The Whiskey River Railway

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Bill,

I can't wait for tomorrow, I really enjoy seeing the progress on my ol' girl.



Tyler

RR club should be an interesting get together. I have enjoyed reading about all these projects and maybe will have a chance to see them running.

Also, I am impressed with the gradual overall improvements in the club right of way and now the Nashboro yard......way to go gents.

Doc Tom:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Bill,

You have no idea how big of a smile I have on my face right now just daydreaming about seeing my beast rip down the tracks with the Hiawatha at a scale 75 mph. Just keep in mind, if the real thing both back in the day and current day can do it, my 87 times smaller version will do it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5qzBk4Fu-4

Since the wind wasn't in my favor I didn't get any painting done, I had planned on trying to paint some boxcars again so a little more progress was made on Thomas. I sanded down the areas that were a little tight and cut out the part of the motor/gearbox assembly to make some more room for a little more weight inside. I figure I should only add a little more weight to him, as the motor inside of him is very small and can't make too much power. I toyed briefly with the thought of shoehorning in a bigger motor, but laziness kicked in so that thought went to the circular filing cabinet. I'll bring him along to the club tomorrow and see how he does. I'll be amazed if he can pull more than five well weighted cars around the layout.

Tyler
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
I got some photo's of the Hiawatha. the locomotive's operation was disappointing, but the dcc system was strange, with either a low battery, or an intermittent short somewhere in the control loop. no locomotives worked well. and the throttles often got blinky and lost control.

The big monster did drop the trailing truck, so it looks like it will need some kind of spring in there.


Bill Nelson
 

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gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Ya know, even though that steamer and the damn DCC system were having their moments, it still looks great! I just need to remember the battery for the system... CR2032... CR2032...

Once I think about it, I have a can of brown spray paint I'll experiment with on a old car to see how the color is and maybe throw some decals on it. That would be a heck of a lot easier than lugging down my air compressor from upstairs, hooking it up, mixing paint and thinner, painting, finding out I mixed it wrong, throwing a temper tantrum, cleaning up the airbrush and bringing the compressor back upstairs. Lately at work since we got back from deployment we received all of our trucks back and we've got a insane amount of trucks to get FMC (fully mission capable) by the end of February. And by insane, I mean like 60-70. Not including trailers. So I'll be lucky if I have much free time after work.

Tyler
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
I used to be real good with the air brush with floquil, and they changed the formula, I learned the next stuff, and they changed the formula again. I learned the polly S and they chainged it.

I use spray paint cans to paint brass locomotives.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
I used to be real good with the air brush with floquil, and they changed the formula, I learned the next stuff, and they changed the formula again. I learned the polly S and they chainged it.

I use spray paint cans to paint brass locomotives.


anyone interested in my techniques can look in the narrow gauge section on My engine shops thread there.

I get surprisingly good results, and a finish that is more durable than what I used to get with my airbrush.

Bill Nelson
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
My daughter didn't nap today but that didn't mean that some train stuff didn't get done. I liberated a interesting old Jeouf gondola from one of the club's boxes of junk (or potential, however you wanna put it) that needed some love. For the longest time I had no plans for this car, but I tried my brown spray paint on it and it turned out pretty darn good. It still needs couplers and maybe some better trucks but for now I'm satisfied with the results.

Pics soon to come when my beast is less active.

Tyler
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
how well I remember those days!

in the long ages past (and still for that mater) Dr Tom's daughter Scout, and my Emily were of approximately the same age, so we got lots of train visits while the girls played.

bill Nelson
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Well here's the car. I'm thinking this might be a track cleaning car so I've taken the underframe components from a Accurail reefer underframe and chopped out most of the center section of the fishbelly. I then glued it back together and then onto the car. The blue thing in the car are the car numbers from Mr. Cedarleaf, I'll have to stitch them with another number because on my current roster of I don't have a number printed for it. It's number will be X53.

I painted two boxcars with the rattle can today. After they completely dry I'll see how the color is, one car I primed and the other I didn't (it was a silver Accurail boxcar lettered for MoW).

Tyler
 

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Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Decals

Tyler your recent lettering effort made me finally get up off my *** and print a document titled decal test sheet #1, in yellow, on some satin blank decal sheet. Next I have to hit it with the fixative.

I will have a whole lot of Dead Grass Crooked Creek and Western decals, plus some State Line, and Marietta and North Georgia decals for the narrow gauge equipment. I also have a few J. E. Patterson Coal and Lumber Co. decals.


soon I will have to create decal test sheet #2 with numbers, and some Caseyville and Scouttown decals for a string of log cars that will come in on the interchange as an homage to Tom's old HO logging outfit.


I may also do some experimental work with the Parrot Oil emblem. Lacking an Alps printer I can't do the white background, but I could do everything else on a decal, and paint in the white oval. I will have to do some work painting up the parrot oil emblem, photograph it, and then play at resizing it.



Bill Nelson
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Bill,

Your Parrot Oil could be taken about two ways: 1. Paint the background white in the area you desire, or 2. Use white backed decal paper, which will print off in vivid colors.

