James River Branch: News Archive

Website News Archive: January 2008

31 January 2008

With precious little time left for modeling these days, my hobby hour tonight went to a test-assembly of my "low rider" Reading caboose, after having been painted since October (yes, it's been sitting in pieces on my workbench for three months—yikes!). The process of correcting its ride height is detailed on this project page.

At top right it's compared to an unmodified caboose—note the visible brake rigging in addition to the improved ride height. Then, as an acid test of its new proportions, I fired off a shot that matches (at least as close as practical without spending hours setting it up) one of my prototype reference photos.

Overall I'm really pleased by the outcome; the toy-like quality of the unmodified Micro-Trains model has been greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Remaining issues cannot be addressed realistically; I'd have to scratchbuild the thing from the ground up to deal with such things as oversized rivets, handrails and other weighty features. Ultimately I think it will pass the "two foot rule," whereas macro photos will always highlight every cosmetic flaw.

29 January 2008

Naughtright now has a place to set down its roots: the access panel for the town end of the layout is done. However, with the lay of the land established, the town may be getting rearranged.

21 January 2008

A Pennsylvania GP7 becomes a Reading.

17 January 2008

A bit of my modeling history has been archived. I made use of the free disc space Google gives away and I created a Picasa album with photos of the first James River Branch layout.

14 January 2008

Oscar Wilde once quipped, "There's only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." So, imagine my delight when I opened an email this morning from John Cubbin to learn that my James River Branch website is featured as the Ztrains Coffee Break this week! In his mini-review, John highlighted my blog as being a worthwhile read, which is significant considering he confessed to not being all that fond of blogs (I'm the same way, truth be told). So, I'd like to extend a great big thank-you to John for noticing my work, as well as for publishing a beautiful e-zine.

13 January 2008

Trackwork is painted. After masking off the bridges, the track was sprayed with a base coat of Floquil Roof Brown. This was followed by Rail Brown brushed on the rails and tie plates with a #3/0 round brush. Ties were individually colored with varying strengths of India ink washes and Doctor Ben's Aged Driftwood using a #0 round brush. Finally, the rail was stained in places with splotches of Doctor Ben's Realistic Rust and Weathered Rust. More progress photos to come; meanwhile, check out my blog for some thoughts on a possible new scenery-making material.

6 January 2008: Happy New Year!

The track is finished! And the trains are running! It's been a long time since the last update (so long, in fact that some people emailed me asking if I'd given up). The holidays were seriously busy. Unfortunately, this layout progress spurt is due in part to a health issue—my back went bad, which precluded any home renovation. But I could sit quietly and do some modeling, and that's just what I did.

With the track all laid, I even got to run a train. I did, however, have to make adjustments to the Code 25 turnout owing to an unpleasant surprise: Micro-Trains wheelsets are not all the same. But after a few tweaks, everything seems to work fine...

By the way, whenever there are long gaps between updates to the website, check my blog. Sometimes when I'm inclined to make observations that do not necessarily reflect progress on the layout, I'll put my remarks there to keep this site from getting cluttered.