The Blue Cut Fire

The so-called Blue Cut Fire currently burning in Cajon Pass looks like it will seriously change the environment for railfanning when it's eventually brought under control. Just for starters, here's the McDonald's where I often got lunch:

As far as I can tell from news reports, this is an exceptionally destructive fire that is still out of control at least between Devore and Summit, heavily damaging rail infrastructure. This appears to be a bridge on the UP above Canyon siding:

Rail traffic on the pass was stopped since Tuesday, with Amtrak 3 and 4 detouring via Mojave and Burbank. Service was restored on BNSF yesterday afternoon.

The question will be when, and to what extent, highway access to good railfan spots will be restored, especially along old Route 66 and Highway 138. If I can get up there next week, I'll try to check things out.

Howard Fogg P&LE Postcards

Around 1960, my uncle was working at US Steel in Pittsburgh. As a low-level management employee, he sometimes got the little lagniappes the railroads gave US Steel managers to keep the company happy. In this case, he got a set of postcards made from paintings John W Barriger, then-president of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, commissioned from Howard Fogg. He passed them on to me. I kept them and recently scanned them. Here are several:

There's a website on Howard Fogg P&LE postcards and an entry on Fogg in Wikipedia. There's something inspiring about Howard Fogg to railfans that we don't seem to see 60 years later. These postcards were really inspiring to me. My connection to Pittsburgh and the P&LE was never more than a few family visits around 1960, but the postcards gave me a continuing interest, and I've posted on some of the P&LE items in my collection.

One puzzle that recently came up was the source for this color scheme on the Bachmann Sound Value S-4:

There was some discussion about this on various forums, and the consensus seems to be that there was never a prototype loco painted in this scheme, but it does appear on a Fogg postcard:

Tweaking Accurail

One thing that I haven't seen pointed out about some Accurail cars is that they have recesses molded into the backs of the side sills that correspond to the tabs you sometimes see. This applies to their steel reefers and their 50-foot boxcars. It's possible to use the recesses as guides to carve out the side sills and leave tabs. Here's a stock fishbelly side sill on an Accurail B&O 50-foot box:

Here's a WP 50-foot box where I carved out the fishbelly to leave tabs:

Here's a pair of unmodified Accurail steel reefer sills:

Here's a BAR car where I carved out tabs on the sidesill based on the cast-in recesses:

This is a doable project, but it isn't all that quick or easy. The carving itself needs a couple of sharp #11 blades and takes 1-2 hours, but then it's necessary to touch up the paint.

Eye Candy -- II

I painted the Rusty Rail shay casting and put it where it will eventually go, although it will get more vegetation and maybe more parts and stuff around it:

Next to it is a Bachmann Moore-Keppel Climax:

This loco has been restored and currently operates in Durbin, WV:

Eye Candy

One of the modelers who inspires me is John Allen, and it's worth pointing out that Allen wasn't especially keen on maintaining era or location consistency on his G&D.

But the prototype isn't all that era- or location-specific. We see preserved locos like NKP 765 touring all over the country, for instance, or tourist-"heritage" railroads like the Strasburg operating 100-year-old steam locos in freight, mixed, or charter-freight service.

My own layout keeps a tourist-museum flavor, in part because I like to visit such railroads. They're fun to railfan and fun to ride. One thing I enjoy is looking at their "back lots". Here's a shay carcass I found, fr instance, on the Roaring Camp and Big Trees some years ago:

Recently I found a supplier called Rusty Rail, which makes a lot of "eye candy" style detail castings in both O and HO scale. I was immediately drawn to their derelict shay engine (scroll down), which reminds me a lot of the W.M.Ritter Shay in Felton. It arrived in yesterday's mail.

It turns out to be well-detailed and reasonably priced. It will also fit where I intended to put it with only a little trimming on the base:

This will be the start of detailing this area.

Gondola Scrap Loads

In my last post, I linked to this Youtube video showing gondola scrap loads I like a great deal. The modeler sets his layout in the 1960s, and I've sometimes seen scrap loads like this in DVDs from that period. I think I may start working on a load like that.

However, there don't seem to be loads like that on the prototype any more. Here are some that I've caught at West Colton:

The ones above are fairly easy to find as resin castings on the web. Here are two gons I did with web castings, painted and weathered with chalk and drybrushing:

Comparing the model photo with the prototype, it looks like I could go over the loads with a little more brown and black.

Here's another style. It looks like steel mills are more interested in scrap ground more finely like this:

This eBay seller does loads like these.

Really Good Youtube Channel

Poking around Youtube, I found a channel by a modeler named Robert Todd, who models Des Moines, IA about 1967. His videos remind me of those by fellow bloggers Ralph V and John R. Check out this one. Then look at the really great scrap loads in this one.

One thing I like is how he's able to work in the actual sound from Bachmann and other reasonably-priced sound-equipped locos.