When I came back to model railroading, the only ways to have a prototypical HO CNR Wood Caboose was either buying a brass model or build a resin kit from Sylvan Scale. The first solution was too expensive for my budget and I was nervous at building a resin kit.  When I got the nerves to give a try at resin kits, True Line trains was making good replicas of the CNR cabooses and kits had vanished from LHS shelves.
 
At the beginning of 2017, I was lucky to find one in a distant Hobby Store and a journey began.  I saw a nicely finished car on a Forum and, as I was still nervous about the task, I decided to contact the modeler, Doctorwayne.  He accepted to help me and gave advices through numerous emails.  He even helped in finding a second model for me from one of his friend.  Searching the Internet, I luckily found a third kit on eBay.  I posted photos of those finished models on this forum before.
 
But I wanted more of those kits to replace True Line trains cabooses I had bought before deciding to build kits.  Unfortunately, Sylvan Scale kits were hard to find even on different forums.  One day, I decided to offer a TLT caboose to swap for a Sylvan Scale kit.  A modeler from B.C. Canada contacted me and offered to swap for a Norwest kit.  He sent me photos of the kit and I decided I should give it a try.
 
Few months later, Clare Gilbert from Sylvan Scale announced a rerun of the CNR Wood Caboose.  I was a happy modeler and asked for two.  For the last few months, I worked on those kits and I finished them this morning.  Here are some photos.
 
Sylvan Scale regular kit
 
   
 
Sylvan Scale kit modified to represent the type displayed at Exporail, Qc, Canada
 
   
 
Norwest kit
 
     
 
This is the end of the journey as I now have enough cabooses to fill the need of my small switching layout.  I can now get rid of those TLT cabooses.
 
I want to thank doctorwayne for leading me in this enjoyable journey.

This was posted on another forum but pretty well explains how the stimulus package works so I thought I would repost it here:



STIMULUS .................

It is a slow day in the town of Bakersfield, in the middle of California, and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op. The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a Stimulus package works.

Happy Easter to everyone here, your families and friends as well:

   

Back when Conrail still did the switching along Dock Street.

Bruce

   

Since I'm a little limited in terms of my usual activities, I was thinking of doing more rail-fanning.  Just wondering if freight/rail traffic is higher than usual at the moment, especially on CP?  You'd think it would be with trucking traffic being busy right now as well as so many emergency supplies being shipped around.

It would be fun to safely position myself on a bridge, socially distanced, etc. and enjoy the trains. 

 Thx in advance.  Rob

May we all be healthy and safe this Easter.

Just a heads up, but someone tried to register and couldn't get past the CAPTCHA. Don't know why, but it's temporally disabled until we figure out why. If anyone has tried to register and couldn't, try now. We still have a security question to stump the spammers and bots.

Just so you have a feeling for how that's working, we've had 189,028 attempts to register, 87 of them got the right answer to our security question (railroad related), 93,437 tried but failed, the rest just didn't even try. That's why you don't see much spam here, and when you do, it's gone in a flash...

WPMA-19 backs into the Lower Bank team track.

Bruce

   

found this on fallen flags looks like it might make a interesting  build .   http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/frt/erie-mwe-a08.jpg

Since I finally go some decent trackwork on my logging branchline, and my MDC shay isn't complete, I need an engine to test it out.
I found several Athearn conversions for sale on Ebay for 75-100$ but I figured I could build one foe much cheaper.
I also found an article in the October 1980 MR that details re-gauging athearn trucks for HOn3. I used that and some of my own calculations to convert an Athearn F-7 to narrow gauge. The engine was free and if it worked okay I figure I'll try it on a smaller Athearn unit and see what I can kitbash out of it.



I started with an older-model Athearn F-unit. The ones that come with the cast-metal sideframes on the trucks. The newer trucks with the square axle bushings won't work.

This unit was well-used and needed some wheel cleaning and lubrication before it started moving.
I ran it for a few minutes before disassembling it.
 

I then disassembled both trucks and cleaned all the parts with Isopropyl alcohol and let them dry.
 

six parts have to be modified in each truck, the four wheels and the two axles. The wheels need to have their metal axles respaced and moved outward. I used a NWSL sensipress to do this. The modified wheel will have .14" of the axle on the inside


The plastic axle/gear will also need to be shortened, but equally on both sides. I found that shortening the axle from the gear to the end to .113"did the trick. I used a sanding disk in my Dremel to shave the plastic axle down, checking with my digital caliper and a kadee wheel gauge as I went.


I also checked the completed wheelsets on my test track and they roll just fine.


Now re-assembling the trucks is a bit more tricky. Since the metal axles in the wheels have been moved, the wheelsets no longer just drop into the trucks. The wheels have to go in first, then press the plastic axles onto them.

Then install the rest of the gears in the on side, add the wheels into the other side, then place the two side together, pressing the wheels into the plastic axles and re-gauging them.


The only problem now is that the bottom truck cover will now fit so it will have to be left off. The MR article gives a template to make a new styrene cover the is glued on with contact cement.
 

I re-assembled the chassis and ran it on my test track. It runs just as well as it did when it was standard gauge.