Cool Freebie - Yard Office

Yard Office Railroad Database

I ran across this software package when looking for a way to categorize and organize my fleet. It is a shareware that is really pretty nice. You can store all of the information for each piece of your rolling stock and motive power. You can take it a step farther and take photographs of each piece and have this as part of the record. Reporting capabilities are more than I will ever use but all and all this is a nice addition to my model railroad software library. Here is the link;

YARD OFFICE

Here is a screen shot of one of my records. For an additional $27.00 you can register and open up even more of this software's capability. For the price and its capability, yardmaster rates as a 5 Lantern product and I highly recommend.

Newest Model

I had not posted for a while, I have been working on converting over a couple of rooms in my house for the "dream layout". In parallel with that I have been beefing up my motive power. My latest purchase is this Key Imports GS-4. I just marvel at the excellent detail the Korean Brass is at now. This particular model is of a late GS without the skirts. I liked it because it had a war baby look and was not the typical daylight scheme you see all over the place.



I immediately outfitted it with the Tsunami Decoder with hi-bass speakers. It came stock with a can motor and coast drive (its nice not having to convert from a open frame motor and regear). I pulled the Richmond controls lighting and replaced it with the 0603 LEDs the Richmond now offers. I need to add a crew, but this baby will stay un-weathered.

From my workbench

Scratch Building 101



As part of our local division NMRA meetings we recently had a few clinics on scratch building. I am short on HOn3 freight and thought what the hay, I would go ahead and build up a couple of 30' flats and begin to build up my narrow gauge fleet. A few weekends of work at that bench yielded my second attempt at scratching building. (my first was many years ago when I was teen)

I have a long way to go in building up my skills but I am some what pleased with the outcome. I purchased a Ames Steam Engine kit on Ebay and split the kit up to be shared with the 2 flats.

The under carriages were some what of a challenge but it but I learned alot. Next time I will paint the entire wheel and mask off the flange area. The truss rods presented an issue with regards to wheel turning clearance.

Well, the next car will probably be a crummy. All and all scratch building is a blast. I just want to send some kudos to Duane Richardson MMR, our division president for spending time with us showing me the ropes.

Image of the Month

This is a shot of the Cotton Belt 819 sitting next to a Southern Pacific U-Boat. Back to the glory days from the 40's to the 90's. My model below is loosely modeled on the 819. The 819 is housed in Pine Buff Arkansas at the Arkansas Railroad Museum. I encourage anyone to support historic railroad restoration. Volunteer at your local railroad museum and get dirty. It is very satisfying work.

Arkansas Railroad Museum

Newest Model

About 2 years ago I purchased a 60s-70s United(PFM) Berkshire off a local dealer, it was in pretty sad shape but looking through the chipped paint, seized open face motor, and broken parts, I still liked it. Plopped down the cash and took it home where it sat on my shelf waiting for its time.



One day I pulled it down and started working on it. Tore it down to the frame, stripped the 40 years of paint and glass beaded it. Ah that nice brass finish came through. Replaced all of the broken components, pulled the open frame motor with a Sagami Can, NWSL gearing, and installed a Tsunami DCC decoder with a Hi-bass speaker from Tony's. Threw some primer and paint on the body and placed the Herald. She runs sweet. I went with Cotton Belt because all of my Motive Power is Southern Pacific and with my wife's family history involved with SSW, I thought it would be a nice addition. Now, Cotton Belt never had Berks but it is close enough to the 800 series for my taste. I chose 800 because it was done by the Baldwin Shops versus the Pine Bluff shops by SSW. The builders plate on this United model has a Baldwin plate. Anyway, I really like the way it came out and it gives me some more experience in airbrushing so I can tackle my other unpainted brass on that shelf.

New Model Railroad Magazine

As mentioned earlier, Joe Fugute and friends have just released their new online model railroad magazine and its totally free. This long awaited magazines first edition is full of great interactive articles, photos, and model railroad information. I highly recommend checking it out. Joe has really capitalized on new technology and this magazine really shows it.

http://www.model-railroad-hobbyist.com/