Recent Arrivals and Project Beauty Shots

Having recently acquired some new models, and being finished or nearly finished some builds, I got my collapsible photo booth out today to document some of the projects. This is just a nice archive post of some new models and some projects for myself. Hope you enjoy!

Athearn Genesis CPR SD70ACu and RiverPoint Station pickup truck. Before I get brave and add some light weathering to the gorgeous beast.

Rails of Sheffield/Bachmann Trains Caledonian Railway 828

Yarmouth Model Works resin freight car kits. These have not been dullcoated yet, and the lighting/flash illuminated a few spots where the decals need some more settling, these were shots of convenience as the booth was out.

Sylvan Scale Models American LaFrance 700 Toronto Fire Department truck.

That’s No Train Part 3.5? – A Really Small Version of the same thing…

Yes, more not about trains, but I will keep this one short, I promise! Back late in 2021, I ordered a couple of 3D printed vehicles from Shapeways Marketplace Seller Madaboutcars. This is one of them, the other is for a post somewhere well down the line as its for a future side-project.

The bare 3D print and working its way through the painting process.

I have been a Transformers fan for basically as long as I can remember along with trains. I very much remember how excited I was getting the original Optimus Prime toy as a Christmas Present. Several years ago, I built a Giant 1/24th scale version. Now I have a tiny 1/87th HO Scale version to go with it. Why? Why not? Sometimes you just want to do things, and it was available.

Finished HO Scale Optimus Prime cab, and seen with the G1 toy from 1985 and my 1/24th “That’s no Train Part 3” model.

A crew for CPR 7000

Another quick little project, that has taken far longer than I thought it would. I decided at some point to have crew figures in my Athearn CPR SD70ACu No.7000 for the Canyon Road Diorama. So I ordered a variety of seated crew figures in HO Scale from Modelu3D in the UK. I figured from a selection of five figures, I could get three to fill the cab.

Selection of 5 crew figures being painted, and the cab before and after they were installed.

Historically, I have not enjoyed painting figures. I am however, with many things, getting better. I am learning about layering paints from light to dark, using a touch of water to further thin acrylic paints to get different tones. All five figures, even though you can’t see them in the loco have their trousers painted with the same blue paint, but I have at least 3 different blues between the amount of water I added and how heavily I applied the paint.

My one complaint, the Athearn locomotive has a genius magnetic cab roof to be able to install crew, but no cab lighting so once they are in there and the roof is on, they might as well not be there.

Getting the figures in posed some small challenges. The engineer was able to slide in as the desk in front of him was loosely glued in enough I could pry it up to slide his legs in. The conductor in the left hand seat, well, he’s short a left leg to get him to slide into place, and the third reading the paper, he got off easy! The real sad part is, for all the really nice features this locomotive has, it doesn’t have in-cab lighting, which means, the figures will never be seen unless I take the roof off. That’s fine I guess, its disappointing as while for the main layout, I don’t intend to have figures as it makes it too static if they never move, for small projects like the diorama that are static, its not so bad. At the end of the day though, its one more thing ticked off my to-do list.

Tuesday Train #283

Well, the location is the same as last weeks Tuesday Train #282…the weather conditions, are most definitely not! VIA Rail Trains 52/62 kick up the snow (yes, there is a second train of two P42’s and coaches hiding in the cloud of snow if you look closely!) on January 22, 2022 approaching the wooden bridge at Lovekin Ontario.

Something Blue and Beautiful and completely not for the Layout!

Another week, another arrival for 2022, this is turning into a spendy year and its only 3 weeks old!

Unboxing and checking out the Rails of Sheffield/Bachmann Caledonian 0-6-0 No.828 in its “As Preserved” form on the Strathspey Railway in Scotland.

This time, it is yet another British locomotive for my collection. a Caledonian Railway 812 Class 0-6-0, painted as No.828, the sole survivor of the class. I had the pleasure of seeing her in 2011 at the Severn Valley Railway Autumn Steam Gala, and it was fantastic. This is purely and totally a “makes me happy” purchase. It was ordered in June 2018, so it’s been almost a four year wait, but so far, after some quick inspections and testing, a wait well worth it.

828 seen from the 2nd floor terrace of The Engine House in Highley on the Severn Valley Railway in 2011. Gorgeous locomotive, even at 25mph slowing to the station stop!

I need to actually get my pop up photo booth out and take some beauty shots of this and the SD70ACu (especially before I weather the latter). A task for next week. A couple of quick test videos of 828 on the programming track being operated from the ESU Lokprogrammer follow.

While not nearly as good looking as the videos of the model, I wasn’t even sure I had uploaded these, but a couple of low quality videos from the camera I had at the time in 2011 are below:

Tuesday Train #282

VIA Rail J-Train powering towards the Kingston Subdivision racetrack in eastern Ontario. Trains 668 & 54 are seen approaching the wooden bridge at Lovekin as dusk approaches on September 3, 2021.