Sad News in the Model Railroading World

I heard from a fellow model railroader that the hobby lost one of the greats last week. Hal Carstens passed away peacefully at the age of 84. For those who have subscribed to Model Railroad Craftsman know his work. Hal owned Carstens Publications for many years and was one of the hobbies great originals. I was fortunate to meet and listen to Hal at the LSR convention a few weeks ago. He really told the story about model railroading and its history of from his viewpoint because he was there. My personal thoughts and prayers go out to his family, he will be missed.
His obit is located at the Carstens Web site.

One year old

Hey my blog is one year old this month, not exactly a momentous occasion, nor even earth scattering, hell barely even worth mentioning, but its been fun and over 1000 hits so far, not bad...

Image of the Month

Happy Father's Day out there...

Latest News

Over the last few months I have been crunching to prepare for the Lone Star Region NMRA convention. I had planned on having a few models placed into the contest. So with only hours remaining I completed "Houligans Alley" to be entered into the display category and readied the HoN3 scratch built flat cars for the freight car category.

So over the last week, I have been totally emerced into railroads, railroads, and more railroads. The Convention this year (co hosted by my Division 3 and Forth Worth's Division 8) held in the Irving area this year was a great success, the banquet hall was packed and the tours, various rooms and over 90 clinics were a buzz for over 5 days. So many thanks to all involved, Jerry, Duane, Paul, Larry, Bob, so many to name made this possible.

Since this was my first contest entries, needless to say I was nervous and this was only magnified when I saw the competition. Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and some from Kansas contain some of the best modelers I have ever seen. Regardless I threw caution to the wind and entered my models.

The first were the two HoN3 flat cars which both fared well, they scored 88 points and both "merited" for my MMR. As a bonus, both placed honorable mentions. The freight car category was quite impressive and best of class were On30 scratch built models built by an MMR here locally. Outstanding craftsmanship was witnessed on all of the models submitted.

My third model, the display "Houligans Alley" faired much better, I was totally shocked when I was told that the display not only Merited, placed third against the Pro's but was awarded Novice Best of Show. It really made my year; I spent 3 months on that model and it absolutely worth every bit of time.

I look forward to placing new models in the 2010 convention being held in San Antonio. I have a few ideas of what I want to do and I have much better insight on what is required for the competition and I should (hopefully) do well, so expect scratch built, various scales and some unique approachs.

The bar has been set now, so stay tuned...

Image of the Month

During WWII, America's railroads were completely utilized for the war effort. So busy were the railroads this article was published in magazines to explain to the civilian population why the service was not up to par as compared to the pre-war levels. It is a great illustration showing the amount of rolling stock that was required to transport just one armor division...

Please note at the bottom of the page, most railroad advertising and bulletins would proudly show the number of employee's that were serving in the military... it was a unique time in American history.

Newest Model

Well actually it is not one of my newest model, it is my oldest brass piece that I own in my collection. I recently weathered it, replaced the open frame motor, installed a tsunami with sound in the tender, 0603 LEDs. And although not SP originally (believe it is a Southern Railway MT-4 Mountain), it is one of my favorite runners.




It was a gift in the 70's from one of my mentors Dusty Rhodes. A retired Army Colonel at the time and was my sponsor when I was a Junior Member of the El Paso Model Railroad Club and NMRA. He taught me a great deal as well as others in that club and I have always been greatful. So if you ever see a orange and silver box car with Texas Western Railroad, that would be Dusty's Railroad. He passed away many years ago but is still sorely missed.

World War II Poster Resource

In modeling the World War II era, one of the many aspects is Posters. They were plastered (literally) everywhere during that era. These messages encouraged anything from purchasing war bonds to being careful of what you said.

This is a great site with dozens of posters you can print out and apply to your layout;

Lackland Airforce Base Poster Collection

How to apply these great posters;

a) Pick a site on your layout, Typically they were Store Windows, Sides of Buildings, Wrapped around Telephone Poles, Billboards, On fences, etc.
b) Print out the poster on a color printer to the appropriate scale you are modeling,
c) Cut out the poster and taking a fine grit sand paper, carefully begin to remove the paper from the back side of the poster. Your goal is to thin out the paper enough so that when you apply it it will conform to the surface that your applying it to. Bricks, Fence sign etc,
d) If you want the poster to have a weathered appearance you can lightly sand the front of the poster causing a fading effect,
e) Make a mixture of either 50/50 Matt medium or 50/50 Elmers (not school type) with water,
f) Using a paint brush coat the back side of the poster with the mixture and apply to the surface,
g) Apply a coat of the mixture to the front of the poster as well with that same brush, you want to have the paper complete soaked. After it is applied working the poster from left to right (I use a stippling brush) into the crevices and surface of the wall or whatever your applying it too.
h) If you want to weather the poster even more, find a paint color that matches the brick or surface background. (I use acrylics diluted) and coat the surface of the poster and this will give it an appearance of the brick or surface bleeding through as if the poster was painted on.
i) Added details such as making small tears in the paper, peeling down a corner as if it was coming off the surface. Also if placed on a fence you can cut the paper between the slats.
This is an easy, inexpensive way to detail your layout and give it that feel of WWII era.

