Another layout, another blog

As you may well be aware if you have been following this blog I am to be presenting a series of small layout workshops at the Princeton Model Train Club in the forthcoming weeks. I was planning to use the layout featured in my protocrastinator blog as the example for the workshop students to follow along with. Well. I had a rethink and I thought that it might be a bit big and involved for that purpose. As a result I have started to develop a new idea. A much smaller layout that will be much easier to build and complete in the alotted time set out by the workshop classes. As you may well know all my layouts have a blog and this new one will be no exception. You'll be able to follow it at Cwm Lwch. There you go, another layout, another blog. I'm a troubled soul I really am...

Saved!

So here you go. After a little bit of cutting, filing and filling I'm just about ready to nip over to a hobby shop and get some grey, black and yellow paints for this project. Though I might try to find some yellow striping instead of paint, as yellow paint is notoriously lacking in its coverage powers.

To be honest I'm really pleased with how it's shaping up. I never expected to be doing a kitbash/conversion like this. So expectations weren't that high. But I think I'm doing OK. Paint will tell.

Welcome new visitors!

Hello there!
Wingett's recycling has just appeared in this months edition of Carl Arendts small layout scrapbook. (Thanks Carl)
To those of you dropping in for the first time. A big hello to you all.
Those 7 (well 5 actually) days that were taken to build the layout seem so long ago now. But the layout still serves me well. In fact for those of you resident in Minnesota Wingetts will be at the Granite City Train show in Saint Cloud, MN in April if you want to come along and take a look.
So all you new visitors you might want to pull up a comfy seat and a glass of your favourite tipple and read the entire story that starts back in September of 2009...

Git back on yer bike...

Oh how my moods shift!

To think that not but a few short hours ago I was feeling pretty darned sorry for myself at the thought of having ruined my GP10 project.

It's at times like this I remember the words of my late Dad. Who, when I fell off my bike when learning to ride as a child would tell me to get back on and not let it beat me.

So I took a closer look at the chassis and the body together and saw that there was no way on earth that the body would fit over the chassis. The weight was far too big for a start, it was shaped for a hi-nose not the cut away nose of the kit.

I saw that it wouldn't take too much work to trim the weight to fit. So I decided that the best course of action would be to cut the weight down to size and then splice the Kaslo kit cab and nose onto the P2000 GP7 body. This I did rather speedily and a picture of a test fit can be seen below...

I think it's going to work... (by the way that large lump of metal is the weight removed from the nose)

Box o' junk

Well that didn't last very long. My first foray into the H0 scale resin kit assembly that is.

I assembled all the stair treads onto the front and rear steps and fixed them in place continuing on from yesterdays slow start. Then, after that had set, I decided to pop the body onto the chassis to see what it looked like. Like a GP10, I hoped. The body was a very tight fit over the weight on the chassis. It was supposed to be a "drop on fit" according to the instructions. So I set to and started to file some of the inside of the casting away so it would fit easier testing the fit every so often. It started to go on easier. Then at one point it slid on a ways and then stopped. It was stuck. I tried to carefully ease it off and then CRACK! The side walkways broke clean off and the rear steps as well.

So there we go. The kit would appear to be pretty much toast. Perhaps I could try and stick the broken pieces back on or, I could try to graft the undamaged nose section onto the P2000 body.

Whatever I do I'm not in a hurry to do it. It kind of hurt to take the photograph and write about it. Confidence took a battering today.

Box o' fun

For quite some time now I've had this below...

A kit from Kaslo shops for a Paducah rebuilt EMD GP10. For the most part that used to mean nothing to me. But it is was what the Northern Lines Railway out of St. Cloud operate and that is what I intend to model. You can even see I've marked the box RLCX 1704 which as it happens is the loco below. For a few years the NLR operated RLCX 1703 and 1704 they were leased from Relco locomotive services from the start of the lines operation.

So the plan is to model #1704. I took plenty of pictures of it So hopefully I will be able to get it right. I have the Proto 2000 GP7 chassis to fit underneath it so it's all a question of putting everything together. It's a bit more of a complex kit than I'm used to and it took me about an hour last night to add just 4 stair treads to the front nose steps. I'll do bits to it here and there but it would be nice to have it finished ready for the Granite City Train Show and see if anyone recognises it

Model Railroad Planning 2010

I've done a considerable amount of model railroad/railway planning in my time so I'm always open to picking up books and magazines on the subject to see what they have to say. MRP2010 by Kalmbach is no exception.

I've always had a soft spot for the MRP series ever since they featured on of my plan back in the 2004 issue. (If anyone has the issue I'm on the page opposite the inside of the back cover...)

More often than not MRP features the diametric opposite attitude to planning of my viewpoint. They feature the big basement filling opus. I like the smaller layouts. MRP 2010 is no exception.

That is not to say there is nothing in it for me. Far from it.

There's a very interesting feature on the Richmond Pacific Railroad in California. Some very inspirational pictures. Though the actual plans discussed later are large room filling empires. I bet there are plenty of locations on this line that would be very suitable for the small/micro layout builder. My interest in the line is most definitely piqued.

There's also some super pictures of a Midwestern Prairie Layout with some unconventional baseboard construction and scenery that just shows you don't have to stick to the established ideas.

Layouts for smaller spaces do get a look in with a feature on a shelf layout creating a SOO Line scene in Minneapolis.

Freemo modular model railroading, DCC for interlocking, and turning passenger trains are some of the other subjects covered.

So all in all quite a reasonable magazine that you might want to consider buying.