Home made decals

I have been trying to find a way to get my railroad name onto my locos. I can't really justify £65 for a set of pro-decals as I will get sheets of stuff. I tried ink jet printing onto clear decal sheet but the colours were not strong enough when put onto my black locos.

Yesterday, I found a sheet of white laser decal paper so I have drawn up a sheet of the logo and some numbers. What I did was put a black box onto the page with a white design or letter. The black stands out a little but once I have put some matt varnish on and then done some weathering, I think that it will all blend in. Anyway, here are the results.

Freight Station by Suncoast Models

Having mocked up some of the structures in box cardboard, I decided to have a go at making a kit that I picked up on EBay some time ago. Now, I have made a couple of laser cut wood kits but this one pre-dates such technology. This is a Suncast model which is basically a pile of scale lumber which needs to be cut to size and glued together.

Fortunately, I have an HO scale rule and an NWSL Chopper II so cutting to length and to angles, etc. is not too difficult. However, the instructions are another matter. As you can see, what you get is three sheets of typewritten instructions - presumably mimeographed, a double sided sheet of scale plans and a pile of lumber.

This one might take some time!

Late Update
I have just found out that this particular kit is still available - presumably in the same form as I have it. Amazing. This just shows the life possible in a good design.

First Video trip around the S&NE

Here is my first 'promotional' video on Youtube

S & NE Part 1

Mockups and progress

Status - all of the track is laid and is fully wired for DCC. The DCC controller is fully installed along with the booster. The booster is set up to handle the polarity problems of the turntable. I have a hand driven turntable which is no-way realistic but works for now until I can afford the final option (check out Walthers 90ft DCC turntable).

What I have been doing today is mocking up some of the industries with cardboard so that I can get a feel for how the switching is going to work.

You can see how it looks from the following photos. Please accept that the layout is not perfect in its design - nor is it ideal but I have limited space so I have to shut my eyes to some things so that I can get others in.

The JK Innovative Purity Milk Depot - a Laser cut kit














This is the staging area where the trains end up. The line in the front will be servicing a Saw Mill. The 4-6-0 is a Bachmann Spectrum item that came DCC installed. It is not a particularly good runner. Its sole job will be to run the two shorty passenger cars out to the other end of the SNE a couple of times a day. If it keeps running the way it does, we may become a freight only railroad!

This is hand operated turntable - just grab a knob and spin.  It works, for now. There is a DCC link to the booster which handles the electrical short created by swapping the rail polarity over during the turn.













Here you can see the cardboard mock up of the Ice House and it's attendant Fruit Packing Station. The Eastern Fruit Association has been one of my industries since the heady days of N Scale Sunset and North Eastern back in 1970.














This is a high level view of the left hand industry area and the loco facilities. Again, we have mockups of a Furniture factory (lots of wood in and lots of crates out so plenty of flats and box cars)













A close up of the loco facilities - non-existent except for an oil tank. The three locos that you can see here are all Bachmann. 2 x 2-8-0 and an F-3. I have stripped the gears on one of the 2-8-0s so only one works. The 2-8-0s came with on-board DCC whilst I have chipped the F-3. The 2-8-0 is the main freight engine for the SNE (Sunset and North Eastern) whilst the F-3 is on loan to the company as they are in straightened times and their switcher died last Fall. The F-3 isn't a great switcher but it was the best that they could borrow - seeing as how none of the surrounding lines even had any steam switchers left - grin. I am still investigating how to get some decals to put road names on the locos and some freight cars - no result yet.

This is a close up of the cardboard mock ups. These will help me get the layout of the areas right before I start scratch building the real ones 













The above shows the Budd RDC. Now this is where we stretch credulity. This RDC is supposed to be out of shot, away on a larger road. It comes in twice a day as an interchange passenger service but I don't have anywhere else to send it so we have to pretend that it isn't there!