Newest Models

Sunset AC-4

Being a Southern Pacific modeler, I have always owned Cab Forwards, these have been the older Rivarossi AC-12s. Any modeler that owns these models knows that they are (although nice for the day) difficult to run due to flange depth and the mechanics of the model are somewhat mediocre at best. As a kid I always wanted the Brass versions of these locomotive types. So with that said over the last year I invested in two Sunset Model Cab Forwards.

Sunset AC-6

As they appear to be identical in the photo's, there are small differences between the two variations. As time permits I will begin to tear them down for paint, decoders, sound,and weathering.

I am a big fan of Sunset Models, they are somewhat reasonably priced as compared to the higher end brass available today. The level of detail is very nice (includes cab detail) and as far as I can see are identical to the prototype. Moreover, the later year versions have can motors, sprung drivers, and great drive train which makes for a easy DCC conversion.

Military Train Complete

I have been slowly building a military transport train for several months now. It consist of 20 pieces varying from flat cars, kitchen, and troop carriers. As part of the era of which my layout is being constructed (1939-1949) I felt it was a key ingredient.



My layout plan calls for a separate military "compound" of some type. Regardless, it should prove to be an interesting aspect of my operations.

Image of the Month

This is a curious photograph, it appears to be a safety reminder for the railroad or perhaps an advertisement for Johnsons & Johnsons... the engineer and fireman has a look like "you have got to be kidding"

Cool Freebie

Yard Office Railroad Database

I ran across this software package when looking for a way to categorize and organize my fleet. It is a shareware that is really pretty nice. You can store all of the information for each piece of your rolling stock and motive power. You can take it a step farther and take photographs of each piece and have this as part of the record. Reporting capabilities are more than I will ever use but all and all this is a nice addition to my model railroad software library. Here is the link;

YARD OFFICE

Here is a screen shot of one of my records. For an additional $27.00 you can register and open up even more of this software's capability. For the price and its capability, yardmaster rates as a 5 Lantern product and I highly recommend.

Newest Model

I had not posted for a while, I have been working on converting over a couple of rooms in my house for the "dream layout". In parallel with that I have been beefing up my motive power. My latest purchase is this Key Imports GS-4. I just marvel at the excellent detail the Korean Brass is at now. This particular model is of a late GS without the skirts. I liked it because it had a war baby look and was not the typical daylight scheme you see all over the place.



I immediately outfitted it with the Tsunami Decoder with hi-bass speakers. It came stock with a can motor and coast drive (its nice not having to convert from a open frame motor and regear). I pulled the Richmond controls lighting and replaced it with the 0603 LEDs the Richmond now offers. I need to add a crew, but this baby will stay un-weathered.

Scratch Building 101

As part of our local division NMRA meetings we recently had a few clinics on scratch building. I am short on HOn3 freight and thought what the hay, I would go ahead and build up a couple of 30' flats and begin to build up my narrow gauge fleet. A few weekends of work at that bench yielded my second attempt at scratching building. (my first was many years ago when I was teen)

I have a long way to go in building up my skills but I am some what pleased with the outcome. I purchased a Ames Steam Engine kit on Ebay and split the kit up to be shared with the 2 flats.

The under carriages were some what of a challenge but it but I learned alot. Next time I will paint the entire wheel and mask off the flange area. The truss rods presented an issue with regards to wheel turning clearance.

Well, the next car will probably be a crummy. All and all scratch building is a blast. I just want to send some kudos to Duane Richardson MMR, our division president for spending time with us showing me the ropes.

Image of the Month

This is a shot of the Cotton Belt 819 sitting next to a Southern Pacific U-Boat. Back to the glory days from the 40's to the 90's. My model below is loosely modeled on the 819. The 819 is housed in Pine Buff Arkansas at the Arkansas Railroad Museum. I encourage anyone to support historic railroad restoration. Volunteer at your local railroad museum and get dirty. It is very satisfying work.

Arkansas Railroad Museum

Newest Model

About 2 years ago I purchased a 60s-70s United(PFM) Berkshire off a local dealer, it was in pretty sad shape but looking through the chipped paint, seized open face motor, and broken parts, I still liked it. Plopped down the cash and took it home where it sat on my shelf waiting for its time.



