Celebrating Scale the art of Trains 1:48 modeling MAGAZINE O u Nov/Dec 2008 Issue #41 US $6.95 • Can $8.95 Display until December 31, 2008 JUST ANNOUNCED CALL 408-866-1727 OR YOUR DEALER TODAY TO RESERVE YOUR PIECE OF HISTORY! N&W Y-6A & B 2-8-8-2 Never before made, the Y-6a has a shorter smoke box front, BL Feedwater heater on left side and both airpumps on the right. Made by the finest craftsmen in Korea, this model will grace your layout or mantle. Look for a very limited production of this masterpiece of art and engineering. Coming in 2009. Reserve Price $1799.95 Kohs Y-6b Photo By Get Real Productions A4 “Dwight D. Eisenhower” The fastest steam loco ever will be coming your way. The “Eisenhower” is still in a museum in WI, the “Dominion of Canada” is on display in that country. The record holder, “Mallard” in Blue will also be produced. Reserve your A4 today. Available in 2 or 3 rail w/sound. Reserve priced at $1799.95 NYC J-3A “Super” Hudson With a Selkirk Smoke Box Front, Scullin Disc Drivers with Timken Bearing Rods and Centipede Tender, this “Super” version of the J3a will be the last word in NYC Hudsons. If you don’t get this one, you won’t have the best. Coming 2009 with all the bells and whistles. Reserve Price $1299.95 NSL Silverliner North Shore Line Fans Rejoice, before there was an Electroliner, Silverliners ruled the roost. Coming in 2009 as a 3 car set, the Silverliners will have fully detailed interiors with overhead...well you know the story, it will have the same wonderful detailing as our Electroliner. Reserve yours today. Greenliner also planned to produce. Reserve Today. Price TBD SUNSET MODELS INC.TM 37 South Fourth Street · Campbell, CA · 95008 · 408-866-1727 · fax 408-866-5674 · www.3rdrail.com Celebrating the art of 1:48 modeling Issue #41 Scale Nov/Dec 2008 Vol. 7 - No. 6 Editor-in-Chief/Publisher Joe Giannovario Trains MAGAZINE [email protected] O Features Art Director Jaini Giannovario [email protected] 4 Much Ado About Corners — Part 1: The Factory Here’s how Joe Giannovario dealt with the issue of corner scenery on OST’s Coal Creek Railway. Managing Editor Mike Cougill 9 A Trolley Snowplow for the CG&W [email protected] A neat piece of traction MoW designed and built by Martin Brechbiel. 17 Building a Portable End of Train Device Advertising Manager Model the modern era? Then you need Ben Brown’s nifty EOT. Jeb Kriigel [email protected] 22 Applying a Stucco Finish Award-winning modelers Ray & Renee Grosser explain how to model a Customer Service stucco finish. Spike Beagle 27 A Budget Piece of Brass Complaints Stir one part of beat up brass Diesel body with two parts determination L’il Bear and Bob Leverknight ends up with a GP35. CONTRIBUTORS 39 A K-Line Bombardier Commuter Car 2-Rail Conversion TED BYRNE GENE CLEMENTS It almost takes longer to read the title than do the conversion. Well, not CAREY HINch ROGER C. PARKER really. Gene Clements shows how he did it. NEVILLE ROSSITER 45 Scratchbuilding with Prototype Drawings Subscription Rates: 6 issues Master modeler Gene Deimling explains how to use a neat software tool US - Periodical Class Delivery US$35 US - First Class Delivery (1 year only) US$45 to make 1:48 scaled drawings from prototype plans. Canada/Mexico US$55 Overseas US$80 59 2009 O Scale National Convention Visa, MC, AMEX & Discover accepted. Call 610-363-7117 during Here’s a first look at what’s happening at the 2009 National. Eastern time business hours. Dealers contact Kalmbach Publishing, 800-558-1544 ext 818 or email [email protected] Advertisers call for info. www.oscalemag.com • ©2008 All Rights Reserved Printed in the U.S.A. Departments O Scale Trains Magazine, ISSN 1536-9528, USPS 24457, is published bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, Septem- ber and November by OST Magazine, PO Box 289, Exton PA 19341-0289. Subscription rates: US Periodical Mail, $35 per year, US First Class Mail, $45 per year; Canada or 15 The Art of Finescale – Mike Cougill Mexico, $55 per year; Overseas, $80 per year. Postage paid at West Chester, Pa., and additional mailing offices. POST- 20 Traction Action – Roger Parker MASTER send address changes to O Scale Trains Magazine, PO Box 289, Exton PA 19341-0289. 