Rolling Stock Conversion / Loading
Combine harvester (construction and text by Andy)
Our farmer has bought a new combine harvester.
It is a white metal kit from Walthers. After carefully deburring the individual parts, you can assemble it with superglue. Since I didn't really like the original wheels, I replaced them with wheels for a jumbo trailer from Herpa. Now quickly paint with the airbrush and finished is a beautiful, delicate model.
Now the next hay harvest can come.
K&AW-Line - The Family-Line
Andy has founded his own railroad company, the K&AW-Line - The Family-Line. A locomotive in the house colors blue and red is already in the works. The photo, which could also be a modern sculpture, shows the first boxcar of this line. The car body has already been repainted to its basic color "red" and is drying. The further steps will be shown here. Next up will probably be a caboose. Let's see, this shortline will get its own little BW on the Lotzburgh page..
The first locomotive of the new line.
The first Carboose of the new line is ready. Here during the acceptance run behind a freight train.
The second locomotive, an Alco RS 2, was purchased second-hand from the K&AW Line at a reasonable price. The thorough overhaul in our own workshops naturally also includes repainting in the colors of the K&AW Line.
For this purpose, the locomotive is completely disassembled. Chassie, bogies, housing and attachments are primed with white paint. Clamps are plentiful in every size at the clamp fetishist Andy. Skewers are also available in tuner packs, as an uncoupling aid. In the mechanical/electo workshop, drive and digal conversion is taken care of. This further work can then take months, by the way, if an eager model railroad club president (electrical engineer!), as with Bernd`s NS locomotive, shoots the lamps during test work!
The body shines in the new colors.
Trial assembly
Diagonal from behind
The RS 3 during its first test drive. After aging it will be completed (window inserts etc.)
And ready lacquered and aged and mounted.
The third loco for the K&AW Family Line, a 44t Switcher from General Electric. Completely painted in the house colors, of course digitized (you know..one wrong touch, broken!). K&AW does everything for its personnel! With air conditioning.
Again from above. Here you can also see the yellow rotary beacon.
Observations-Car
A vehicle that never existed at Rio Grande! As far as can be determined (according to a calendar with Rio Grande motifs from 2013) only with additional small dome. The model comes from Walthers from the series of a Great-Nothern Express. Bernd really wanted to have this car for his Rio Grande Express. Andy was in demand! The car was completely disassembled and repainted several times (airbrush). Also the black stripes are painted. The lettering is from a wet-slide set for the Rio-Grande Ski Train (in winter from Denver to Park-City). For this train, Rio-Grande took over vehicles from the Canadian VIA at that time. Partly in exchange for the existing observation car. However, the car was never used by Via.
Another photo from the front. There are passengers in the vehicle, of course. In front of the observation deck are large individual compartments with bathroom and toilet. A trip in this vehicle must have been not quite cheap! Now Bernd's Rio-Grande Express gets another full-dome car from the same Great-Nothern series. Same job with countless hours of work! At least there are not so many lacquering operations necessary! Andy has now remembered the exact yellow paint he used once before for a special request from Bernd (Domcar)! Still, the guy is (positively) batty!
Budd Great Dome View Lounge
Another vehicle of the Rio Grande. A Budd Great Dome View Lounge. Good if you have an Andy. This car was created from a Walthers model (932-9040) from the GN Empire Builder series. Andy repainted it and added lettering from a lettering set for the Rio Grande Ski Train. A very elaborate job. Build as above! Thanks Andy!
Photographed again differently!
Fulldome and Domecar of Andy's Rio-Grande (by the way as exhibits in Germany (layout MEC-Erkrath). I tried to photograph my complete Rio-Grande Passenger Train incl. three-part F7 set on this layout. Not possible, too long! Even the quite long sidings are not enough. And on a photo is also not possible!
Weathering work on a Big Boy
Our club member Frank (also a American Railroad fan!) was unhappy with the factory Rivarossi "weathered" Big Boy. Andy didn't like it either. So off to Andy. Andy completely stripped the paint off the bike and then re-weathered it. Frank is now happy with his "new" Big Boy.
The newly finished front section.
Chassis, frame, boiler, cylinder.
Cabin
the huge tender - new coal from Asoa. Now the "thickness" can be seen.
Bravo Andy!
New-York-Central and SP-Caboose
As already mentioned elsewhere, our Dirk has now also invested! After kungle with Cordula (beloved wife!) he has now purchased a F7 double unit of the New York Central with sound. Even more noise on Beans! Obviously, some box cars should have "stuck" already. Such a beautiful train needs a caboose, of course! Gibbet nich!!!! So...our selfless Andy! I'll do it! Coincidentally, he had purchased a kit with several unpainted cabooses. Getting paint for the NYC was difficult. Somewhere in shoestring land (huh? Wikipedia!) he found it for a lot of money! The photo shows theCaboose in its fancy livery on our layout..ok, in front of it is a Southern-Pacific caboose also painted by Andy for the chronicler. If already, then already!
A side view of the work of our master! Now with authentic inscription! By the way, a window had to be closed for this! See where?
The "little one" also has a beautiful A.....!
The SP caboose is also finished. Andy has painted them in the Sp colors. The original SP cabooses are mostly just brown and look like nothing!
The "little one" has two sides! Cotton Belt, the sub-division of the SP. So around it fits then also behind Bernd`s Cotton-Belt GP`s.
Andy thought of all the lettering he could find! The colors are great.
HM, geleaste Caboose!
Yeah, could be dangerous.
