Another SD50

I found another Walthers Mainline SD50, this one DCC ready. I installed a Digitrax DH126MT decoder and replaced th front coupler with a Kadee 146 with long centerset shank. I also touched up the vents with grimy black.

I find I only got one prototype photo of a UP SD50. I believe they were mostly used on unit Powder River coal trains, so they didn't get to Southern California very often. I did catch 5081 at Caliente, CA with the Pizza Man slogan in October 2001.

More SD50s wound up in local service in Mojave after the UP-SP merger. Here is D&RGW 5501 in Mojave, also in 2001:

And SP 5504 on the same day:

Walthers Mainline D&RGW SD50

This has been out for a while, but I recently got one to complement the SP ex-D&RGW unit on my roster. SD50s and conventional cab SD60s have been favorite locos of mine. I really like the stretch proportions with the Spartan cabs.

The Walthers models are very smooth runners and very heavy. They're reasonably priced, and the cost differential between DC only units and those with sound and DCC is only about $40, which makes the sound version a real bargain.

Some runs have ESU sound decoders. These have built in extra acceleration and deceleration momentum, unlike standard DCC decoders. I find this extra momentum a bit much for my medium size layout, and it also adds complexity for speed matching. As a result, I set CV 3 and CV 4 to 0 when I set the loco up. It also may be necessary to adjust CV 2 to 10 or 20 or so to be sure the loco just starts rolling at speed step 1.

Here are some photos on its maiden run as I adjust it for speed matching in a consist:

Made It Back To Tehachapi

From March through May of this year, everyone was under a stay-at-home order, so I didn't go railfanning at all. Starting in June, I cautiously began to venture out. This week, I finally got up the gumption to get back to Tehachapi. For me as an LA resident, Tehachapi is a gamble, since it's more gas than Cajon, but it's less predictable. There can be days where there's a work window and nothing's running, or traffic can just be down that day, but you've still spent a tank of gas to get up there and back without seeing much.

It was a fairly good day. When I got to Mojave, a unit BNSF grain empty eastbound was just coming off the hill. It had a "heritage" grain car with the Frisco logo:

The siding at Tehachapi sometimes has interesting work cars spotted on it. I was lucky this time:

The 50-foot flatcar with wooden sides, loaded with random junk, used to be sort of a model railroad cliche. But here we are in 2020 with just that cliche -- and not only that, the cars are freshly painted for D&RGW and MP, with post-2010 conspicuity reflectors.

At the end of the day, I caught a loaded BNSF westbound unit grain train with eight units, three at the front, three midtrain, and two pushing.

That's 35,200 horsepower. When I was young, I thought 15,000 was a lot.

More Paper Buildings

I was studying more of the collection of photos I've downloaded from the web of George Sellios's F&SM, and several things have struck me. One is that he isn't afraid to work from paper and images printed out from the web. Another is that he isn't afraid to move buildings around, revise them, or kitbash them with other of his buildings.

Here is a project inspired by a similar building at Fillmore n the F&SM. I started with a Gold Medal Flour ghost sign image from the web and glued it to a basic shape made from foamcore.

I added other images and textures from the web to the ends and roof.

However, I left the far side blank, at least for now.

I will probably add details and other features as time goes on, but the whole thing will probably be fanciful a la Sellios, but also subject to change and moving around.

I found a blog by another model railroader who likes paper buildings off the web. He posted a sheet you can download that builds a decrepit leaning shed. I printed the sheet on photo paper and built a model on a basic form made from oamcore.

Both buildings are sited for now in my emerging city project, which will likely owe something to the F&SM.

Where things will go, exactly, is subject to change, of course.

Circus City Union Pacific Maintenance Truck Decals

Ever since Boley came out with various truck models in the early 2000s, I've been looking for decal sets that would let me letter them for railroad maintenance of way service. There have been some false starts and not-so-good offerings on eBay, but not long ago, I discovered sets available from Circus City Decals. Thy have railroad maintenance of way sets for Boley and River Point Station vehicles, with a good variety of current Class 1s, some regionals, and other fallen flags.

