NMRA Regional Meet Oct-09

Here's a picture of a bunch of HOn30 locomotives on the Linekin Bay module at the NMRA regional meet in Indianapolis last October. You might recognize some of them. From left to right they are: an Egger Bahn construction locomotive; Pete M's kit-bashed diesel based on the Atlas V-1000 chassis and hood with a cab fashioned from Grandt GE 23 tonner parts; AHM Plymouth with the NSWL re-gear kit (I have never seen one for sale that did not need new gears); a kit-bashed diesel as Bob Hayden and Dave Frary did in the '70s based on the Mini-Trix Fairbanks Morse diesel with a cab from the Funaro & Camerlengo Plymouth diesel flat car load ; a Consolidation based on the MDC (now Athearn) 2-6-0 with a laser-cut cab from Small Scale Logistics (now out of business) and new domes, head light, stack, number plate and builders plates.
At left is Jim F.'s completed version of Railway Recollection's Sandy River box car 1 kit. It sits on Micro-trains N scale archbar trucks and they sure do run nicely. The weathering job really adds to the model.
I seem to recall from Jones', Crittenden's or Moody's books that box car A was renumbered as box car 1. If so it was obviously rebuilt without the exterior sheathing and the doors were mounted inside.
Here's Phil G.'s harbor module showing rolling stock in the yard. The Forney is a nicely-done Chivers kit. The caboose is a SRRL Funaro & Camerlengo resin kit. The other rolling stock is a mixture of Chivers and Funaro & Camerlengo kits. All of the rolling stock was built by Phil. This module has a lot to offer and this is only one end of it.

More Projects

At left is the Railway Recollections Sandy River/Billerica & Bedford box car A kit. I need to finish the decals, add some crates to the interior, add end railings, couplers and weather it. This is a very nice, easy-to-assemble kit with many possibilities. It can be built as B&B box car A; Sandy River box car A without windows in the side doors; or Sandy River box car A with windows in the side doors. I added the interior sheathing on the wall and the interior panels on the far side door.
This next kit is Mount Blue's new HOn30 offering, a laser-cut Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes 28 foot box car kit. I posted pictures of this in November. Now I've finally have some progress to show. This kit can be built into box cars numbers 87-94 and 96-99. Several were for sale at the last Springfield, Massachusetts train show and they were all sold out. This is an excellent kit. The parts fit together well and some are adhesive-backed so the builder just peels the paper off the back and sticks it to the model. While the manufacturer suggests details to use, none are included so that the builder can use details to his liking. I already had half of the details needed to build this and only had to order grab irons and queen posts. I could have bent my own grabs, but past experience has taught me that buying preformed grabs saves me wasted wire, time and frustration. Since the holes for grabs and nbw castings are predrilled (laser-cut?) at lot of drilling(and time) is eliminated. I also like the laser-cut roof panels that simulate the tin panels used on Maine two-foot box cars. I recommend this kit for the joy of assembly and pleasure the completed model will bring as you watch it on your pike.

And I do occasionally finish projects and I promise to post them when I do. I will never promise to work on only one project until it is finished. This is a hobby and I do as I please. In the immortal words of Ben & Jerry: "If it's not fun why do it?"

New Railbus

At left is my latest distraction from the projects I should be working on. This is a brass etched rail bus from Aru Models in Japan. It is a freelanced version of SRRL No 3 that fits on a Kato No 11-107 shorty bogie chassis in N scale. Here I've primed it and added tissue to the roof. Does include white metal head light castings which are not shown here, but will be added after painting the grill.

This is an excellent kit for the modeler who wants to learn how to solder an etched-brass kit because of the ingenious tab and slot design of the parts. All parts are held together by tabs and slots so that the modeler can solder the pieces with without finding a way to clamp them. I filed and sanded the tabs and slots off once the soldering was done. There are also no curves in the kit that can be difficult for a beginner to form properly. Thsi kit can also be assembled with ACC. The instructions are in Japanese, but the pictures are sufficient for a clear understanding of the assembly process.
This kit is available from Mr Yoshiya Kobayashi. His website is: http://www.hpmix.com/home/yoshiya/Yoshiya/index.htm. I will post pictures as the build progresses.