Cap-forward 4-8-8-2 of the Southern-Pacific
Our Frank has a new one again! Very cheap (?) from All-American-Trains. A Cap Forward (4-8-8-2) of Southern-Pacific with sound. Andy now has to take care of the "painting".
The good piece from the front in full length in the station Lotzburgh on "indexing trip". The residents are always happy about the noise and oil smear on your grill sausages!
Finally she takes off! A beautiful back can also delight.
Autotransporter
An older style car transporter with side guards. The car was assembled from an ACCURAIL kit from Andy. Magnifying glass work, because of the many tiny parts. Then lightly aged with brown, dusty brown and white paint. More of this to come. Of course, it will be finished with UP wapperln. Another canary yellow.
Andy`s new construction project! He knows but still nothing from!
Bulkhead weathering and loading
Bernd has also tried it once! A 62` Bulkhead TR 165055 of the Tomahawk Railway (Class 3 Ges. in Wisconsin-immediately at the Canadian border with a route network of 6.8 km for the supply of the paper industry). This car has probably not seen tractors as a load. The operating marks were applied with acrylic paints from the artist's supply. The wear is within limits. Also on original photos the car is relatively well maintained. Loaded with 2 new tractors John Deere 7260R. 260hp and weighing 16 tons. Wiking models.
Each tractor received wooden wheel chocks on all wheels. To prevent lateral slippage, beams were fixed next to the wheels. Front and rear braced with steel cables.
Bulkhead BN 621608. On original photos the car is rather a wreck, but incessantly in use! Aging also with acrylic paints. By applying white with dry brush, the original BN green looks very faded. The load is supposed to represent electric motors loaded on pallets. Intended for Habia Cable and more in Dakota City.
The pallets were also lashed with steel cables.
50` pulpwood bulkhead 141050 of the Southern. According to the inscriptions on the car, it was used exclusively for lumber transports to lumber processing plants in Gorgia and Alabama. Here pulled by a SW 1000 of the Rio Grande. It was just borrowed!
Patched Santa Fe Locomotive (BNSF)
After the merger of Burlington Northern (BN) and Santa FE (SF), the locomotives were rebadged BNSF. They continued to run in their old paint schemes, but received a new number and BNSF lettering. Here is a SF loco "patched" by Andy.
The locomotive also received the new lettering at the rear.
Iowa Nothern Railway (IANR)
Hm, our Harry! Like Andy, he wanted something of his own.
On the Internet he found, fitting to home of BEANS, a very active and interesting small regional company in Iowa and their field of activity. Grain trains, tractor trains (Iowa is home to John Deere. The tractor is said to have been invented here), ethernol trains..and trains with parts of wind turbines..by the way from Siemens!
His bad luck, no mass producer has models in the colors IANR. That's when Andy and Frank came into play...Then we make them ourselves. There were enough photos. Andy started right away. A caboose of the IANR. He had an unpainted kit lying around. The result, see photo. They also found unpainted GP 40W-2 with Canadian caboose at a manufacturer. The IANR has 3 or 4 of them. Obviously bought used from the Canadian National, which by the way also operates in IOWA. 3 locos with sound are now in work at Andy. We will present the result soon.
For our operation days at Carnival 2016 at our host Stefan, Andy had the 3 GP 40W-2 ready. Completely repainted in the colors of the IOWA-NORTHERN-Railway. Also with the original numbers of the numbers available at IOWA - 4001 - 4003. For painting the locomotives were completely disassembled. After painting then rebuilt and upgraded from a puzzle of individual parts. All the stripes and lettering from wet slides alone would have driven us all to despair. Now we have 3 beautiful individual pieces. Thanks Andy!
One of the locomotives from the side.
..and from the front.
This logo still has to be put on the cab sides. Harry found it on the internet and prepared it for printing.
Weathering and loading of a gondola with wheel sets
Our Stefan 2 (the great chairman of our "home club, the MEC Erkrath and member of us) has now also ventured into aging and loading US-Gueter cars with the spray gun. His colors:
About the colors:
- Wheelsets: primed with leather brown + washing rust traces - ready
- Flat cars / Gondolas / Hoppers: Leather brown as rust dirt marks in the undercarriage area + rust red (gondola sheet metal walls) + Washing Rainmarks (whitish weathering marks on all 3 types)
- All colors fixed with matte lacquer at the end
First, a loooong gondola of the UP, which is loaded with wheel sets.
Here in the foreground the wheel sets. In the background, inserts for hoppers, which will be described next. What mother's old wooden clothes pegs are good for!
And the finished cars! The wheelsets lie in the car, of course, in homemade wooden racks to secure the load. A small carving for each wheelset. Anyone can make, you just have to dare!
Weathering and loading hoppers with ballast
We continue with modern hoppers that are to receive a ballast load. First Stefan cut pieces of styrphor and boards as filling material and glued them into the cars.
Here the finished result.
This was followed by a layer of plaster, which suggests the "gravel hills". I am amazed! Fill plaster without spilling
Yes, and then ballast! Of course, the one we also use for our tracks at Beans (ASOA). Thanks to their considerable weight, the wagons should now be resting comfortably on the tracks. But, Stefan now also has the right locomotives for such tasks.
Weathering and loading of bulk heads with metal containers
For our younger readers probably completely unknown containers! Empty ink cartridges for a fountain pen. We used to write with them. Usually led to a good handwriting. Who collects such things...Stefan!
The "containers" were aged, glued on and attached to the bulk heads with thin wire. Done!