2020 Retrospective

It is time again to look back at the accomplishments of this year and peer into the murky future with hope.  One of the perks of keeping a blog is the ability to scan through the year's doings, at least those recorded on these pages, and recount them.  My first inclination is to say "well, I didn't get much done...ho hum...better luck next time around..." but that's not true.  It is only the pallor cast by the misery of the previous nine months that makes me feel that way.  There's plenty of light amidst the dark days.

In the last twelve months, despite the difficulties of current circumstances, I:

• restored the "Rimrock Pine and Western" diesel, hopper and caboose for my Christmas Tree Train
• gathered parts for a trio of Purina ventilated refrigerator cars
• continued work on the pair of cabeese for my Ocali Creek Railway
• tuned the trackwork for trouble-free operation on the railroad
• simulated mainline operations on my branchline pike
• made castings with Oyumaru and Miliput
• scratchbuilt a Fruit Juice stand from a historic photograph
• painted figures and a slew of details
• added and painted a fascia frame around the benchwork
• built a static grass applicator
• built the "Power Plank" for the railroad's throttles
• finished the Ocala Springs station using Sequoia Models' Fallberg Station kit
• built a Woodland Scenics Diamond T Flatbed kit
• painted more people and parts
• painted color tabs for all my craft paint bottles
• and puttered about on a smattering of odd tasks and small projects
  

In the last month I set for myself a challenge to finish the final details on my 2-6-0, finish the OCRy cabeese and rebuild a pair of Comet freezers.  I'll follow up on that challenge in its own post, but suffice it to say they're coming along well.

I also wrote a few philosophical posts.  This has been a difficult year, especially as an introvert with a family at home all the time.  However, since writing that post back in June I'm happy to say we've developed some strategies for giving me uninterrupted down time to recharge (which is not always modeling time).

In last year's revisions I resolved to avoid spending my hard earned hobby dollars on needless purchases.  That was far from successful.  We are fortunate to have income streams that support our family's needs - food, shelter, clothing, savings, etc. - and a little leftover for hobbies.  I found a few things this year I never knew I needed, but I also invested time organizing what I already have.  I still resolve to better target my spending and overall spend less on my hobby.

Looking ahead to 2021, there are a few specific goals I wish to meet.  While my garage is surprisingly less dusty that I'd thought it would be, the railroad still needs a cover.  After my failed attempt this year I came up with an overly ambitious plan to cover the railroad with a lid.  That's still the plan, but I've simplified the lid concept greatly (no more winch and integrated lighting) and stacked its functions to double as a gaming table.

That last point brings me to another goal.  One of my unexpected purchases this year was actually prompted by my loving spouse.  She gave me a gift token to our local gaming store.  They sell all kinds of board games, Magic cards and tabletop wargaming miniatures.  I brought home the Star Wars Legion core set.  Yep.  Vader, Skywalker, Rebels and Stormtroopers.  This is one reason - a big reason - why I have been upping my painting game this year.  Of course the pandemic has made such in-person gaming with non-family folks impossible for now, but when we're all able to get down to the Sword N Board again for paint nights I'll be there.  

And, covering the railroad is also a prerequisite step for scenery work.  This year I mentioned making little scenic cameos as a means to test various techniques and materials and I will be doing just that.  The Ocala Springs station (and matching outhouse) is complete and ready to install once the foundations can be laid.  Hopefully by the end of 2021 not only will the station be in place, but also a few streets and additional structures.

To close this post I wish you all, dear readers, a happy and healthy New Year!  Thank you for reading, commenting, and joining me on this hobby journey.  I appreciate your interest and hope to share much more with you in the coming days.

That's How It's Done!

Making steady progress on the Trail Drive to Christmas challenge I set for myself, I turned my attention once again to the cabeese.  A few days back I solved the problem of how to keep the floor removable without wrecking the end ladders.  Just after that I worked on the freezers, getting them primed.  Once again I looked to the cabeese and contemplated the roof walks...oh.  Oh no.  I had forgotten that I needed styrene strip.  Actually, I had remembered and ordered some from a vendor months ago only to have them ship me the wrong product by mistake.  I forgot that I was going to look for more.

To eBay and quick!  A search turned up a seller with not only the 1x6 I like to use, but the 2x3 bracing AND a thing I never knew existed, Evergreen Scale Models ladder "kit".  Merry Christmas indeed!  What?  It's on sale with free shipping?  Happy New Year!  I honestly expected it to take a while, what with holiday shipping and the whole viral disruption slowing down the post, but no, here 'tis, on Christmas Eve.

I almost didn't recognize the package because the seller did it right.  Really right.  Observe:

Each packet taped, top bottom and sides, to a stiff cardboard backing and to each other, respectively.  All inserted into a bubble mailer envelope.

It doesn't always work like this.  I have my eBay horror stories as well, but it is nice when it turns out better than expected.  May your Christmas be filled with pleasant surprises and your New Year with results that surpass expectations!

