New Year's Updates

Happy New Year !  to all the T scale enthusiasts or otherwise curious spectators who read my Blog.  Despite all the family and friend activities over the past weeks, I have managed to do some modeling and wanted to pass along some updates on projects and new designs.  In no particular order, then, here we go:

Sharonville Engine House:  The engine house is taking shape.  Walls have been assembled and a base constructed out of styrene around the 3D printed inspection pits.  I am building it with a rudimentary interior, so I have also added I-beam trusses (Plastruct) and 1mm square supports, along with an interior wall where the office/storage area will be.  Door were added, and they are movable (although only anchored to the top).. I might revise the design somewhat to allow better hinges.  I also purchased some pico LED's (the verry tiny ones) in order to add a few lights, and have added a coat of black paint on the interior walls to act as a light barrier. 

The structure fits into a foam base that is made out of styrofoam (not the good dense kind, but it will do..) glued onto scrap 3/4 inch plywood.  The whole thing fits on a 8x14 inch sheet of paper!  The turntable pit outline, engine house outline, and associated trackage centerlines were traced onto the foam.  First, I printed the current Google Map of the location to scale, which shows the remnants of the old trackage and building as well as the still extant turntable.  Then, I rubbed some black chalk on the back of the paper, lay it on top of the foam, then traced the lines with the rounded end of a hobby brush.

"Excavation" was done with a hobby knife, and the turntable pit is test-fit.

Metra MP36 and Gallery Cars: The first iteration models aka pre-production samples are in-hand, and as of this writing I have actually revised the gallery cars to allow better mechanism fit.  I also designed a new prototype-size front (dummy) coupler that can be dropped-in, since the CCE one looks a bit too chunky for these sexy engines, and won't be used anyway.  This can be used on any CCE model with a standard CCE coupler pocket--for photography, etc.

Matt at Circus City Decals did a special batch of the Milwaukee Road MP36 and the gallery car decals for me as well.  The registration on the MP36 stripe decals was very slightly off as you can see in the pictures, but I think I can still work with them by trimming.  The rest of the decals are fine, especially the white logos which there's no way I can do at home.  Note that I talked to him about the registration and it's (unfortunately) a limitation of the equipment.  I might yet try printing my own stripes since they are are fairly dark.  Improvise/adapt/overcome.

Custom Narrow Gauge Arch Bar Trucks:  These arch-bar trucks were custom made for a fellow who models in Zn2 scale (2 foot gauge 1:220 scale) that runs on T-gauge track.  He is a fantastic modeler and whatever he puts on top of these you can rest assured will be superb.

Other news: I'm still waiting on a shipment of etched parts for the C40 and turntable which shipped around Thanksgiving from the UK.  They were somehow lost in transit but then found (mysteriously and/or coincidentally) after I started tracking them.  So, there should be some cool tiny parts on display soon, since this includes handrails and a PRR signal gantry for the upcoming Princeton Jct. model.  I also have the redesigned Amfleet coach (with scale size corrugations) in hand and will be doing a test painting of it soon.

As always, if you have any questions, requests, or comments please reach out to me at ccetrains@gmail.com.
-Jesse