HAPPY NEW YEAR!! -------- January 2009 -------- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!! -------- January 2009 -------- HAPPY NEW YEAR!! |
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Two Southern California Just like last year, Southern California hosted two enjoyable train shows within the same month. At the first show in Ventura on December 6-7, the current economic situation was evident as there were less visitors than we observed at previous Ventura Train shows, but, those that came were in the mood to enjoy and purchase items of their choice. Those that did come enjoyed operating layouts from Z to O scale. The Southern California Traction Club did unveil it's new pair of "Almond Joy" Subway cars, which were being tested with Bowser's new wheel sets that will be used on their coming San Francisco 'F-line' PCC cars.
It appears that these nickel-plated wheels will be performers. Although not traction related, Custom Traxx, now a Bowser representative, had on hand the first of the new Southern Pacific ALCO C-628 locomotives along with some of the G. E. U-25B locos including the G. E. S. P. Bicentennial U-25B 6800.
The PCC shell in the lower right corner is the first pre-production hell for the new Bowser San Francisco F-line PCC. Corrections to this shell have already been made and production is expected to commence shortly. We also a a peek at the new Custom Traxx line of resin body traction kits with Bowser power. All three had been painted and lettered.
From left to right is the Canadian (Toronto) Light Rail Vehicle, (TS-17), the "Milano" (San Francisco) Peter Witt (TS-18) and the Kansas City All-Electric PCC (TS-19). It should be noted that all three samples shown were equipped for overhead wire operation with Train Control Systems (TCS) DCC decoders. TCS is currently the decoder of choice for the Southern California Traction Club. The Times also visited Toys N Trains, a local Ventura model railroad hobby shop, partially owned by Ken Dively of Railway/Traction Miniatures. This visit will be related in a future issue of the Times. One week later, the location was Del Mar, CA. This show was held under an almost constant threat of rain and this seemed to bring out many more visitors than at Ventura. Among some of the unusual items seen were two Mantua Baldwin Shark Nose diesels over 50 years old.
The Southern California Traction Club again operated it's DCC controlled city streetcar line. Shown below are models of San Francisco 'F-line' streetcars. The Milano Peter Witt, San Francisco Municipal Railway (SFMRy) 1818, is a Custom Traxx kit with Bowser power while the PCC, SFMRy 1052 (Los Angeles Railway), was made from a preliminary shell from the soon-to-be-released F-line PCC car.
_________________________________________________________ Great Train Expo Updates Show Procedures for Dealers & Exhibitors! The management of the Great Train Expo has updated the methods used to get dealers and exhibitors their show specific exhibitor information. The changes are designed to make the information more timely and accurate while reducing costs. Information, including floor plans, is now posted 14 days in advance of the show, not 21 days. This is about the same time it would have been received before by USPS, but it will be 7 days more accurate. There are many changes that happen in the weeks prior to a show with dealers signing up at the last minute, layout dimension changes, or cancellations. Waiting an extra week will mean the information you receive will be that much more accurate. Dealers often travel directly from one show to the next and consequently they do not receive the packet in the first place. Having access to a floor plan prior to arrival means that large dealers and the model railroad displays can head to the appropriate area of the hall or the right loading door in the first place without tying up traffic moving from the wrong place to the right place. Increasing numbers of show participants check e-mail and view the web while traveling, so they can now receive the information even while on the road. These changes will help to reduce the time and cost it takes to produce and distribute the entire mailing. This will greatly benefit the larger clubs that display layouts at the shows since all club members will now have access to the information, not just the one contact person. Show management can now post changes should something cause major adjustments to the floor plan, even two or three days before the show. Hotel listings formerly provided no longer seem useful and are being eliminated. Increasing numbers of dealers are now using online services to make hotel room reservations, or they have a list of places in particular cities they prefer to stay. But if a hotel contacts management with a special rate, they will include that in the information listed. Both Custom Traxx and the Southern California Traction Club took advantage of these new procedures and they both found it worked to their advantage. The club members knew where we they were located in the hall before they drove into the building. The club told us that it saved them about ten minutes in set-up time. ________________________________________________ Finishing the Custom Traxx CLRV Model ! Custom Traxx released their long awaited HO scale model of the Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) as operated since 1981 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This is a modern Light Rail Vehicle with large windows and requires a slightly different approach to painting and finishing than most modelers have been accustomed to using. A modeler painted one of the cars and shared his experienced with the times. After the normal resin shell clean-up and assembly of smaller detail parts, the large windows make it mandatory that the interior of the shell be painted a dark color. So the interior was airbrushed with Floquil Weathered Black. The windows and door openings are covered on the exterior with masking tape to prevent the black paint from getting on the exterior. The next step was to apply both of the roof details, the trolley pole base shroud and another pod which sits directly in front of the trolley pole base shroud. Using photographs of the CLRVs, we located the precise position of both items, cleaned up both resin castings and secured them in the proper location with ACC. The hole for the SCTC-1 pivot was drilled in the trolley pole base and the pivot installed and secured with ACC. [See CLRV, column 2] |
Con-Cor's New HO scale Traction Products Shown! At the Del Mar Great Train Expo, Jim Conway of Con-Cor was on hand, along with his son, Morgan, to display two items of interest to all HO scale traction lovers. The first is the model of the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Electroliners. The Times was fortunate to be able to examine the first painted shells for all four sections of the two trains, 801-802 and 803-804, which were built by St. Louis Car Co in 1941 and ran on the line until 1963.
