It loos so different but is captivating at the same time!

As I get drawn down this rabbit hole of 7mm narrow gauge or On30 as it is USA based, I am slowly digging out my collection of rolling stock. Todays find is the T Boiler 2 Truck Shay made by Bachmann.

A rather strange looking loco and with its T shaped boiler and rod and driveshaft propulsion to what look like bogies that should be under a diesel loco!

And that is its charm! It loos so different but is captivating at the same time as we look at something we are not used to but are drawn in by the vision of something that in our minds probably should only exist as a cartoon.

I actually purchased this second hand over 20 years ago from the model shop that was opposite Pickering railway station in Yorkshire. Given that the loco is probably from the first batch that Bachmann made in 2002 and that the box made no reference to DCC, and the instructions did not either  I was presuming that it would be necessary to hard wire a DCC chip in and that is if I could even find the wires for the pickups and motor! However, curiosity got the better of me and I took the coal load out of its bunker and to my amazement there was a circuit board with an 8 pin decoder socket!

A suitable decoder was booked out of the WMD Stores and fitted.

Refitting the coal load the Shay ran superbly on part of My Last Great Project Layout. It just needs aa layout of its own and IU am now a month and a half into the promise of building said layout by the end of 2026!

Bachmann 0n30 Rail Truck.

About 10 years ago I paid £55 for this. And what is this you may ask?

Well it is another of my collection of On30 rolling stock. Made by Bachmann, it is a Rail Truck. 

This type of rollingstock was typical of the backwoods of places like North and South America as well as Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. Basically, put together from what ever parts were available, a road going truck was mounted on a railway using a wagon chassis or bogies and with some mechanical magic the power from the trucks engine would power the rail wheels.

The original truck body could be used or, more commonly, the owners would construct their own design which could be a flat bed, box van or passenger carrying! My example has a steak body which could be used for many things including carrying livestock.

Well it looks very cute which won Mrs. Woody over but what did £55 get me in terms of specification?

For the money I got a rather unique looking model with lights and a DCC chip fitted which made the price exceptionally good value!

There is an instruction to the Instruction Booklet that instructs reading all the way through before starting the build.

Waiting for some warmish and dryish, note the accommodating 'ish' as anything near to warm and dry will do, weather to finish painting the cab panels with a rattle can, I did finish the cab interior with the two windscreen pillars and grab handles. 

With that done and the promise of more cold and wet weather I looked about for something else to build. I turned to this Gecko Models 1/35th scale kit of a A10 Cruiser Tank. 

Opening the box was an interesting exercise in understanding how the kit had been packed, but once in there is a very nice A4 sized poster of the box art to the kit and a very comprehensive booklet of instructions. Now there is an instruction to the Instruction Booklet that instructs reading all the way through before starting the build. 

I can see why that is the instruction as there are a lot of parts to this kit including my arch nemesis, photo etched parts!

By the time I had got half way through reading the instruction booklet I had decided that it is a wonderfully detailed kit but at the moment my mind set is not in the right place to build it at the moment. Sometimes you just know that building a certain kit at that time will be a struggle rather than a pleasure and it is best to but the lid back on the box and set it aside for when the right time comes! 

In fact it has a leak of some sorts that manifested itself by explosively depositing paint all over my hand!

With some warmer and drier weather I had another go at painting the cab components of the Italeri Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4 with a rattle can. My last session had resulted in the paint bloomimg as it absorbed moisture from the wet atmosphere. This time I was more successful. Still needs another coat but it is certainly better.

Unfortunately, the rattle can is not better! In fact it has a leak of some sorts that manifested itself by explosively depositing paint all over my hand! It also made using the can somewhat difficult. No idea why this has happened but I do have a spare in stock! Good old WMD Stores!

One consequence of the rattle can explosion was that I ended up with a run and some spots of paint on a cab side panel. I will need to wait until the paint hardens off and I can smooth the blemishes and repaint. Hopefully there will be another dry and warm day soon!

A variety of finds in the Bone Yard!

And todays Rocks By Rail Museum Treasure Junk Hunt items include these fish plates with nuts and bolts used to join sections of rail together...

These concrete sleepers that the joined rail can be laid upon.....

In fact there must be 50 or so of these sleepers just laying around.

Finally the find of the day, this delightful laundry basket that could grace any home - well maybe not but there has to be something in it once i fully uncover it!

Having brought Sammy Strimmer out from his three weeks off, we made some progress beating back this vegetational wall...

 

...to this. Lots more to go but it is slowly getting there!

That water pipe that found and blogged about a few weeks ago has already found a purpose. It is being used as cable ducting for the colour light signal that will be erected later this year. Eric and Derek are installing said cable.

Good to know that the uncovered treasures junk that I have found are being used even if not for their original purpose!

It is now time to consider where I go with this potential project!

Well, I dug out some set track and put together a first radius curve circle of track which is 15 inch radius and connected up a controller. I then set the Bachmann 0n30 2-6-6-2 locomotive on the track, turned up the power and off it went without a hitch. According to the internet it should not be able to do that!

I also dug out some third radius curves which are about 21 inches in radius and laid half a circle around the first radius circle just to see the visual difference. What is the point of all this then Woody you may ask? Well, it proves that a layout could be built on a baseboard as little as three foot, or a metre for metric readers, square. make it four foot square and the track visually looks better. It is now time to consider where I go with this potential project!

Digging around in the Man Cave I unearthed this beauty!

 Digging around in the Man Cave I unearthed this beauty!

It is another 0n30 loco which is a scale I have talked about a few days ago in a post. This is a mallet which has an articulated  2-6-6-2 wheel arrangement. It is also DCC sound chipped although I had to re-solder some wires to get it to work.

Although a large model of a large prototype it is said on the internet that it will go around 18 inch curved track.

It ran well on straight track! It would certainly look a lot better with some more appropriate scenery on the layout I said I would build this year. Less then 11 months now!

F7 Friday!

Something dug out of store and a real stunner it is on a wet miserable Friday - the F7 A and B unit in Union Pacific livery which in my mind is one of the best USA liveries for locomotive. 

These were the power house locos of the 1950s and had that distinctive bull nose and a set of airhorns that didn't just say I'm on my way, they said get out of the way or else! This unit has a DCC sound chip with that very horn! 

So on a rainy day I just ran some trains which is what the hobby is all about! Better get out the way the F& is running through!

The rattle can was shaken but not stirred!

Sometimes you take a risk and it works out. Other times it doesn't! I took a risk in trying to paint the cab of the Italeri Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4. It was dry. The temperature outside was about 8C. The rattle can was shaken but not stirred and so outside the cab parts, rattle can and I went. 

Unfortunately, whilst it was dry, the air was moist so the paint bloomed which is what happens when the paint absorbs moisture as it leaves the rattle can and lands on the object to be painted. The effect is that what should be glossy dries matt. Not the effect I was after! However, it is at least a base coat which will take another coating of paint on a dry, moistless and warm day and should dry glossy. When that day will come with the current weather forecasts is something that maybe some time off!  

No wonder it is called the Gigaspace Cab!

It's now time to think about the cab itself on the Italeri Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4 kit and the main parts make up an entire sprue.

I could not resist but temporarily put the cab sides, back and top on to see what it looked like on the chassis. Big is the word. No wonder it is called the Gigaspace Cab! 

Having got that far it almost seemed rude not to put the front end on, temporarily held together with some masking tape. It looks even more impressive!

I did learn something from all of this though. As I suspected it will not be possible to slide the cab interior into a built cab! That makes painting interesting but I think I can get away with the sides and back glued together and then painted. Then add the other parts already painted and hope that the joins do not show!