reefer Any advice on how I can get the roller bearing look on my locomotives' trucks?

Part1.
Now I should warn you right from the start that you will learn no new scratch building or kit bashing techniques from this thread, it’s just me waffling on about the whys and wherefores of what I’ve done. If anything was to come of this post I’d hope it may encourage a fence sitter to have a go at kit bashing/ scratch building even if it’s on the basis of “ if he can do it, so can I, (and better too!!)”.
It’s all very well, and quite enjoyable, “oohhhing and aaaahhing” at the work of those who I suspect would be slightly embarrassed to be called “Masters” but the trouble was that I wasn’t actually achieving anything. I had some projects in mind using styrene but as I hadn’t used it before, needed to actually work with it to see if I was at least capable.
Now this first car was bought for me by my two, then young, children from some of their paper run earnings so even if it was a Frateschi kit of a Brazilian prototype hopper it was still special to me. To make it “serviceable” I using my battery drill and a file I turned down the pizza cutter flanges and replacer the European style coupler with a Kadee, with the vague idea that with a paint it would end up as a freelanced MOW ballast hopper.
Fast forward some years and a chap on another forum was pondering on how to make roofs for a hopper to covered hopper kit bash he was undertaking. doctorwayne offered some of his tips, techniques, and examples and for me it was then the time had come to act!

   

   
Brake end and side view of the Frateschi car.

   

The roof and roof walk is made from .020” styrene sheet that I scribed as I’d seen plans of a wooden roof hopper, the hatches were scratched using the hatch dimensions from a Tichy cement car I’d recently completed and the green bracing was my rough interpretation from the plans of a PRR H30 I’d seen. (This was before Bowser had produced their RTR version).

   
Nothing like a coat of paint and a close up photo to show the flaws. :cry:  
Cheers, the Bear.

King Mill has some new backgrounds available at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kingmill.com">http://www.kingmill.com</a><!-- m -->.

Bruce

My wife reminded me about National Train Day tomorrow. We'll be at Penn Station. She's actually coming along willingly!!!

Happy National Train Day!!!

http://www.nationaltrainday.com/s/

A few freshly-done freight cars.

This one's a $4.00 Train Miniature car from the LHS. It was a new-in-box undecorated kit. Paint is Floquil with custom lettering from C-D-S:



Another NiB TM kit, formerly a CNR boxcar. I added a few details, some Floquil paint and C-D-S dry transfers:



This one's a similar TM car which was already in service, but originally lettered for PMcK&Y. Here it is in its new paint and lettering:




Another NiB $5.00 kit from the LHS, this one by Tichy. It replaces the original version of the one shown above. Paint from Floquil, C-D-s lettering:



Another $5.00 bargain, again NiB, this one by Sylvan:



The boxcar shown below is a Red Caboose car which I painted and lettered several years ago. While the B&O's M-26 boxcars were copies of Pennsy's early X-29s, the car shown, unbeknownst to me at the time, is too modern :oops:



A generous friend recently gave me another Red Caboose kit, this time for an early X-29. Paint from Floquil, with C-D-S lettering:



...and here's the earlier faux pas, re-done as a newer PRR X-29:



While I like this Intermountain SFRD reefer, it's a year or two too modern for my layout, so it's headed to a new home.




I replaced it with two similar ones, but painted them to represent the cars as they were originally painted. Here's one of them. Lettering is from Microscale:




Finally is this modified Accurail car. It represents a USRA-style wood reefer, a car from which the prototype steel reefers shown above were re-built. The older style paint scheme was done in Floquil, with lettering from Microscale, CBT Shops, and Champ:





Wayne

I have a new track plan for an NY&A switching layout. I took the foundation of the Palmetto Spur plan and added a Bushwick Branch feel to it. The layout will be 8 feet long x 16 inches with a 4 foot removable extension which will include the other end to a runaround. It will have a mixture of industries from the Palmetto Spur plan and sidings found in Bushwick Terminal. I could never compete with Kurt's Bushwick Terminal layout so mine will be semi-freelance. This is the plan I came up with, i'm not great with the track programs but it gives you the idea.



Somewhere in the first 12 inches of the layout will be a grade crossing, and all turnouts are #6. The siding marked with a #1 is going to be a food processor which was on the Pal. Spur plan and will have the same 3 car spot of a tank car, reefer and boxcar. #2 will be a warehouse with a 3 car spot of boxcars. I decided to go with a team track where the runaround creates some extra track space at #3, it's similar to Bushwick Terminal and will be able to accommodate 2 cars which will include gondolas and bulkhead flats of pipe and rebar, covered hoppers of plastic pellets, boxcars of brick and when the team track is slow I can store stone cars destined for Kings Material (which would be located off the layout on the track above the team track). #4 which was the team track for the Pal. Spur will most likely be a warehouse with a 3 car spot of boxcars. Then #5 will be a paper company that will have a 1 car spot of hi-cube boxcars. I'm happy with the plan and think theres plenty of space to switch the industries and creates the use of a wide variety of cars, and I could probably use occasional CSX power since it still has some Palmetto Spur DNA. I probably won't be able to start building for another week or so until everything gets unpacked (moving tomorrow) so thoughts and recommendations are welcomed.

Over the weekend of May 3rd & 4th of 2014 the OK Free-mo group had their first setup here in OKC. Some of the members of the group had setup with other groups for other events, but this was the first time just our group setup. As of right now we have no club modules, they are all individually owned and are in various stages of completion. We operated the layout as a point to point with as many as three operators running trains at once. The setup went well and we had trains running by the time the doors opened on Saturday, there were no issues to speak of and people were interested to watch us switch cars instead of go around in circles really fast.

Here are a few photos of some of the modules at the show:

This is my module based on a location in along the Deschutes River in Oregon



This is a module featuring an elevator and transload facility:




This is brush creek



As you can see some modules are a little more complete than others