Nothing much has been accomplished here lately, other than shipping off the eBay goodies the "winner's" got. It still baffles me to who'd want brass track though. I really didn't think it was going to sell, so I checked scrap yellow brass prices and found out in Clarksville they'd take $3.30/lb... so at seven pounds we would have made only 1/3 of our selling price. Just a interesting tidbit.

Tyler
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
For my Southern railroad afficionados...

I just signed up for an account over at the Trainlife website to further share my progress on the Whiskey River Railway and maybe learn a thing or two over there. It's set up like how the original Facebook was, which is nice because I have a Facebook and I don't like change much ;). Anyways the first thing I see right under is this neat heritage unit that Norfolk Southern painted up: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=392712&nseq=5 I know Bill's got something to say on that.

No work has been done on anything model railroad related lately. Since the weather has been excessively nice, we've crawled out of our hole and done stuff. Recently we bought a Glock 22 .40 S&W pistol and got the wife hooked on going to the range, so much in fact I was told I had to buy my own handgun because she's commandeering it. That is what every guy wants to hear I'm sure... "Honey, go buy more guns!" I have yet to wipe that grin off my face.

Tyler
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Moving the Super American

While thrashing the diesels apart today as mentioned over in the Hustler thread I had a light bulb turn on upstairs. From another one of the club members I had recieved one of Bachmann's newer FT units' complete underframe. While briefly studying that I noticed that the driveshaft and worm seems to be reversible. I should have taken a picture but I was being hounded by my wife to get ready for dinner, so instead I whipped up a drawing on paint of how it might possibly work in the 4-4-4-0 project. Not sure about the flywheel but we'll see, either I can shave one of the F7's down or scrounge one up from something somewhere.

Also since ripping apart the diesels, I found a use for their flywheels: http://www.freewebs.com/shaygetz/impactcar.htm

Tyler
 

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gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
The moderators may hate me for this, but I also have a profile over at TrainLife. It's set up like Facebook, kinda sorta, so for me it's easy to use. If I post something on here I should have it on there too. To see what's going on over there here's the link to my page: http://www.trainlife.com/profile/WRRy

In addition to selling my railroad goodies on eBay, I have them posted on there too. I just added some paper items such as a Burlington timetable from '69, a Swiss Federal Railways book from '66 with some pretty ladies inside, a near mint copy of the 1956 NMRA list of members' model railroads (including John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid) and a good copy of the April 1960 edition of the Official Guide of Railways. Check it out and put some money back in my pocket!

Tyler
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
I did a little bit of decaling today on a car that was originally designated to be a WRRy car. Instead, while rummaging through my decal pile to find boxcar data, I remarkably found some decals for my club back home; the Paper Valley Railroad. Their paint scheme for steel boxcars is the same is mine (black roof and ends, brown sides) and it turned out alright. I had some issues with the decals though, the data decals were from the USRA rebuild boxcar that Bill gave me seemed to have a mind of their own and have one of two things happen: 1. They'd rip, or 2. They'd bunch up as soon as they'd slide off the paper. I did my best to try to save as many as possible, but this car has no exterior dimension data, no repack data, and only one side has a build date. Do you know how frustrating it is to have one side of the car damn near perfect and then the decal gods say "Wanna really see something that'll piss ya off?" Yeah, I now know. At least that's one more car off the waiting to be done track on my desk and into the someday-you'll-be-on-a-layout box.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tackle either the Hustler situation or finish up my WRRy caboose C4. We'll see.

Tyler
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
and that is one of the reasons I hate decals.


I like dry transfers too, but like decals, when they get old they can be unpredictable.


Nelson
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Last night I got wild with it and busted out my Super American project to see if Bob's old Bachmann FT mechanism would be something I can use to power this beast. Short answer is no. Long answer is that the FT's axles are about 1/4" too far apart from the Rivarossi ones. Now here's my decision point; give NWSL oodles of my money and make a great running steamer or attempt new side rod fabrication?
 

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Z

Zathros

I wouldn't touch a beautiful Bachmann TF like that, but at your hands, and with your expertise, be sure to post some photos for us mere mortals! I'd love to see the results! :)
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Zathros,

I considered leaving the FT alone for about two minutes and then scrapped that idea. Since my railroad is set in the late 30's and early 40's the FT would have been on the scene, but such a small railroad as the Whiskey River wouldn't have bought anything new like this which would require a whole new way of fueling, servicing and operating. Since America just got out of a horrible recession and jumped right into WW2 limiting production of such units it would have never happened. Not only is it a historical thing but partly a personal thing too, I have a steam fascination. When I was a wee lad I was lucky enough to see the Milwaukee Road #261 being pulled out of the National Railroad Museum up in Green Bay, WI, and since my mom was a professional photographer, she got the call to document the extraction from the museum and the prep out to Minnesota to be restored. So pretty much that's what made me fall in love with railroading all together. That and Bill and Doc Tom are anti-internal combustion railroaders, which helps.

Tyler
 
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