I am in the process of applying the finish colors to some reefers that I am building. If I remember correctly,decals should be applied to a glossy surface but these colors are on the dull side. My question is this-should I spray the car sides with a gloss coat before applying the decals? If so can the car be weathered over the gloss surface or should it be weathered first? The reason I ask is I want to be able to apply weathering over the decals.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Bob

Anyone know anything about a swap meet here in the Phoenix aera?
I just heard a rumor about one. Can't find any facts or details.

Some time ago we formed an alternate site on Google to allow us a means to communicate in the event that we had any problems here with our server. We had a similar site over at the other forum, and it was frequently needed seeing as how we had a lot of downtime there. Since that Google group no longer had any meaning, it was taken down today, but the Big Blue alternate is up and we welcome our members to join, just in the event that it's necessary to keep in touch should we have any downtime here.

Our Google group is here: http://groups.google.com/group/big-blue-train-forum. Feel free to register and either Mikey or myself will approve it. There's no need to start a conversation there unless for some reason you cannot access our regular Big Blue site.

I have an N scale Atlas SNCF 231 with broken connecting rods. Anyone know where I can get a spare chassis without spending an arm and a leg?


   

This is Jesenice, which is the border station with Austria. As the two countries use different voltage catenary, locomotive changes are neccessary.

This was the very first locomotive I photographed on our first visit to Slovenia in 2007. "Brigitte" series 363.


This train is arriving from Austria and as there is a dead section in the catenary, both locomotives have lowered the pantographs and are coasting in. The front "Taurus" is dual voltage so will switch to the SZ voltage pantograph to push the other locomotive back to the Austrian side (it is single voltage only).


The "Taurus" has pulled the 1044 forward and has now pushed it back towards Austrin end of the station - it is freewheeling!


Still rolling!


As it is the same type as the SZ 541, the OBB 1216 will continue deep into Slovenia with the train.


An internation express arrives from Ljubljana behind an SZ 342 "Moped". This will be removed and replaced by the OBB 1044 which just arrived with the freight.


As the 342 has coasted to the Austrian end, the 1044 is coupld to pull it off and propel it back to the Slovenian end. The 1044 will then take the train on to Villach.

Over the past week I was looking at Ebay for a few items. I did manage to find a Western Maryland Boxcar, PRR Caboose & a Jennyville Tower. I then went to a hobby shop website and found a Chessie System GP38-2 & Chessie System Boxcar. So I still had to itch and I bought them both. I didn't recieve them yet in the mail. Then yesterday I went to the hobby shop and was browsing around and found a New Haven Caboose & two tunnel portals ( the only two left ) so I picked them up as well. Below are pictures of the Boxcar, Tower, NH Caboose, & Tunnel Portals.

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It has just been announced that New Orleans has been approved for federal funding ($45 million) for a new streetcar line. Story from the paper:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2...ll_co.html

The line is to run 1.5 miles along Loyola from the railway station to Canal Street. They hope to have it finished in 2 years. The grant does not cover cars as they plan to use surplus Canal Street cars.
They are also talking about building a loop from the junction at Canal around the French Quarter to the end of the Riverside line.
New Orleans currently has 3 lines with 3 car styles. The oldest cars date from 1923 are are national historic monuments, as is the St Charles line they run on. (This makes the cars contemporary with Toronto's Peter Witts.)

I went to Butler, Indiana today to see the cleanup of Thursday morning's spill of NS 206. Here's what I saw:









More photos are available on my flickr page.

How do I add an actual picture to my posts? I'm sure the info is here, but I can't find it.