Comet Freezer Progress

 ...and a Twelve Days Trail Drive update!

The white body without sides is the Baby Ruth car.  In my color tests I found I got a better match to the original sides when painting the orangey-red over white.  The gray car will have white ends and they're actually primed white though they're hard to see in these shots.  The undersides of both cars will be black and once the primer is cured a bit longer I'll tape off the body and hit both with rattle can black.  The roof of the gray-primed car will be Tuscan Red so it will need a second masking before that color will be airbrushed on.

If you look closely at the second image (right-click and open in a new tab to see it much larger) you'll see my simplified brake rigging.  I tried to make brake levers from styrene and attach it to the center sill, along with a clevis formed from half a Tichy turnbuckle, my usual approach.  Neither worked very well, and in the interest of time I just bent wire and glued it into a hole in the sill.  Done and dusted.  Another simplifying step was using the original grab irons pulled from the Baby Ruth car as roof walk supports at the end of each car.

Okay, on to the update.  These cars are coming along nicely and are on track to be complete by Christmas.  The cabooses are not as far along but could be ready if - and its a big IF - I really push through and make good progress each day.  I'd rather not push too hard.  I'm really pleased with how these projects are all coming together, but I'm also taking time to enjoy the seasonal fun like decorating the house, making treats and playing games with my family.  We're getting nice sunny weather and I like puttering about in my garden, tidying the beds.  So I'm planning on extending this personal challenge into the actual Twelve Days of Christmas, with January 6, 2021 the new target date.

Look for an end-of-year review and resolutions post soon.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a blessed holiday season.

Caboose Solution - Finally!

I've been stewing over this for a while.  The last progress I made on this pair of cabeese was back in March when I worked on the cupola windows.  I say "stewing" specifically, because I really wasn't applying any critical faculties to the problem.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The problem is was, how to take the dadgum thing apart once the end ladders were attached.  You see, on the donor model the end ladders were crudely "attached" to the roof by friction, being inserted into two slots on the roof.  Likewise they were press fit along with the handrails into the end beam.  But I had to go an get these gorgeous brass ladder kits from SS Ltd with graceful arching extensions that reach up and over the roof, and must be securely attached to both roof and platform, somehow.

In order to remove the body (roof and walls) from the underframe (floor and end platforms) I'd need to either attach the ladder permanently to the roof and not-permanently to the platform, or permanently to the platform and bend it out of the way if I take the body off the floor.  Ugh.  

To solve the problem I sat and thought about it.  No distractions, no devices, just cold logic.  And, here's what I came up with:

I simply sawed the end platforms off of the underframe/floor.  In the image above you can see one platform attached* to the body on the end wall, the remainder of the floor and the other platform laying on the miter box.

Next up is to attach some styrene blocks into the corners of the shell, then drill and tap for screws to hold the underframe in place.  I may never add interiors to these cars but I may add lighting.  But in the interest of getting finished cars that run vs. unfinished cars laying in a box that will someday have lights, I am choosing this option to allow for future upgrades.

*Bonus tip - I spent too much time here messing with the Testors plastic cement, bits of reinforcing styrene, etc., to get a solid bond that never solidified.  Not the cement's fault, but the cheap plastic used on the donor model.  Use super glue (cyanoacrylate) instead.  A few dots of CA, 60 seconds holding the parts together, and it is rock solid.

Twelve Days Trail Drive!

Howdy Pardners!  Set a spell - this may take some time.

No, I've not gone Quarantine Crazy, I'm channeling my inner cowboy.  One of my earliest memories as a child was playing a card game with my mom called "Trail Drive".  The cards were pictures of cowboys, cattle, chuck wagons, rustlers and sheriffs.  The game was simple - designed for young children - but I remember the vividly colored characters, and getting frustrated losing.  Good times.  

Anyway, it's the concept of the game I'm referring to here.  To get a trail drive started you needed a chuck wagon and two cowboys in your hand.  After that you collected cattle, as many as you could - but watch out - a rustler could stop the drive and you'd be stuck until you were dealt a sheriff.  The concept of needing a few elements to get started before expanding is simple, but crucial to the game.

At the same time I've been reading through Model Railroader back-issues from the '40s.  It seems many model rails would write in describing their pikes and listing off their rolling stock and stable of locomotives.  There was a sense of early beginnings that was palpable in these letters.  Usually there was an indication that the budding magnate had plans to purchase a certain engine or set of passenger equipment, etc. to increase the fun, of course.  There were also mentions of seeking a land grant from the spouse to extend the road, but I want to focus on the equipment.

I view my current situation as a bit of a Trail Drive game.  Most of the trains from my modular club days are packed away because I've narrowed my focus and scope down to a relatively small railroad setting.  Physically I've limited myself to a 4'x6' pike with the 2' aisle space all around (see my post Garage Railroad Plan for more thoughts on this choice).

