Back at it again Part 2

A bit further down the track
    Got a bit more work done on Grahams loco this past week. Main job was decaling then weathering this B23-7 shell and walkway.
    I'm disappointed that I can see the outline of the MS decals even though the shell has had a spray of Dull Cote.
    I used my new found Tamiya panel paint to weather the body walkways and grills using a blend of black and brown in the grills.
    The cab roof has had a dash of brown to add some rust in this area.

     A bit more work and this one is ready to be added to the KC&S RR

Thanks for stopping by.
Rod.

Back at it again

More loco painting
    I have commenced painting three more locomotives for Graham to add to his Mexican RR. These will be painted in the FNM scheme again however the first, a B23-7 is to have the NdeM logo instead of the normal FNM.
   We are trying a new paint, to me anyway, since Graham could not find a suitable colour in the old range and we wanted to get away from mixing our own. The brand is AQUEOUS Hobby Colour a water based paint with a gloss finish. The water based paint appeals to me for safety reasons and the gloss finish saves a step or two in allowing decals to go straight on once dry. Another point is that with the recent hot spell of weather we had a couple of weeks ago, the paint dries really fast so it allows me to apply the masking and do the second colour quite quickly. The two colours Graham chose very closely match the prototype.  Light Blue for the stripe and bright blue for the top colour.
    I mixed the paint with some alcohol and applied some very light coats just building it up a bit at a time over a base of Tamiya Gray Surface primer.
    I did the walkways and hand rails with Humbrol Matt orange #82 on all three at the one time like I do with the loco body shells.
   I have started to apply the decals on the B23-7. So far I have almost completed one side of the body and completed both sides of the cab.

  This is the engineers side of the B23-7 as it sits today.

I took these images with my good ladies small camera using my new light box that arrived early last week.

     It's been a few days since I worked on these so back into it today for a while.

Thanks for dropping by.
Rod.

Our Regular Friday get together

Today on the SFRSD

     For the past four or so years there has been a group of us get together every Friday in a round robin meet. Four of us are into N Scale, one into HOn3 and one into Sn3. We did have another mate who is into Victorian HO however he still has to work for a living.
     We start at about 10 / 10.30 am have coffee and or tea talk some BS then go and run trains.
     It would have normally been Big Johns day today however he called in sick with a bug so he and I swapped Fridays. After discussing the three stripped locos that Graham brought around ready for me to paint, decal and weather for his Mexican RR and discussed the state of the nation we then went out and ran some trains.
     Little John brought around three items for show and tell as well. Two being Intermountain F7 B units that he had installed Locksound decoders and speakers into. These sounded fantastic (sorry no image) and ran superbly along with a new Kato UP FEF.
    This loco looked fantastic even though it is a UP Steam Loco on AT&SF trackage. Once track clearance was given to allow this UP Loco to run over the SFRSD by the brass, the dispatcher set up the route from Augusta to Flynn for this special to run. John backed the FEF onto the Directors Special set of varnish which was sitting in the yards at Augusta East with the recently acquired E8 sitting on the nose.

Arriving at Augusta on the station track.

Crossing the underpass at the West End of Augusta

Crossing the creek between Winfield and Hackney

I must admit it does look very impressive.

  The loco ran like a Swiss watch. John has the sound decoder and speaker on order so once fitted this loco will sound as good as it looks. Then I'm tasked with weathering it.
  Whats that you say am I getting one? OMDB.
Regards and thanks for stopping by.
Rod.

It's only taken 16 years

Ballast on the Bridge
     Well after being told by several members of my regular RR workers and crew that I have been very slack I decided that it was indeed time to ballast the bridge at at the West end of Augusta after 16 years of neglect.
     This bridge spans a road underpass that was installed during construction many years ago made and installed by Vic. The railroad bridge is scratch built. It just fits like a U shape from under the sub roadbed. It was glued in place with silicone. This caused an issue as there were several gaps between the sub roadbed and bridge so any ballast applied would fall to the road below.
     "I have a suggestion said John, why not obtain some Blue Tack and fit it into the gaps and ballast over it". How simple.
     So whilst starting to clean my track ready for the new operating season I thought why don't I attack that bridge and get it done once and for all.
     Armed with a pack of Blue Tack , my very old pack of Woodland Scenics cinders and Highball light grey ballast I got underway and within about half an hour the whole job was done. Hmmm why did it take soooo long.
     Here are a couple of pics.

I should add that Vic did the etched grill, mirrors and bumper on the KW.

The track on the bridge allows trains to enter Augusta and the interchange tracks without having to go through the yard.

     So another small job completed that should have been done years ago. Thanks for the suggestion John the Blue Tack worked a treat.
Catch you soon.
Rod.
    

