It's all in the details...

Another impulse buy from eBay.  I spotted this collection of detail parts going for a song so I snapped them up.  There are about forty packets of parts, including several complete sets of Smokey Valley handrails. 

Several of the parts are for SD50/60 locomotives, inluding a set of brass handrails, which will be perfect for my old school blue-box SD60 kitbash.

 
I also picked up a couple of Athearn GP60 Shells to use for the build, one of which turned out to be an in-progress Santa Fe unit which has already had a considerable amount of detailing time put into it.  

The SD60 build will require only parts of a shell and it would be a shame to undo all that great work.  I expect this locomotive will get finished off and painted instead of being hacked up, although I don't have any SF decals at the moment...

 
At this rate I will need to get a second organiser to keep my parts in, I've got a surprising amount of bits-n-pieces I've accumulated over the past couple of years, with all manner of small details west and Cannon parts in the box.   Even with all those packets I still never seem to have the actual part I need at any time though!

Neo is The One (or 1/87)

I was introduced to the Neo range of high-detail 1/87 vehicles by a fellow modeller a few months ago.  These German models are resin replicas that are finished to an incredible level of detail, these are easily the most high quality HO scale models on the market and the detail level is on a par with much larger scales.

I picked up this Ford F100 pickup on ebay for a good price, this is an older model now so I guess the price reflects the demand for it.  Certainly the more recent models in the range are over £10 more expensive!

I will be using this model as a detail for photos on my layout, its too detailed and fragile to risk using at public shows. 

Rock Island Geep - Update

The final detail parts for my Rock Island Geep project arrived in the post this week so I was able to finish the body shell and begin the painting process.

As per the prototype this GP7 is fitted with tall MU cable stands and spark arrestors, as well as the usual handrails and other details.

I had to trim the exhaust stacks from the shell in order to fit the spark arrestors.

The Atlas cab has slightly different positions for the handrails so I drilled new holes and filled the old ones with squadron putty.

I hit a few snags with the painting, it took me three attempts to get the primer onto the shell, the paint kept clogging the airbrush and I was getting really uneven coverage.  I use Vallejo acrylic primer which I have always got good results with in the past but this was a new bottle and I'm not convinced it has not been affected by something in storage.  I will need to order a new one.

For the maroon I'm using Scalecoat acrylic Rock Island Maroon, but I'm not entirely happy with the colour, it's probably a closer match to the earlier units, I think I needed more of a scarlet shade for the unit I'm modelling.

I also ran into a lot of problems getting even coverage on the shell, especially in the corners of the hood and cab, where I just couldn't seem to get a decent even coat.   I do plan to heavily distress and weather this engine so the maroon colour and patchy coverage probably won't matter too much but I definitely need to work on my airbrush technique for next time!

Norfolk Southern GP60 Build Update

I finally managed to get some workbench time on these two units today and got the Q-Fans fitted to the RPP shell, the grabirons fitted and then spent time hunting through my parts collection for the various bits and pieces I will need to finish them.

I've got almost everything I need but I realised I still haven't sourced any suitable handrails for these units, and ebay seems to be empty for Athearn sets so I will need to order some stanchions and bend my own (first time I will have to do that).

I have a set of Railflyer treads for the RPP unit, the Athearn one will recieve decal treadplate.

First Geep for Godinez

I finally started work on the first Rock Island locomotive for my Godinez roster.  The model is a vintage 1990's Front Range GP7 kit which I will be superdetailing and painting in the late sixties Rock Island maroon and yellow paint scheme.

I started with a non-dynamic front range shell which was partially painted for Burlington Northern by the previous owner but never finished. 

The Front Range kit is the same tooling that formed the basis for the new Athearn Genesis geeps, so I knew that the cab roof was the wrong angle.  I decided to try and address that by replacing the original kit cab with an Atlas one.

The Atlas cab is slightly longer than the front range one so I had the do some trimming and filing to get it to fit, I also needed to shim the cab with styrene to raise it slightly as there is clearly a difference between the hood heights on the front range and Atlas bodies.

I also separated the nose from the long hood to make it easier to add the longer cab in between, otherwise I would have needed to file away the rivet detail on the roof.