But the limitation is also applied to locomotives and rolling stock.  I purchased my 2-6-0 and began modifying it in order to have a unique, fine-running locomotive.  Likewise I had purchased long before the mogul a pair of cabeese with parts to customize them as well.  See where this is heading, pardner?  The rolling stock - even if they're not stock cars - are the cattle, so to speak, while the engine and hacks are the chuck wagon and cowboys (you decide which is which - I'll carry the analogy only so far).

Now I've been working on these cabeese and this locomotive for a while.  I started the caboose project back in Washington just over four years ago.  The engine has been running well but recently I decided to deal with the leaning cylinders that have been bothering me, as well as get a coal load in the tender...and tick the boxes on the remaining details like the bell and whistle cords.

Technically the twelve days of Christmas run from the 25th to Epiphany on the 6th of January.  But I'm looking at twelve days UNTIL Christmas and feeling like I might just be able to get a Trail Drive going with my Mogul, the Cabeese, and this here pair of freezers I've been building.  Can I do it?  With parts to add, paint to dry, decals, maybe some weathering...hmmm...as long as no rustlers show up I may just pull it off.

Surpise Inside

You never know what you're going to find when you purchase used rolling stock.  I bought this car for parts.  

Last night I was giving it a closer inspection when I noticed a distinct thunk coming from inside.  Old dried glue popped loose easily to reveal the source of the sound:

For my Comet cars I've used old tire weights for the additional weight and have tried Loctite "STIK'N SEAL" Indoor Adhesive.  It is "Solvent free, Non-toxic, Low odor, Water clean-up" and transparent, though that last one matters not for my purposes.  It is the sort of adhesive you apply to both parts, allow to go tacky, then press together.  It fully cures in 24 hours.  I wasn't sure it would stick when I first applied it as it comes out of the tube a little runny.  But boy howdy it sticks and has given me confidence to close up these cars.  Hopefully I won't be hearing thunks from within someday in the future - I seriously doubt it.

As for this Oscar Meyer car, I won't be reusing the sides as they are and the rest of the car will be re-kitted.  I was really after the fishbelly center sill as they can be pricey and this was a good deal.  The weight will be reused, held down firmly with a better adhesive.  But that's a project for another day.

Questions Answered - Model Railroad Research

I really enjoy model railroad research.  Note I didn't say prototype research - that's a related discipline that often overlaps, but it isn't quite the same.  Sometimes you can't find any prototype information, or the book that might contain that nugget you seek isn't in your library or is too darn expensive.  That's when turning to the previous versions of the model might help.  It is also fun to look into the history of the hobby.

When I was in seminary I learned about researching textual variants in ancient fragments of scripture.  Usually you went with the oldest known text, whether it was a papyrus fragment or potsherd inscription.  But often you'd find a greater weight of evidence in say, vellum copies.  Though the papyrus may be older, it may not carry the same authority because there are so many copies of the variant text.  Which do you choose as the basis for translation?

So too with model railroad freight cars.  When a manufacturer, long out of business, produced a freezer* ages ago and advertised they used the car builders diagrams, then that's a pretty good source.  But when another manufacturer makes a copy and varies the details, like using a different color scheme or using a different roof type, and they produce thousands of them, which then get copied by other manufacturers, what do you do?  With no actual prototype data available, which source do you trust to build your version of that freezer?

It is possible the second manufacturer chose to change the model based on their available dies for casting parts rather than incur the cost of making new ones.  Maybe they changed the color scheme to make it less gaudy in the hopes it might sell better.  Or maybe they didn't have much prototype data either!

Re-kitted freezer ready to rebuild.

For the two Comet freezers I'm building as of the writing of this post, I needed to know more before I could add better details.  What type of underframe?  Likely fishbelly.  Ladders or grabs?  Ladders. Et Cetera.  For the MDT car I had good prototype photos thanks to Eric Hansmann and other like-minded researchers.  But the Baby Ruth car?  Only one colorized image - the cover of Hendrickson's Billboard Refrigerator Cars book.  Ends, sides, ladders, underframe all visible in that image.  But what about the roof?  The hatches?

Here's where the kit helps out.  My car came to me already built - thankfully not too damaged and assembled well enough - but the original would have contained hints for the roof on the card from which you punched out the sides and ends (and hatches).  Enter eBay.  A quick search of previously sold items turned up an image that helped.

Read the fine print.  Use magnification if necessary.

Right there on the carrier sheet it says, "NO ROOF RIBS    RED SIDE LADDERS".  This note was obviously missed by many modelers who decided to put ribs up there anyway, as evinced by other eBay searches for this car, even the one I'm rebuilding.  But no matter.  In this great hobby we all get to make creative choices that suit our fancy and build models to our heart's content.

*I use the term freezer instead of the more common reefer for a couple reasons - for a while in the early days of this hobby it was the term de rigueur, like saying pike instead of layout.  But in my current NorCal context "reefer" also has a meaning that I don't care to reference.  I know, most readers of this blog know the difference; I just prefer "freezer", in the same way some men like to wear vests.