http://railfan.com/canadian-pacific-fire...UMr3lOW7cA
Charlie

I've decided to list my 2 new books here and donate the profits to Big Blue.

These are black & white photo books of the areas around Philadelphia PA. All taken by me.

Random pictures In Black & White
A monochrome photo record of interesting places in southeastern Pennsylvania. Since we view the world in full color most of the intricate details escape us in our day-to-day movements. The pictures within, focus on the details of everyday life, things that you never have a chance to pay attention to, in the Philadelphia suburbs. In order to show the most details the photographs are all in black and white.  Over 60 pictures  $12.99

Black & White Photography in Southeastern PA
A Black and White photo book of sights to see in the Southeastern, PA area. Pictures are from Delaware, Chester, Berks and Montgomery counties. Each picture contains the camera settings that can be used as a guide to take better pictures, both color and black & white, without using the "Auto" setting. 35 B&W Pictures  $9.99

The links will take you to Lulu.com where you can order the books.  The first book has a few local railroad pictures in it. The second is mostly scenery and interesting items.

These would make nice Christmas gifts too!

CR 9602 idling at RailPort.

Bruce

   

Adding another car to my roster. A CPR Double Door Boxcar by Sylvan Scale Models.

   

Some parts added.

   

   

Next step will be the underframe.

My wife & I own a 2011 Mazda3, and it has about 165,000 km or just over 100,000 miles on it.

We bought it used and it's been running fine with usual wear and tear. About two weeks ago, we were driving on one of our major highways (the 401) and, whenever we hit a bump, the back end would sway slightly. Recently, the problem has become a little worse in that we now notice it on city streets, travelling around 30-40 mph. 

Here are a few things I've found out:
-- my local garage -- whom I've used for years & trust -- says it's probably the shocks. However, they're totally booked up until the end of the month, which is when I have it booked to go in. The owner assured me the car was still safe to drive.
-- as an experiment, today I also took the car to my local oil change outlet. I realize these guys aren't experts but thought I'd see if they noticed anything unusual. They checked and couldn't find anything wrong -- the suspension seemed good & solid.
-- a friend of mine, who is a retired mechanic, suggested that the sway bar links might be loose or need replacing. There is also a rattling or clunking noise when going over bumps, which might be indicative of a loose sway bar.

BTW, the car otherwise performs normally and does NOT pull to one side of the road or the other.

At any rate, my question is this: Is the car really safe to drive (between now and the end of the month), especially on the highway? Recently, we've been limiting it to local trips, and I'm checking b/c it's a very weird feeling when the rear of the car sways after hitting a bump.

Thanks in advance ... I've actually received more and better car advice on this train forum, than on actual car forums!

Rob

CR 7560 is back on Mannheim Yard Job YPMA-02.  It is seen here breaking down a consist of empty grain cars for the soybean and corn harvests.

Bruce

   

   

Hi guys.
It’s been awhile that I have been on board here/
Where are all the DCC USERS?
I know there must be some questions and or problems.
Maybe just a what is what question.
I have been doing DCC installs for just about 20 years.
I don’t know it all but there is a good chance I can help.
BTW—— get out and vote!
woodone AKA. Jerry

I suppose its only fitting that tonight of all nights I spend it hacking little people to bits in order to glue them in place as passengers inside my Rapido RDC.  Oh the HUGE MANATEE!!!

   

No one was safe...

   

By any means neccessary! Muuuuahahahaha!!!

   

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!  

Shore River has finished loading the car float.

Bruce

   

Good evening everyone.

I've been pretty tied up the last little while so please excuse the absence.  I decided over this time that I needed to take break from all of the freight car kits and focus on some other projects that could use my attention on the layout.  Namely some structure building.  So i turned to my favorite medium.  Cardstock...or repurposed cereal cardboard.

Below is the area in question that I'd like to tackle.  The goal is to build a back alley scene.  Essentially, show the "business end" of the, well, stores, shops, bars, hotels etc.  While in the ultimate end still giving a casual viewer the idea as to what each building is there for.  I suppose that I could have modeled the fronts of the buildings and created a street scene but that seemed boring to me.  So this is the route I've decided to take.  

   

I've been using cardboard mock ups to give me an idea of space in each area.  I'm tackling this row of "buildings".  So lets grab a some cereal board, some printable textures, glue and applicators (toothpicks) and some sharp cutting blades, I use a husky box cutter and #11 Exacto blade for the bulk of my cuts.

   

So, not shown is that some of the textures I simply print off on plain 110lbs. white cardstock paper from Michael's.  However for the walls and bracing I like to glue the textures to some cereal box board using some 3M Super 77 spray on adhesive.  It's fast, tacky as all get and doesn't attack the ink jet printer ink on my textures. Stuff like flashing I'll print off on standard 8x11 printer paper as its easier to make fine folds and looks more to scale as metal flashing and such.  I also use various sizes of bass wood, also purchased at Michael's, for bracing and adding some additional support to keep walls straight, etc.

   

So I made a rough paper template of the area and cut a plywood base to build my models on top of on the work bench.  Essentially, this rather large base would get chopped up into 3 pieces to make things easier to handle and also to help create some elevation in the scene so that the buildings would all sit on the same plane.  I am modeling the Rockies after all.

   

   

So fast forward to the above photo and we start to have something that is beginning to look like a building.  I use Tichy and Grandt Line doors and windows to cheat all little and make my life a tad easier.  My creative process works in such a way that I'll look at photos and study buildings that I'd like to model.  Then I get to work.  I know that buildings have various ceiling heights and I usually pick 10ft...because I like high ceilings, at least on the first floors, then I might step it down to 8ft on the upper floors, depending on what I model.  I also take into account that floor joists could be made from 2x8's, 10's or 12's so I factor that into the height of my walls when laying out a wall.  I then pick windows and doors that I like and cut openings to fit, keeping in mind where these things will be in relation to the interior floor. (There isn't one...not really...but lets pretend there is.)  The second floor is an 8' siding texture that I printed off and then layered using the same texture cut into two board strips and glued to the same texture to create that slanted look.  You cant really see it in the photo, but that's what I did.  The stone work for the foundation is linoleum tile cut into 1/4 inch strips and then chopped into bricks.  Then working upside down glue the bricks one by one to the assembled walls using gap filling CA.  (looking back at that photo, the foundation depicted was built up on the plywood base...which I then scrapped off with a chisel, because it occurred to me that it would be easier to do the stone work the other way around then trying to get the walls to fit the one I built in place).

(whew).  So.  My layout takes place during the late 40's early 50's.  So this particular building used to be a occupied by something else...I don't know what, just something...trust me on this one it's the truth I swear it, now its a tavern and next door against the back drop will be Rita's Diner. Which will be tucked into the back drop and just a glimpse of patrons dining on her famous back bacon, eggs and toast breakfast special can be seen.  The building's architecture is based (or will be) off of Victorian influences with a Mansard style roof making up the third floor...but before that...

   

Lets add those walls for Rita's and show the revised foundation built for the buildings. Ill use trim and stone work to hide all manner of sins on the corners of the building to hide the gaps.  But for now I'm going to break up this into a couple of separate posts for everyone's sanity...but mostly my for my own.