I'm still here!

Looking back at the blog yesterday and noticed I have not had a post since April 7th.  That's the longest I have gone in a bit.   Really I have not even been into the layout room in two weeks.  The weather has been nice and outside chores have been calling.  I recent crossed the 100,000 views on my blog and I wanted to thank each and everyone of you that check it out all the time or even occasionally. It really means alot!

 I'm also going to sell one of my Virginia Midland locomotives and to make it different, I'm going to offer it here on the blog first.  This will give you guys that follow the blog to maybe own it first.  I won't offer it anywhere else.  So stay tuned for that.  I'm going to try to do that on the next post here on the blog and I'm hoping later on today or on Monday.  The locomotive is the red patched B39-8.

Sneak Peek

 

So here's my Sunday morning offering today:  a weathered caboose and VMID equipment on other freelanced railroads.

This is a Bluford Shops FLS caboose that has been patched for the VMID.  #1 waits at the end of a string of cars in BY.

Kevin Klettke who does the Washington Northern RR recently did a write up on a VMID hopper he did.  Kevin has also designed several logos on my layout.  I suggest you check out the WN website and the journals he does for them!  Shout out to Greg McComas and his Michigan Interstate RR  His boxcars are also roaming WNRR rails.  

Kevin Klettke's Washington Northern RR: Washington Northern RR
2015 WNRR Bulletin with VMID car: WN Bulletin
Greg McComas's awesome Michigan Interstate RR: Michigan Interstate RR

Tools of the trade and other things

Well, finally finished up the upper level track change.  The trackage is done, did all the wiring and complete the signals.  This new track makes so much sense.  No pics of that because wiring is necessary but boring.  Tonight I wanted to cover a couple of tools that make my work on the layout so much easier.

The first one is my Klein Tools electrical nippers.  I have had these forever and believe at one time they were my dad's back when I was building a crappy layout in the basement in my late teens.  These do it all.  Pull nails, strip wire, cut Kadee trip pins, cut wire, cut wood, pull staples are a few.  I would be lost without them.  The bent shape them makes perfect for pulling nails out of the road bed.  The thing is, I have never sharpened them once in all these years.

The best tool I own.

The next item is something I made and is very handy.  I even have a drawer for them.  I call them my jumpers.  They are like jumper cables.  I use these to test track before it's wired and test my toggle switches before I solder them to my signals.  I also use a MRC DC power pack to power all my signals and switches.  With these jumpers, I test out signals, LED's (with resistors) and the like.   I use the power pack on the layout because it keeps more power on my NCE system and doesn't require me to have a booster.  I'm only running 2 amps.

Wire and alligator clips soldered together.

Here are the two signals down on the east end of the layout.  They are a simple 3 light signal from Tomar.  They have been hooked up to toggles and are ready to go.   

The electrical boxes in front of the Carolina trailer are temporary.  Been working hard in this area. 

Lastly, is a Tangent hopper that was painted into a Michigan Interstate hopper.  The MCIS is the railroad of Greg McComas and I do some of his custom work.  You can find the link to his blog on the right side of my blog.
 MCIS #7282 has shown up on the Midland with grain for Mid-Atlantic Feeds.

New operating session partner

Spent a little time in the layout room this evening with my "new" engineer in training.  My oldest son Cameron (7) decided he wanted to run some trains tonight.  My middle son (age 5) got bored really quickly with a switching layout earlier in the week.  Cameron on the other hand picked it up pretty quickly and seemed to get use to slower pace.  I use NCE DCC and the power cab is really easy to use once you get used to it.  Cam picked it up (he's used it a few times before) quite well.

I decided not to use a switching list and we only switched out 5 cars and brought 4 empties back to Battlefield yard.  I just installed a TCS stay alive capacitor in my SD20-2 (SD35 frame) and it runs perfect.  Before it ran like crap even for a 6 axle engine.  I recommend them with Tsunamis!

Cameron blows the horn and slows while backing out some cars

Running a boxcar back to Mid-Atlantic Feeds after the empties have been pulled.

Cameron did not want to block Industrial Drive but he didn't have another option to set the empties for a bit. 

Also completed 2 locos for a customer this week.  MCIS SD22ECO #2290

MCIS SD22ECO #2291

Regular updates and actual modeling time

Been enjoying my time off from school and trying to get some modeling done.  I got 2 custom locomotives I'm working on right now for a gentleman in Texas.  I'm about about half way done with those.  I also want to get back to updating this blog every week.

The 2 SD22ECO locos I'm building for a customer.

 So what been going on lately with me?

-Yardwork: it seems like it never ends around here.  My grass is terrible and full of weeds but its green because of all the rain we've had.  It seems that we have had storm after storm the last couple of weeks.  Had a nasty one yesterday and now the yard is calling to get up all the branches all over it!

The storm that came through yesterday.  It was a doosy!

-Deck work:  My deck was looking quite old and unstained.  I decided to get the Restore covering from Rust-oleum.  Looks really good but I need to put one more coat on it but I cannot get it done because of all the rain.  It needs a good day to dry.  Its hard work going on but it looks 100 times better.

-9th anniversary:  My wife and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary yesterday.  She's the best wife and mom than I could have ever asked for. 

Now trains:
I'm still working on that list of all the things I need to work on this summer.  That will be out soon.  I did the show up in Timonium this past weekend.  Sold several things.  Norm Wolf joined me up there as a last minute fill in.  Kevin Olson who usually sells with me could not make it down.

Heard about a multicolored textured paint by Rust-oleum somewhere in my travels on the internet.  Cannot remember what they used it for, so on a recent trip to Home Depot I picked some up.  I was looking for the perfect weathering inside of open hoppers.  I have a few aggregate hoppers on the layout and I usually mask the edges of the hopper and spray a primer brown in them.  So with this stuff, I do the same.  It takes a bit to dry and comes out of the can quick so be prepared.  I thought they gave it a good weathered look.  It looks to me like spray on sandpaper.  You could also use it on gondolas.

A RF&P stone hopper.  Gives a nice used looking inside.

A VMID stone hopper

Another VMID stone hopper.  These are made out of shortening a Walther 2 bay Greenville hopper.

 

Outside rebuilds for the Virginia Midland Shops

The Virginia Midland Shops is known for some outside rebuilds for area short lines but this week received two locomotives from the Michigan Interstate.  These two SD35's will rebuilt like the VM's lone SD20-2 but will be called SD22ECO.  The work will start this spring and run into the summer months.  When completed, both locos will be painted into the blue and yellow scheme for the Michigan Interstate.

RF&P GP40 #124 brings the MCIS locomotives into Battlefield Yard for an exchange to the VM.

The Michigan Interstate locos will then go to the Virginia Midland Shops (which is not shown on the layout) and have their rebuilds done.