Birney Project ~ Test Run

Birney #301 takes a test spin around the Southern California Traction Clubs test track.

Wow! I'm really late with posting this! I apologize. Took the Birney for a spin around the test track and it performed as expected. A little noisy though, club members ( having the bull session in the background) thought I was making margaritas or something.

Hollywood Foundry is now making the BullAnt with a belt drive, so the mechanism is really quiet now.

I can't wait for the next set-up of the clubs layout so this little guy can ply its trade on the streets of the big city. Yes Sir! Ply its trade!

Dandy

HO Scale Vacuum Track Cleaning Car

This Russian traction modeler built a car for vacuuming his track!

I'm not to the point of needing one for my layout yet, so I'm posting this video here so when the time comes I'll have this as reference. Because this car is just so darn nifty! Yes sir! Darn nifty!

Dandy

Niles Project ~ Doing the Dirty Work

Weathering #105 to give it the appearance of a hard working interurban.

San Diego cars were a grimy lot. Look at this photo of #101. Its a dirty dirty trolley! The Wells Fargo panel looks to be recently painted (new express contract?), so its clean. but the sides and window posts are down right grungy. I suppose it would be difficult to keep a wooden car that makes its home working the hot, dusty dirt streets and in the moist salt air of a desert by the sea city clean. And judging by the automobiles, we're well into the teens if not the 20's by this time, so this car has many years of service under its belt rail.

Since my model of #105 has taken some modelers license to it, I intend to"go wild" with the weathering. This car will be the dirtiest of all my revenue cars, it will represent the dirty end of the weathering spectrum. The rest of the fleet will be a bit more classy in appearance. But for now, I'm going to have some fun with this.


There are some weathering techniques I want to try out. I'm a big fan of the Bragdon weathering powders, they are fantastic for, rusting, dusting, dirtying and "scale effect". I'll elaborate how to use the Bragdon Weathering System in a future post, but real quick, the powders contain a friction activated adhesive that affixes the powders when they are scrubbed on. But I want the powders to settle into the groves to accentuate the wood slats. So I'm trying the powders as a wash by mixing the powders with alcohol. The photo above is the result of this. I took a "0" brush load of the dark brown powder and mixed it with 4 drops of alcohol. The effect is stunning. Not only did the pigment settle into the groves, but it also stained the paint really nicely. It really desaturated to colors.

I thought I had overdone it. But comparing this photo with the prototype photo at the top of this post, it  actually looks about right. This car looks like a work-a-day interurban that has been making its rounds, keeping its schedule, and moving the merchandise. It has been a useful trolley, yes sir, a very useful trolley.

Dandy

The Small Layout Scrapbook

A website called the "Small Layout Scrapbook" featured traction layouts last month.

Layout Scrapbook publishes an article twice a month and is part of the Micro/Small Layouts for Model Railroaders site. The site is dedicated to layouts that are roughly 4x6 feet (1200mm x 1800mm) and under. It also features a design gallery of small layouts.

Here is an older post they did on traction layouts. It features some very fun and very tiny layouts! Yes sir! Very fun and very tiny!

Dandy