Model-Railroading

Here's Model - Railroading in the broadest sense of the word. :-) Photo by my friend Leon Honings, from the Netherlands. A talented model railroader and photographer. Visit his website at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~lhonings/. Depending on your choice, there's two types of model railroading to be found. I've warned you!

Layouts don't have to be big

A nice example of a small layout with nice scenery, is Eagle Pass RR by Dave Arday. It's a small 4x6ft layout, based on the UP and Santa Fe somewhere in the 1960's. It isn't following the prototypes exactly, but it has captured the feel, which for most people (including myself) is sufficient. Have a look at his site so read more about it. Here's a taster picture :-)

Picture of the week.

I will be trying to make this a re-curring item on my blog. I find that a nice model railroad picture can work inspiring at times. I will be browsing the web for picture sources, and feel free to send me yours for posting here.So here is the first one for your enjoyment.  Picture by Brian Moore, showing Rio Grande SD45 5507 leading a freight on the Western Union club layout.

Next project

While my CF 7 is not yet finished (I had a paint job accident meaning I'm in the process of stripping off the paint, and start again) I wanted something to do while I'm traveling (I travel a lot for work as you may have read in a previous post). So the next thing to do is to start super detailing a C44-9W. The model I am using is an Athearn Bluebox model. It still had the old style metal handrails etc, but Athearn offers a complete set of plastic new handrails, that are finer and better detailed, so I am going to replace them with those. The steps are being replaced with brass see through steps, the usual airhoses and snow plows will be fitted, the ditchlights made operational, new laser cut windows, and of course conversion to DCC , most probably with sound. Here is the real thing (photo copyright rrpictures.net archive& Keith B).

Some DCC experience

Recently I've struggled a little bit in getting a loco to behave correctly after converting to DCC.
It involves an Athearn bluebox GP38-2, which I've had for many years, and was converted to DCC using a TCS T4X decoder. I kept having a problem that above a certain speed the loco would just accelerate suddenly. After a long troubleshooting period, with help and advice from others, it was discovered that the BEMF function of this decoder could not fully control the loco at higher speeds.  The solution was to have BEMF cut off at a certain speed, which is done by adjusting CV10. I've set it to a value of around 22. BEMF is now active only on the slowest speeds, and switches off once the loco is moving at approx 10-15 scale mph. I thought I'd share this with you so you can try the same if you've experienced similar problems.

California Northern

As you may know, I've named my layout California Northern, set in Northern California. There is however also a railroad company by the same name, in the same location, so I've decided that in future I ought to at least incorporate a loco of them in my roster. Athearn recently released a great looking  GP15, which should be a good basis to make one of these beauties! See picture, copyright Trevor Smith.

Airbrushing my CF7

Here's a picture of the CF7 in my garden. It was nice weather so I decided to take the airbrush etc outside, I couldn't get a better ventilated place :-) I've used Tamiya paint which doesn't give off too much of fumes anyway, but it's always better. Here it is after 3 coats of white. I had a very weak mix here so it didn't cover  straight away, so it is going to get another few coats of a stronger mix to make sure the white is covered well. Then I'll be masking of areas that are to remain white, followed by a few coats of the next colour.