Next BDL install part 2

We have come a long way
     Today marks the end of the third upgrade to the SFRSD CTC system. The fourth BDL 168 was installed back in November last year and the wiring of it to the CTC panel was dependant on the availability of two of my wiring team. With holidays, Christmas and the start of a new year we all new it would not begin until the early part of January. So the lads were available for one day a week beginning two weeks ago and Brendan who was also on holidays was able to catch up with the software required to implement this next stage.
     So armed with the latest work sheets wiring commenced. The first town to have its turnouts detected independently of the main line was Guthrie. The two turnouts on the East end were done first followed by the remaining turnout at the West end. This was quickly followed by wiring the turnouts at Red Rock. These two towns were chosen first as there were spare pins in one Zone on the 3rd BDL that was installed some time ago. These were tested and they worked very well with the panel showing the turnouts as detected with a loco sitting on them.
    We then set to to change the new BDL board number and had a devil of a time as all we could see was the green LED flashing off rather than on and leaving a dim light while off. Well to cut a long story short it pays to double check your plugs on your Loco Net cables. When I had put the plugs on all of the new BDL Loco Net cables back in 2012 one was around the wrong way. The system worked because this was the last plug on the then last cable. Not so with a new BDL. A full day was spent trying to trace this issue.
   Anyway the next session and Ponca City and Hackney were wired up and today we got stuck in and wired Winfield, Udall and the entry to Augusta eight blocks in all and finished just after lunch.
   A test run using a GP35 in SP colours and all was well.
   Here is a shot of John attaching the block wires to the West end turnout at Udall.

BDL168 number 4 under Hackney. Two wires right!

Here is SP loco 6525 sitting on the East end turnout at Hackney.

Sorry for the blurred shot, no tripod used. Here you see the turnout showing detected so now the dispatcher will have a far better feel of exactly where the train or cars are so turnouts are not thrown inadvertently.

You can just make out the turnout on the panel.

So another milestone has been completed on the Santa Fe Railway Southern Division due to the great help from three great mates for without their help this whole system would not and could not have been installed. So whats next for the CTC system. I guess you will just have to wait and see. OMDB.
Thanks for stopping by.
Rod.

Custom Painting Part 6

The last two locos.

     I wanted to get the last two Alcos decaled and weathered to be able to hand them back to Graham before Christmas.
     I did all of the usual things one needs to do when applying Micro Scale decals only this time I did wait until the decal had completely dried before applying the Solvaset. I was able to get more decals laid at the one time so that helped speed up the process. These orange stripes are very fragile and I have to admit that there is a couple of bloopers in a few spots. All wear and tear will be the story to Graham and I'm sure he will be okay with the results not to worry too much.
    Once the decals had been washed I then gave the body shells a good spray of Dull Cote as per my previous posts.
    I did not want to go too heavy with the weathering on these two C630's so each of the 4 I have done should look a little different once running on the KCS. I used the Black Tamyia Panel Line Accent Paint to add just a smidgin of colour to each panel line, around all of the flat panels and doors along the top and sides of the body of the locos with a very light wash on the walkways.
   The top grills of the loco got a wash of black whilst the side rear grills got a wash of the Panel Paint Brown. I then wet the area around the exhaust with the panel Black and then dabbed in some Pan Pastel Black to make the top look more like exhaust smoke stains.
   The trucks on these two received a brush coat of flat black and when dry I dusted them with some Pan Pastel grey and a small amount of rust to bring out some of the details.
   So that's the last of these four Alcos. It will be good to see them on the KCS when a few of us head there for a run tomorrow.
   Here's just a couple of shots as they sit with the body's yet to be added to the chassis.

That's it for another day so thanks again for stopping by.

Rod.

Custom Painting Part 5

Next on the list was an Alco C424
    
     This is the second of four locos to weather for Graham. I decided to tackle the C424 just so I could do a different model. I used pretty much the same technique that I used on the last loco in my post Custom Painting Part 4.
    I had some issues with the decals moving on the last one as I applied the Solvaset so this time I made sure I waited until the decal had completely dried before applying it. I also added more of the striping before moving onto the next stage and this helped cut down the amount of time taken to apply all the decals and sped up the whole process.
   The trucks got a brush of flat black then a light dry brush of rust on the springs, brake cylinders and brake blocks.
   Here are a few of the images of the body of C424 with the windows fitted and the walkway added but not fitted to the chassis as Graham needs to add a decoder to this unit before it can earn its keep on his RR.

     Graham mentioned that when the first unit that received the weathering treatment was put on the tracks it has made the rest of his roster look too new, so I guess you know what that means more weathering to be done on the Kansas City Southern RR fleet. I'm up for it.

Thanks for stopping by
Rod.