I decided to try the Union Pacific set. I was most interested in putting it on the recent Walthers 949-11753 bucket lift truck, which comes in white with some railroad emblems, but these are all generic. The Circus City decal sets have more specific prototypical lettering, stripes, and other data. Here's the Walthers cherry picker with the Circus City decals and stripes applied:

I don't know if the UP has actual cherry pickers that closely resemble the Walthers/Boley model, but it does have somewhat similar vehicles for reaching overhead structures, yard lights, etc. The general layout of UP lettering for trucks like this is similar to the fuel oil truck below:

Typically there's a UP shield on the cab doors, a number and sometimes registration data in black, and two sets of parallel yellow stripes on the hood and doors, extending back over the body. The Circus City set gives the shields, data, and stripes. There's enough stripe material to do two of the larger Walthers/Boley trucks.

There is no lettering diagram provided with the Circus City decal set. Luckily, I've photographed dozens of UP trucks on railfan excursions, so I had photos to work from. I printed one out for reference when I worked on three trucks I had on hand:

The dump truck was a former Boley model I picked up some time ago. The dump body was silver, and I airbrushed it white in hopes that one day decals for UP would be available. I finally got lucky. I think Walthers now has an all-white version of this truck.

I made up the little truck on the left from pieces left over from a kitbashing project using former Boley body and chassis parts. If I can scrounge other bits and pieces, I'll finish it to look something like this loco service truck I found at Dolores Yard near LA:

Finishing The Paper Container Stacks

I finished the paper container stacks that I began in the last post. I decided to aggregate them with the background flats that had previously been behind the Department of Docks complex into a single unit, I found an image of stacked container ends on the web, resized it to HO, mounted it on a backing piece that I made pretty robust to prevent warping, and formed everything into a 90-degree corner.

I left it overnight to dry standing on end so I could be sure it would be a single, rigid piece.

When it was completely dry, I moved the unit to its place behind the Department of Docks. What I like is that it fills the background spot, but it doesn't call attention to itself, even though it helps establish atmosphere. It fills the corner and partly deflects attention from the ventilation duct that's behind everything.

I wouldn't rule out finding more images of stacked containers on the web, resizing them as needed, and adding them as an even higher backdrop behind the ones in the corner, to further deflect attention from the vntilationduct.

Paper Container Stacks

I post here now and then on my adventures with making structures from photos I find on the web. I decided to investigate what might be done with the paper container stacks that are available on this site, which has a section for Free printable stacks of 40 foot shipping containers. There are several cautions here. Like everything that's "free", this really isn't. The download is free, but I find these things eat ink fast, so the cost of ink, foamcore, glue, blades, and photo paper will probably be a couple bucks per stack once you're done.

Second, the scale of the drawings is a puzzle. The drawings are represented variously as N, HO, or other scales, but once you print them out, they aren't. You need to print out a drawing on plain paper and measure it against a scale rule. The container in the drawing may come out to something like 32 feet in HO. You then need to divide 40 by 32 to get the ratio to enlarge the drawing. I found 118% was right, but your printer and computer may vary. I opened the downloaded picture in MS Paint and resized it 118%, When I printed the image, the 40 foot container came out to HO 40 feet long.

I used glossy photo paper to print the models. I had it on hand, but new containers have glossy paint, and I like the slightly glossy look of the finished product. I cut the printed image out as shown below:

I scored the fold lines lightly on the backs of the images and folded them with the help of a metal rule. Then I cut pieces of foamcore slightly less than 40 x 16 scale feet to back up the roofs and form a floor. This helps maintain the structural integrity of the finished product, and the floor makes sure the bottoms of the sides are straight.

Then I added additional bracing from stripwood. In my case, I save used fireplace-barbecue matches for use as structural bracing.

I finish the basic box by adding the floor, with the bottom stripwood bracing serving as a ledge to mount it accurately. Then I add more stripwood braces at the edges of the sides to serve as stiffeners, as well as to provide a surface to glue the ends in place.

With the box turned right side up, the remaining task is to fold the ends down and glue them in place.

I used light rubber bands to hold the ends in place while the glue dried.

Here's a finished product.

One thing to keep in mind is that even if I work as carefully as I can, these things aren't going to come out perfectly. They're background models, probably with a good side to face the viewer and a less good side to face away, and they shouldn't be put near a mass-produced plastic container model. However, that said, they're cheap, a fun project, and good for filling a background spot. I'm turning to finishing up a harbor-waterftront scene on my layout, and at least for now, they have a place: