Sunday, March 13, 2022

New Tool and a Box Car

 My wife gave me a Cricut Maker 3 for birthday back in February.   I have been playing around with it and I think it is a great addition to my tool kit.  I have started with a basic project, the replacement fright house in Plainfield CT.

This photo is actually in the Penn Central era, but would never know it.
This s the only photo I have of the structure, so the other two sides are a guess.  



Here is the Cricut


Tis is my first test cut using copy paper.
The ends with the angled wall are too long, may math was off.

I also received two of the new Rapido Penn Central 72A box cars that I had pre ordered.  They are really worth the wait. 




Monday, January 31, 2022

The Springfield Show

The 2022 show was this past weekend and there was a lot of things going against it.  The never ending Covid kept a number of groups from displaying and attending and a literal blizzard hit the New England on Saturday. Hopefully the organizers were able to cover costs.  It was nice to see people I have not seen in a couple of years.


There were a number of modular layouts.

There is a dinosaur show coming in a week or two.



The new GP-30 in HO coming from Scale Trains
B&M Diner from Bethlehem Car Works.  I Picked up the New Haven version of it.

B&M Baggage rebuilt from a Pullman Heavyweight Sleeper also from BCW.

Here are the RS-3's from Bowser.  The look fantastic.  They have lots a versions coming along in the future, including rebuilt and chopped nose units.

Here is an N scale Stone's trailer from Eastern Coast Models.  We need to convince them to make them in HO scale.

Here is ECM State of Maine in HO.  The car looks fantastic. 

 Here are a few things that came home with me

Here is the NH Diner Kit, the sides and many of the details are 3D printed, making it possible to make a very accurate kit.

This is the New decal sheet from the Penn Central historical Association.  It is for trailers and vehicles  and is huge.  You can get it from there web site.





This is the N-7 caboose from Tangent.  It is a beautiful caboose.


I also picked up a Tangent combination door PS-1.  I love how the paint the roofs.

I also found a very nice Rapido meat reefer.

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Happy New Year

I have been absent for over a year on my blog, there have been a number of reasons, some good and some bad, but I am back.  I am actually making a couple of hobby resolutions:

1.  Spend more time on my hobbies.  Even a few minutes is a enough time to accomplish things.  

2.  Finish projects before starting new ones.  I know I will not be 100% on this, but I hope I can finish up some more projects.

3.  Post more often.  It has been about 14 months since my last one, so I should accomplish this one with out too much trouble.

Now that I have said what I hope to do, I can say I have not done much of anything in the last year other than picking up a few models and books.  We have been doing a lot of work on out house and the basement where both my layout and workbench are located has been filled with construction material, tools and furniture.  We have finally finished up the final project and I can get back to molding again.

Before Construction


After Construction