I line up projects so I can spray a lot of the same color at the same time. I knocked out some BN projects for a friend’s layout and one just to see if it could be done.
BN 631020 was the first done. BN had two of these 8 axle flats, so I figured it would fit in well in Havre Yard.
On the White Pine Sub old SOO 40’ boxcars were repurposed to be braking cars to help assist some of the heavier trains on the steep grades. I built 4 to incorporate into ops on the layout. I started with MicroTrains cars, removed the roof walks, patches those holes, swapped doors, painted, decaled, and weathered them to match prototype photos I found. It took a mix of K4 and MicroScale decals. Matching the prototype font mix was fun!
I had a fun run to Milwaukee to hang out with my Modutrak friends. I came in straight from San Diego, so I was lent a variety of trains to run.
Jordan at Rapido Trains lent me their Turbo Liner. What a dream! It ran flawlessly for hours and looked beautiful doing it!
Mike Skibbe lent me a monster freight, the 4 IM F-Units pulled it no problem. It is nice having broad curves to glide around. At a reasonable speed this train took an hour to navigate the layout. Here you can see it passing between the CNW and MILW tunnels at Tunnel City, WI. I built these modules before the St. Louis RPM and drove them 2300 miles for the show!
I also got to run some Southern Alberta Rail units. These are Grant Eastman creations owned by Mike.
I have been wanting to increase the volume of BC Rail cars in White Pine. I added a mix of brands this week to bulk up the fleet. These cars hauled copper anodes from the Flin Flon mine in Manitoba to the White Pine Refinery for refining into copper cathodes. I made sure the cars all had metal wheels, were weighted correctly, and were weathered before they hit the layout.
The Kaslo kits I built and painted:
Okay… I got on a bit of a kick. I ended up building not one, but two N Scale tie gangs. One will stay with me, and the other will head to a beautiful Afton Canyon layout.
Some pics of my progress:
Tie Cranes
Living in Washington state has provided me some great railfanning opportunities. I figured a should share some with all of you!
Here are some shots from Kalama, WA. It has two massive ship loading grain elevators, a steel mill, and an NP steam engine on display. I have seen as many as 8 unit grain trains here at once, plus some great mainline action.
I’ve been starting work on a Maintenance of Way gang. Besides being visually interesting, I can put them to work and take certain tracks out of service for tie replacement or ballast work.
