New Rolling Stock

This morning I picked up my last order from Model Train Stuff. Six SSW box cars from Exact Rails and six SP gondolas from BLMA. All cars are really well done with great details and features metal wheelsets. BLMA's gondolas have body-mounted couplers also. Here are some pictures.

See you soon...

New Locomotives

Latest addition to my locomotive roster is a couple of Atlas EMD GP9 Phase II. Obviously Southern Pacific. As usual I've added DCC decoder using Digitrax drop-in replacement decoders, in this case DN163A2. The whole installation is rather simple and all worked fine at the first shot.

So, here are few photos of the new locos. I find these locos well detailed and running really smooth even if I didn't tweaked with CVs yet and basically I'm using the factory settings except for the DCC address.

Lately, I've been working also on laying track on the first section. Work is going on with small problems here and there but overall I'm happy with the outcome. I'll post an update on this soon, hopefully.

See you soon...

Working here and there

Mixed post this one. Few days ago I received my last order from Model Train Stuff. Two very nice Atlas EMD SD9, SP3914 and SP3943 and two Digitrax decoders. So, I started installing decoders in the new locos and also in an Atlas EMD GP35, SP6622 I bought some months ago that I put aside since I bought the wrong decoder. This time I ordered the right ones and I could digitize that loco as well.
Using plug-in replacement decoders it's a very easy task and Atlas locos are really well thought in this regard. Removing the loco shell is a matter of seconds and then you're left with only two screws to remove and take apart the two loco frames. Replace the factory installed PCB board and you're done.
At the end three new very nice SP locos joined my roster.

Then, I went back to work on the scenery applying a second coat of paint on the foam sheets. I wanted to darken the first coat so I used a diluted terracotta brown paint to have a non-uniform ground texture. It didn't come out exactly the way I wanted however it's getting better.

Lastly, I replaced few more wheelsets with Fox Valley Models metal wheelsets. Still some more cars to do, though.

Next time I'll post some pictures of the truck replacement I did on two Bachmann flat cars and an "experiment" I did with the Bachmann GE 44Ton switcher. Stay tuned...

See you soon...

New Rolling Stock

As promised in a previous post here are the new cars I received recently from my last two orders. Exact Rails ATSF covered hoppers and either COFC or TOFC from ConCor.

Click on a photo to see the whole Picasa album

Exact Rails' cars feature amazing details. As far as I can say they are the best cars I have. This set had few small construction defects, though. Some cars ha the roof not perfectly placed and loose so that it separated from the rest of the body. Fixing it back in place wasn't a great deal, however it's a little bit disappointing for such a great product. As you can see in the pictures above I tried to shot few close ups to show the nice details of these cars.

ConCor flat cars are all another story. Even though they aren't exactly cheap the overall quality is far from perfect, rather disappointing I'd say. In fact, painting is not very uniform and too 'thick' so that is masks cars details. Also, lettering doesn't look very crisp and accurate to me. Maybe I'm wrong but they show the worst quality/price ratio of all the cars and locos I have purchased so far.

Anyway, in the end of the day I'm happy to have few more cars for my Ninth Ave. Terminal Dock. By the way, I've also purchase a couple of Kato trucks with containers and two containers sets. Very nice stuff. Great details, much better than ConCor containers and Heiki truck I received few weeks ago.

Scenery Accessories

See you soon...