First off this week, I thought this was interesting...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/this-bobcat-was-frozen-to-train-tracks-in-b-c-it-was-rescued-thirty-minutes-before-a-train-sped-by-1.5921445
I met up with Luc at the Sarnia train station on Friday afternoon. While we were there CN had a train shunting back and forth as it was being put together. Here's one of the few photos I took.
I liked the look of this former Rock Island 3-bay covered hopper. Nicely faded blue paint, plenty of rust streaks, 3 colours of paint patches, plus a little graffiti. Lots going on with this one.
From a few scraps of .040 styrene I made up this loading ramp for the transfer spur that's going in on the former site of the welding shop. I'm not satisfied with the appearance of the cracks in the concrete. They're drawn on with a .010 ink pen, but I think they look too thick, so I'll probably end up re-painting that area.
The concrete in the foreground remains on-site from the days of the welding shop being here.
A flat car is positioned at the dock. The brake wheel had broken off, and in a stroke of luck I happened to find it along the tracks elsewhere on the layout. I replaced the broken brake wheel post with a piece of bronze wire.
This wooden deck flat car from Intermountain is really nice, but super-light in weight, so it pretty well must be run at or very near the end of a train. And that's even with a load such as the excavator that appears in the corner of the first picture (above).
One more thing from the past week. I was watching from my workbench as a train ran along the JSSX, returning from the industrial Blvd. job, when I saw the cars wobble quite noticeably at one spot on a curve. Closer inspection by the maintenance department (me again) found this pretty significant kink in the track. Cold weather?
The track here is deflected about 1/8". The force was great enough that the ties have broken away from the roadbed that they were glued down into. Funny thing though, the trains don't derail through here.
I liked the look of this former Rock Island 3-bay covered hopper. Nicely faded blue paint, plenty of rust streaks, 3 colours of paint patches, plus a little graffiti. Lots going on with this one.
Is that track kink underneath a heating vent? I had the same thing happen to a part of my railroad when the heating season rolled around, and the spot was within 3' of an overhead duct. Once that happened I went around and cut expansion joints every 10 or so feet...no problems since then.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'd say it's about 8 feet from the overhead heating vent. But the room does get somewhat cold sometimes. I think it kinked because of contraction of the rails due to cold.
ReplyDeleteJim
Consider this to be prototypical, at least. The full size railroads typically have kinks in summer and pull-aparts in the cold...truly a real model railroad hah!
ReplyDelete