1943 model train layout

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Mike McCrea
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Mike McCrea » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:08 pm

All your hard work is paying off...looks great.
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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:18 am

I recently got the number plate to the left off eBay. It looks great hung on the wall, but it’s actually made from a plastic-covered foam is some type. It weighs about as much as a piece of like-sized cardboard, so hanging it up as a breeze (other than reaching up that high, over the layout).
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:28 am

I'd been wanting something on the layout illustrating the history that it'd originally been a different railroad that was eventually bought out by the ET&WNC, and I thought a freight car as a shed would be great for that.
I took a stock Bachmann refer and did this to it, as the ET&WNC never had any refrigerated cars:
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Tapper02
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Tapper02 » Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:19 pm

That's cool Lee. I like the effects of e vegetation climbing up the sides...nice touch!

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:20 am

Yesterday, I went to the Tacoma Trains hobby shop for the VERY last time, as they closed their doors for good at 3PM. I’m very sad to see the place go as I bought all my track, many of my freight cars and lots of supplies from them during the layout build. Now, I’ll have to go to Portland for anything comparable, but at least I won’t need to go too often to hobby shops anymore as the layout is for all intents, completed.
I had been eyeballing a Whitcomb On30 diesel they had there for a very long time, and I finally decided to get it. It’s a type of locomotive that the Army did buy during WW2 and used a few on narrow gauge lines in Europe and I have no reason to doubt they might have had them stateside as well (I know they had them in standard gauge). The ET&WNC had no diesels until 1968, but I will be adding some detail parts to this, probably painting it black and then lettering it for a US Army-owned locomotive. I will then be weathering it very lightly as it’d be new at the time the layout takes place. I already have a good GI figure to put into the cab. It weighs a lot as it’s almost all metal and it runs great. I need to get the circuit board and speakers to have it as a sound-equipped locomotive. Here it is on a test run around the layout:
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Image
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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon May 01, 2017 7:19 am

I took this with my cell over the weekend:
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Tapper02 » Mon May 01, 2017 8:35 am

Lee Bishop wrote:Yesterday, I went to the Tacoma Trains hobby shop for the VERY last time, as they closed their doors for good at 3PM. I’m very sad to see the place go as I bought all my track, many of my freight cars and lots of supplies from them during the layout build. Now, I’ll have to go to Portland for anything comparable, but at least I won’t need to go too often to hobby shops anymore as the layout is for all intents, completed.
I had been eyeballing a Whitcomb On30 diesel they had there for a very long time, and I finally decided to get it. It’s a type of locomotive that the Army did buy during WW2 and used a few on narrow gauge lines in Europe and I have no reason to doubt they might have had them stateside as well (I know they had them in standard gauge). The ET&WNC had no diesels until 1968, but I will be adding some detail parts to this, probably painting it black and then lettering it for a US Army-owned locomotive. I will then be weathering it very lightly as it’d be new at the time the layout takes place. I already have a good GI figure to put into the cab. It weighs a lot as it’s almost all metal and it runs great. I need to get the circuit board and speakers to have it as a sound-equipped locomotive. Here it is on a test run around the layout:
Image
Image
Very nice Lee...reminds me of the diesel unit at the Marine Corps Mechanized Museum:

http://www.themech.org/vehicle/80-ton-s ... ocomotive/

-Tom
1944 Autocar M3A1 Halftrack
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue May 02, 2017 10:12 am

Here are a couple of other shots I played around with recently:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue May 09, 2017 7:59 am

I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking photos of a magazine alongside the real layout the article is about, so I figured, why not, now that my layout is in a magazine?
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu May 11, 2017 7:56 am

I made the signs for the heck of it, but the number boards and scale Whitcomb builders plates are for the new On30 Bachmann diesel.
These were printed on white decal paper, from Micro Mark.
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Earlier, I did these decals on blank MicroScale decal paper, for the stencils that will go along the main 'carboy' of the locomotive.
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I've decided to keep it in its yellow paint, and will paint the running gear and frame black.
A 1/43 GI figure will be sitting in the engineer's seat once it's done.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Sun May 14, 2017 7:08 pm

Over the weekend, I got stuff done.
First, I took some Wiseman castings of lanterns and made a short bench for them to be at the station stop at Winner. I like how they turned out, in spite of them being insanely small. The bench I made from some scrap wood.
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Then, I put the self-made decals for the Whitcomb 50-tonner for the Army markings and builder plates. I decided on very light weathering, but enough to see it's been used in the short time the locomotive would have been on the line. I limited the weathering to what it would look like on any given day before heading back to the Army spur and the first Sergeant having a look at how 'his' engine looks at the end of the duty day.
It's sort of hard to see, but I put a little bit of weathering on each end and along the running years but a little highlights and just a tiny little bit of smudges along a car body and the roof as well as the area of people would be walking into the cab from along the walkway.
Other than that, I think the Army would keep it just about as clean as it appears here, especially if it was brand new not long ago when they got it.
Image
Image
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This last shot shows the wear I placed from footprints and grime along the steps and walkways, which would accumulate almost right away...
Image
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue May 16, 2017 7:33 am

Last night, I was playing around with long exposures in the dark and the glow from my cell phone (with a solid blue screen) to stand in for 'moonlight'. I think it didn't turn out too bad:
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by RobL » Fri May 19, 2017 7:17 am

The night shot looks really really cool. You're a regular O. Winston Link. (I know a railfan/photographer/foamer like you will get that reference).

Can you build teeny tiny Lucky Strikes for those gandydancers and GIs standing around? They'd be 'burnin' one' on a quiet night working the 'yard. :D

nice work.

Rob

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Fri May 19, 2017 7:47 am

RobL wrote:The night shot looks really really cool. You're a regular O. Winston Link.
Thanks! for those who don't get the reference, Link is today considered one of the greatest RR photographers of all time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Winston_Link
I was actually standing a few feet away from Link in the yard at Jacksonville, FL in November 1987 when N&W 1218 was steaming up for a run the next day, and didn't know it at the time. I missed me chance to get to talk to the man right next to a N&W steam locomotive. Oh how I wish I'd known he was there at the time, I didn't hear about that for many years.
RobL wrote:Can you build teeny tiny Lucky Strikes for those gandydancers and GIs standing around? They'd be 'burnin' one' on a quiet night working the 'yard. :D
I tried making scale gas ration stickers. In O scale, they measured out to be just about 3 MM tall. No way I could make a decal that small.
I tried to make a SC-611 handie talkie to place in the cab of the Whitcomb. Even with magnifiers, I couldn't get one looking good enough to make out what it was.
RobL wrote:nice work.
Thanks a lot, Rob. As a fellow model train nut (and guys, his Lionel layout was published at least once in magazines in the past), that means a great deal to me.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Wed May 31, 2017 7:28 am

I was looking to make a cow fence, using the type of gate my parents described to me in use through the 60s or so. People would make pockets for boards to go across an opening as nobody could afford a 'new fangled' gate of any kind. Here's what a real gate like that look like along the ET&WNC, around 1949 or so:
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As I put the fence on my cow pasture onto the layout, I tried my best to re-create that. Here it is before the glue dried:
Image
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
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