One day I pulled it down and started working on it. Tore it down to the frame, stripped the 40 years of paint and glass beaded it. Ah that nice brass finish came through. Replaced all of the broken components, pulled the open frame motor with a Sagami Can, NWSL gearing, and installed a Tsunami DCC decoder with a Hi-bass speaker from Tony's. Threw some primer and paint on the body and placed the Herald. She runs sweet. I went with Cotton Belt because all of my Motive Power is Southern Pacific and with my wife's family history involved with SSW, I thought it would be a nice addition. Now, Cotton Belt never had Berks but it is close enough to the 800 series for my taste. I chose 800 because it was done by the Baldwin Shops versus the Pine Bluff shops by SSW. The builders plate on this United model has a Baldwin plate. Anyway, I really like the way it came out and it gives me some more experience in airbrushing so I can tackle my other unpainted brass on that shelf.

New Model Railroad Magazine

As mentioned earlier, Joe Fugute and friends have just released their new online model railroad magazine and its totally free. This long awaited magazines first edition is full of great interactive articles, photos, and model railroad information. I highly recommend checking it out. Joe has really capitalized on new technology and this magazine really shows it.

http://www.model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

5th Layout Plan Complete

Well, this will be my 5th and hopefully final layout. I signed a 99 year land lease with my wife and I will start to tear out walls and installing electrical this winter. The space will be 15' x 31'.
This is a 90% HO and 10% HOn3 layout.
This will be based during the World War II era.
Southern Pacific & Cotton Belt.
It is a dual level layout with a helix (Top level shown). 2 main lines, 3 yards and 2 locomotive terminals including turntables. My plan is to hand lay all of the exposed track and switches.
I am running an Easy DCC system, currently only have 2 power districts (but may require more), 2 throttles are mounted on the control panel (see future posting on this project) as well as one wireless throttle for walk around.

Image of the month

I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. As a kid I would visit nearby Cloudcroft New Mexico. I would explore and admire the old wooden railroad trestle located at Mexican Canyon. Here are a couple of photographs from the past and present of that very trestle. I plan on stratchbuilding this trestle on my layout.




Thanks to the hard work of volunteers this trestle is being saving from further degradation. See more information about their efforts here; http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/lincoln/projects/trestle.htm

New Model Railroad Magazine

I have been introduced to a new on-line Model Railroad magazine created by Joe Fugate. He is the same craftsman that brought you the DVD set mentioned on this web-site. Joe's vision is to bring a free, yes I said free, magazine to the hobby that includes state of the are web technology.

He is planning to launch the first edition in January 2009. I highly recommend this as a resource for the modeler out there.
If you get a chance check out the web site at

http://www.model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

I am having a blast just meeting folks and posting and reading the blogs...

Image of the Month

After watching "Voyages, Trains Unlimited" on History International, I was introduced to the photographic work of O. Winston Link. His artistry is unbelievable, unfortunately he passed away in 2001, but his work lives on. I encourage you to take some moments and visit his website at

http://www.linkmuseum.org

Without a doubt, as you will see, he was the best...

Product Review Joe Fugates Siskiyou Line Video Set

I recently purchased the 5 DVD set from Joe Fugate. It comprised of the following;

1) Model Railroad Volume 1 - Modeling a Prototype

2) Model Railroad Volume 2 - Design & construction

3) Model Railroad Volume 3 - Electrical / DCC & control

4) Model Railroad Volume 4 - Scenery & bridges - pt 1

5) Model Railroad Volume 5 - Scenery & bridges - pt 2

Joe has done a really good job in production of this set, I found myself watching the entire set well into the wee hours of the morning and since, have watched them a couple of times. Joe split up the volumes into mini chapters that make it easy to focus on a particular task such as trees, benchwork, DCC and so on. The information he presents if very helpful and I had several revelations while watching some of his techniques and tips (the term, "why didn't I think of that" came up quite a bit) . The set is $99.00 if you buy the 5 dvds or individually priced if you don’t want to buy all of them at the same time, trust me, you will want all of them.

I have seen many Model Railroad videos in my time (40 years experience), but hands down this is the best I have seen so far. I look forward to ordering more of his work and I fully anticipate that I will be purchasing all of his offerings.

I give this product 5 out of 5 lanterns. Great job Joe!

His website is http://model-trains-video.com/page.php?1

Product Review Fast Tracks

One of the decisions regarding my layout was to hand lay my track work in areas that are visible. It looks 100 times better than the typical factory produced flex or sectional track. I use code 83 track size that is more prototypical, and the tracks over all look with the individual wood ties looks outstanding. One of the most difficult aspects of laying your own track are the switches. Keeping everything in gauge, functioning correctly and appearance is difficult. It take many years of experience to produce a hand laid switch for instance.