25 The Modern Image – Gene Clements Contributors: O Scale Trains welcomes your feature articles, photos, and drawings. Such material should be sent to the above address for possible publication. If we accept, you will be notified 30 Reader Feedback immediately. For more information concerning article preparation guidelines, please send an SASE to the above address and 50 Product News & Reviews request our “Guide For Authors” or visit our website at: www. oscalemag.com. 64 Buy-Sell-Trade Ads Cover: An N&W G1 2-8-0 sidles up to an AtlasO covered hopper outside the factory on OST’s Coal Creek Railway. The factory is 64 Events Listing an imposing structure which fills a full corner of the layout. Read how it was built starting on page 4. 65 Advertiser Index Centerspread: N&W G1 #6 shoves a load of coal past the City Litho company on the Coal Creek Railway. The industrial area 66 Observations – Joe Giannovario on the Coal Creek Railway was developed step by step. The whole process can been seen and read at the OST Blog [www. oscalemag.com/wordpress] under “Joe’s Projects, We built this city”. The G1 is a highly modified MTH PRR H3 2-8-0. Nov/Dec ’08 - O Scale Trains • 3 Much Ado About Corners — Part 1: The Factory Joe Giannovario We’ve all run into this problem at one time or another. We work on it at the bench, and when it was finished, I could build a layout in a square room with curves in the corners. just drop it into place. Therefore, the first thing I needed to Unless you build particularly tight radius curves, this usually do was build a shelf on which the final structure would sit. leaves an awkward space between the track and the walls. This is shown in Photo 1. The shelf is made from 3/8” ply- In my case, one of the corners actually has multiple planes wood attached to wooden supports on the layout benchwork. because of a ventilation pipe in the wall. Since the structure would be removable, there was no need I solved my corner problems by filling them with industries. In this two-part article I will show you how I did that for two 1 of the corners in the room. Part 1 deals with a factory I built to fill in the industrial corner of the railroad. So, let’s begin. The highlighted area in Figure 1 shows the corner in ques- tion. If you go to the O Scale Trains Magazine Blog and click on “Joe’s Projects”, you will see several entries under “We built this city...” These describe how I developed the indus- trial section on the Coal Creek Railway. After developing the lower section and the upper portion to the left of the corner, I was left with the corner itself. I decided that a large factory would be the perfect fit for this area. I scoured the Internet for photos of factories. After viewing several real and model factories, I sketched out what I wanted to worry about under-layout access. Photo 2 shows the base my factory to look like. This rough plan is shown in Figure 2. It for the factory. The front (trackside) is pointed up in the photo. is approximately 37” across the front and 14” high at the peak. The base is 1/8” tempered Masonite®. The 1x2s in the photo After deciding on the basic shape of the building, I went are hot glued to the base for support and rigidity. Those in the online to the Grandt Line website and started picking out upper part of the photo define the front edge of the factory. I O Scale windows and doors that looked industrial. Some of then hot glued Styrofoam to the front portion with the shelf in the windows are enginehouse windows turned on their side. place to make sure the edges of the shelf would not be visible Once my order arrived, I started building. when viewed from the front (Photo 3). Since this is an area of the layout without easy access, I I chose to make the main portion of the factory from black wanted to build something that was removable so I could foam-core purchased at a craft store. All cutting was done 4 • O Scale Trains - Nov/Dec ’08 with a hobby knife and a #11 blade. The front and rear walls Fig. 1 are 14” wide by 14” tall with notches for the roofing. I fitted a Grandt Line baggage door to the left of the front wall and made a roll-up door on the right large enough to fit a box- car. The roll-up door is corrugated styrene sheet in a framed opening with a piece of brass tubing at the top. My original design had a bay across the front which was made from foam-core and hot glued to the front wall. I had to make sure the bay was high enough to clear any rolling stock and locomotives on the track.