The Times has made arrangements with Con-Cor to begin testing the powered chassis for this train as soon as one becomes available. The unit is to be powered with a single power truck in the lead unit. The model is packaged in a box covered with a great night photo of the Electroliner. That box, shown below, may be a "collectible" in itself:
The other product is the Air-Electric PCC car, first introduced in Brooklyn, New York in 1936. Over 2000 units were produced until World War II. This car is to have eight-wheel drive along with a partial interior and has been designed to negotiate a 9" radius curve without modifications. The Times was allowed to view the first shells of the car along with the interior and floor.
The Times may get the opportunity to test this new chassis using the facilities of the Southern California Traction Club as soon as it is available. If these tests are conducted, the results will be reported right here. The final photo shows the pre-production Con-Cor with a preliminary Bowser shell. So these trolley models are a-comin'.
All three units look promising. 2009 might be a great year for HO scale tractioneers. Stay tuned! Southern California Traction Club Subway Train Models! Early in 2006, the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) was looking for a new attraction to display during their appearances. After many ideas were "brainstormed", the club decided to build a subway under the streets of one of its modules and allow the subway to be viewed at eye level for the younger set for its modules. The subway had to make loops under a 2' by 4' module so 10" radius curves were necessitated since there would be two loops with trains going in opposite directions. Of course, the Life-Like/Walthers R-17 & R-21 Subway cars had been available for some time and several sets were owned by members of the club. Because of the 10" radius curves and the close clearances, the length of the subway cars would be limited to around 50-55 ft. At the May 2007 East Penn meet, the club purchased a two-car set of the 1960 Budd "Almond Joy" Market Frankford Subway-Elevated cars. These cars had been produced with very well-detailed resin cast bodies on aluminum floors with Bowser drives. The cars were placed on the club test track but failed to negotiate the test track 12" radius curves. The club felt that they could eliminate this problem but when the powered car would not pull the unpowered car for various reasons, both cars were set aside. Last month, the club decided to revisit the two-car set and determined that if the unpowered car could be powered, they could make another subway train available for the module.
The club had discovered a way to get the cars to take the 10" radius curves on the subway module. As we have continuously discovered, assembling an IHP kit usually yields challenges. For a detailed description of the methods used to get these cars operational, you may review the attached report. [CLRV, cont'd from column 1] There will be three colors airbrushed on this shell prior to decal application. The entire body except for the areas to be painted black, was airbrushed with Scalecoat Reefer White. the window area and the roof mat area were masked and the body airbrushed. The window area black is 45.5 inches from top to bottom except for the dip below the front windshield.
The usual care in masking a car is more difficult in this car due to the small areas around the front windshield, rear window, and the trolley roof shroud that must be masked. Care must be taken to get a very good seal at the edges to avoid paint leaks. We had a few of them which led to several touch-ups with white paint. After the entire shell is airbrushed with Scalecoat Reefer White (11), the unit was allowed to thoroughly dry and the black band in the window area was masked and airbrushed with Scalecoat Keystone Black (1). The gray area is masked and airbrushed with Floquil Primer (110009 ). Below the black window area is a 5" white stripe. Below that is the 23.5" high large red area followed by small 2.5" wide white stripe before the final gray skirt area. Above the black window area is a 6.5" wide white stripe before the final 7" red stripe. Decal application on this model must be done with great patience. Trimming the upper red stripe around the four vents is the first challenge but even harder is getting the large red stripe to "snuggle" in over all the protrusions on the front and rear. If we do another car, we will attempt to match the red and airbrush the larger stripe before decal application begins. The destination sign backgrounds are much larger than the opening on the car so they must be trimmed before application. Custom Traxx provided nice white decal striping in various width that were very useful in certain places, but especially between the red and gray and the red and black areas of the body. There are many small variations in the paint scheme and lettering of these cars over the years so photographs are mandatory before decal application can result in a realistic model.The next photo shows the model after decals were applied but before the front and rear windshields were installed.
________________________________________________ The Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again! In order to curb counterfeiting of their aluminum tokens, the Toronto Transit Commission replaced them in 2006 with larger metal-alloy tokens. After two years, the new tokens had completely replaced the lighter coins and paper tickets. However, the Commission found that the room where they sorted, counted, and stored the new tokens was beginning to crack at the foundations because the tokens to be counted weigh about 60 tons more than the earlier aluminum and paper. A commission spokesman issued a statement that engineers were working on a solution. |
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