I have found a product that you may be interested in. It is well known by advanced modelers and I find it to be one of the best ways to produce your switches perfectly every time. It is called Fast Tracks. This product uses a fixture to produce the switch, you can even buy the laser cut ties as well that neatly fit within the switch. The upfront cost is not cheap but not outrageous either, but if your going to produce lots of switches, the cost per switch versus Walthers, Shinohara, or Pico is cheaper and the results are remarkable. It took about two switches for me to get the methodology down pat but once you figure out the got cha's you will be proud of your work. It takes time to do these and is far much more work than installing a factory switch, but when it is all said and done, you will find a great deal of pride in knowing that your trackage is hand laid.
Web site ; www.handlaidtrack.com/











I give this product 5 out of 5 lanterns, Ron and Tim are great to work with, and the product workmanship is great.

Newest Model

As part of my model railroading hobby, I really enjoy brass locomotives and rolling stock. They really are superior to the plastic counterparts. Of course each one of us has our opinion on this subject, but I believe that brass is a life time purchase, are a better investment, and all and all are better quality. Unfortunately, you will pay a great deal more for good quality brass versus plastic. This is one of my newer pieces, it is a Sunset F-4 SP with a vanderbilt tender. I outfitted it with LEDs forward and reverse lamps, crew, and tsunami TSU 1000 DCC decoder with sound. I was fortunate in that I was able to mount the speaker as well as the decoder in the boiler, making this a pretty clean install. As I spoke earlier about cost, this baby will set you back about $675.00 after decoder and modifications. Gunning's hobbies (see posting regarding good deals on brass) is my favorite place for brass. This piece was from a collection from an actual employee of Sunset Models.

We are not alone out there...

Did you ever wonder who else out there are railroad nuts? Check this out, the list of notables past and present is amazing...

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_modellers

Somehow I don't think I will ever see Tom Hanks or Gene Hackman and the local train shop, but you never know.

Images

Shots courtesy of my friend Steve Milam, these are of the BNSF line north of GWB tollway in Dallas...

Problems with dirty track?

One of the things that frustrates model railroaders is maintenance in the form of cleaning track. There are opposing camps and its almost a religious battle regarding replacement of the factory wheel sets on older and cheaper rolling stock from the plastic to steel wheels.
I have started to convert everything I have to steel wheels (most new rolling stock that is worth its weight will have them already). They sound better rolling down the line, add a bit more weight to the rolling stock and (in my opinion) they keep the track clean in the long run.
The primary reason this works (I believe) is that steel wheel dissipate electrostatic accumulation where as plastic wheels store energy which attracts dust and dirt and distributes it to the rails.
As for choice, I personally like the Intermountain steel wheels, 33" for freight and 36" for passenger cars. They are dead-on in guage and scale, look good and the needles are machined perfectly.
When converting Tyco or Model Power you will need to open up the needle pockets (I use an Ex-acto blade tip to bore out) on the trucks a bit to allow for a good "spin" but Blue Box Athearn, Walthers, and Roundhouse are install and go.
If your planning on weathering your rolling stock or really if you not planning too, paint the inner hubs with rust color, it really makes the wheels pop. Even new prototype rolling stock right out of the factory will have rusty wheel sets.
The Intermountain wheels will run you about $2.50ish per car but they are well worth the investment in operation and you wont be a cleaning track more than running on it.

Do you collect Railroad Memorabilia?

If you collect Railroad Memorabilia, this auction site hosts the best of the best artifacts... they hold auctions a few times a year. Railroad Memories has been supplying the railroad community with quality memorabilia since 1987 through retail sales and mail bid auction catalogs. I enjoy just looking at what as sold over the years, it gives you an idea of the value of most railroad memorabilia and they list the best.

http://www.railroadmemories.com/

Image of the Month

I found this image, very nice viewpoint from inside a Southern Pacific roundhouse. The locomotive in the foreground appears to be 2182 which would have been a T-8 but the pilot (headlamp location) does not match photos from ESPEE web site. Regardless, its a nice photo.

Looking for a good deal on Brass?

I have been purchasing my Brass gear from Stephen over at Gunning's Hobbies located in the Bay Area.

http://www.gunnings.com

He is good honest man and his models are impeccable and a great deal too.
He is the one to go too for those "nice" brass loco's and rolling stock...

Great research website for ESPEE fans

http://espee.railfan.net/sp_steam-index.html

This is a great site for researching great Southern Pacific Railroad, particularly Steam. If your modeling this fallen flag, this is must see site.