Tom's New York Central HO Layout
Recent News
December 31, 2010
Walthers Stainless steel diner kit – The structure (pictured at left) has been assembled and painted. The Tamiya Bare-Metal Silver (AS-12) used to paint this is just beautiful. The paint goes on in thin layers (due to their superior nozzle) and highlights the details quite nicely. The counters and stools are done and the floor has been painted in a checkerboard fashion. My only gripe about the kit is that the booth/tables are too close together. HO-scale figures are pretty cramped.
July 4, 2009
The NYC Emergency caboose is a kit bash of a MDC/Roundhouse NKP 40' wood boxcar. The prototypes were used during WW1 and WW2 when supplies for building additional cabooses and other rolling stock were scarce because steel was needed for the war effort.
The white "patches" on the side and ends were made with Evergreen 3-1/4" Car siding styrene sheeting. The trim is 1 x 8 and 1 x 10 dimensional styrene. The windows and doors were cannibalized from a Walthers NYC 17000-series caboose.
This is just the prototype. The side stairs and grab irons still need to be added, as well as the entire caboose repainted. However, I plan on building a "new and improved" version so I may just hold off on the extra detailing.
Since this was a learning project, I've already got ideas about how I want to tackle the next version and in what order I want to do things. I'm really getting into and enjoying kitbashing and scratchbuilding.
The NYC Emergency caboose with a coat of Scalecoat boxcar red applied with a spray can. Definitely an improvement. Now, to try this project again with more prototypical parts.
July 4, 2009
I picked up a 3-pack kit of the new Accurail NYC AAR 41' Steel gondolas a couple of weeks ago and put them together. I have to say that Accurail did a very fine job on these gondolas. The quality of the detaling is very, very good.
The weight is cleverly hidden under the gondola flooring, which is pushed into place and essentially needs no gluing - although I did use a small amount of silicone adhesive to fix mine in place. I'm quite pleased with them.
Lastly, I've been working on a City Classics Company house since late March. What a nice and fun kit this has turned out to be. The house itself is pretty much completed. What I've been spending most of my time on is detailing the inside/outside - e.g. flooring, lighting, removable roofs, etc.
The trickiest part for me has been figuring out how exactly I want to light the interior and exterior. One thought is to use a stationary decoder so that I can turn individual lights on and off. (That would allow for a variety of "looks" to the house.) The other is to use interconnect (IC) connector/plug strips so that bulbs can be changed more easily and wiring minimalized. The disadvantage to this would be that the lights would either ALL be on or ALL be off.