I've added grab irons and prepared the shell for further detailing.  I've got several bags of Details West parts ready to add to the locomotive and will be giving it MU stands, air hoses and drop steps as well as adding brass horns.

Next step will be filling the gaps with milliput and sanding to give a smooth surface ready for priming.

Modelling Season Again

It's Autumn again and modelling season is well under way.  I've been to a couple of shows over the past few weeks and today I was at the annual Croydon MRS show at the John Ruskin College in Addington.

This show is usually very good value and normally takes over most of the college with various layouts spread through the different rooms and a steam ride-on railroad out in the car park.  This years show seemed to be much smaller than usual so I'm not sure what happened, but it was certainly not as well stocked as previous years.

There was only a single US outline layout year in "13th Street Yard" a short end-to-end switching layout owned by John Baggaley.

There were a few second hand traders at the show and I picked up a couple of cheap unboxed high-nose Southern units from the bargain box at Brian's Trains.  I suspect these may be the same locomotives I saw on his stand last year!

There was a massive display of Triang for sale, including the old battle space rocket train and missile car various other rarities.

The two engines I bought have both been 'weathered' by the previous owner using some rather heavy drybrushing and they really don't look any better for it.  I will dry to remove the weathering and start from scratch, otherwise it will be a trip to the dunk tank and a repaint for these locomotives.

Atlas SD35 #3008 in Southern livery. 

This model is from the Master series and is very nicely detailed with the usual Atlas quality and wire grab irons, pilot details, crew figures and underframe piping.  A very nice model indeed.

Athearn RTR SD40-2 in Southern livery. 

This is the re-tooled model based on the Railpower tooling, with factory thinwall cab and genesis style fuel tanks, wire grab irons, see-through fans and very crisp printing.  The brass horns are a nice touch on this model.

Big box of A-Line goodies

I picked up this job lot of A-Line kits on ebay on the spur of the moment.  The description made it sound like there were fewer kits than there turned out to be so it was a bit of a bonus when the box turned up in the post crammed with packets.  These kits are all long out of production and are the same models that were later released by Athearn under the RTR brand.

These kits are a mixture of intermodal equipment, and they are all labelled for 'Victors' the old model shop in Pentonville Road - a long lost store that was a treasure trove of US outline models in London.

The kits include:

 A trio of 48' Gunderson Well cars, complete with trucks and wheels.   

A pair of Gunderson 56' Well cars with USPS containers (no trucks included)

An 89' flat car with trucks.

A 53' semi truck reefer trailer.

Four 40' USPS parcel trailers.

I will most likely put some of these kits back onto ebay as I already have two five car sets of A-Line well cars on the workbench and I can't really justify adding five more!

The 89' flat car will make a good project and the 40' parcel trailers were the main reason I bought the lot as they will be useful for my spine car set.  So they will probably stay in the 'to do' pile :)

The modules go back together at last.

This week the club space was a hive of activity as the modules were re-configured and tested ahead of our next running session.  I had attached the new feet to my module just in time for it to be added to the loop.

I also spent some time drilling holes and 'planting' the latest batch of trees from ebay.  I'm using the medium green Chinese trees that are sold by everestmodel direct from asia.  They are pretty good as filler trees and work out less than 50p each which makes them ideal for filling out scenes.

The new boards are coming along nicely, with the paper mill and grain industry spurs laid and partly ballasted.  The roads are marked and a couple of model trucks show where they will be.

There are still nine weeks until our show and the boards will continue to be worked on until then.  We should have space to fit as many boards as are ready by then.

Four foot freemo

After the Crawley exhibition the club standard for module feet has been changed from inset bolts to an offset screw foot.  I bought four and spent a few minutes attaching them last night.  The modules were due to be reconfigured so we can have running nights again which meant I needed to fix the new feet beforehand.

The old feet were bolts attached into plates at the base of each leg, and these were difficult to adjust and also had a habit of jumping on their threads while being adjusted.

The new feet are much easier to adjust and because they have built-in foot-pads they should give a much more stable support which is less likely to damage the flooring at exhibition venues.