Category Archives: 2006

Quarters 3&4 2006

Unfortunately, very little visible progress was made during the second half of 2006 . Time has been taken up with getting the pointwork functioning properly after the ballasting and several points have been rebuilt. Paul has also been doing sterling work in getting the rolling stock running more reliably and has also replaced most of the wheelsets on our freight cars with metal ones.

Chris spent a lot of time researching and redrawing the plans of the Mauch Chunk station building in AutoCAD (please contact us if you want the files) in preparation for building it this year. Steve has started on the Mauch Chunk Ironworks.

The photos below were mostly taken at our open day at the end of November and also show a Hallmark Babyface (wrong prototype – I know) painted for us by Blake Tatar. We hope to make some modifications to the roof vents to improve it’s appearance as the CNJ version.

We wish you all a Happy New Year for 2007 and happy modelling!

Quarter 2 2006

We have made some very visible progress in the second quarter this year – painting and ballasting all the track. Steve has done most of this with help from Ian and Chris for the painting. First stage was to undercoat the track with primer. We used a can of plastic primer for the plastic ties and a metal primer for the “circuit board” ties on the switches. We followed this through with a can of “fender primer” to turn them all grey and then finished off adding a little brown with an airbrush.

We used a mixture of black coal dust (from the bottom of a coal bucket) and almost white coal/wood ash – mixed to a dark grey; these were sieved thoroughly before use. We applied this over a layer of white glue, smoothed it out carefully and then sprayed with Isopropanol (IPA) as a wetting agent and then dilute white glue (about 30% in water with a drop of detergent added). Some touching up with a dropper was required in one or two places. Finally we are slowly painting the track sides rusty. Other natural materials were used in off-track areas.

Quarter 1 2006

As with last year we have made good progress in the first quarter – but it is again mostly invisible! Paul and Chris have just finished wiring the control panels for the switches and they work! We tried them out on the Open Day on Sunday 10th April and ran trains up and down all the tracks.

Steve is struggling with the sixth and seventh buildings on Susquehanna Street and Alisdair is working on the eighth. Ian is building the interiors and has so far completed two.