Scattered Thoughts . . .

I put together a few comparison "before and after" photos of my large scale trolley and my large scale steam locomotive.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile but never got around to it.  Having just working on the trolley again, I figured it was a good time to capture some "after" photos and then compose "before and after" comparisons. In each comparison photo, the top photo is the train in its stock condition from the factory before I did any work on it while the bottom photo shows the same train after I rebuilt it, repainted it and added details. So, this first comparison photo below is of the trolley.  I purchased the trolley a little over a year ago and immediately started planning for an upgrade and rebuild.  It was not running well when it arrived at my door because the motor had a split gear.  I immediately replaced the motor with Bachmann's replacement drive but, disappointingly and unexpectedly, the brand new assembly still ran quite ...

I captured a few more photos of the trolley this morning and thought I would add them to the blog since they are better than last night's photos. Actually, I wasn't too happy with some of my first photos after working on these steps and the front and rear bumpers.  The light wasn't that great yesterday which made for some mediocre photos.  This morning, the light was a little better in the living room so I captured a few more photos.  This photo, below, is a better shot showing the new bottom step I added.   The next two photos are just better views of the trolley from front and back.  The light on the trolley only lights for the direction it is traveling but, in these photos, I know it appears as though both the front and back headlights are lit all the time.  The front headlight is only lit when in "forward".  The rear headlight is only lit when in "reverse". This last photo is a good photo showing the rear bumper.  I know that these new b...

T his morning, I made quick work of rounding down some sharp edges on the newly installed wood bumpers for my large scale trolley.  Then I put a quick coat of charcoal-ish colored stain.  It is looking much better now! I thought I had blown off all the dust I created by filing and sanding down edges but, clearly, I missed a bunch of dust! I added the bottom step and the triangular-shaped support holding up one end of the bottom step.  I did this on all four of the entries to the trolley.   Maybe tomorrow morning I'll attempt to make four grab bars for next to each of the sets of steps.   I'm waiting on some detail parts for this little detailing project to arrive.  I ordered an air tank for the rear bumper but it might be too large.  If so, I'll need to find a smaller one.  I'm also waiting on a horn and coupler gearboxes.  The coupler gearboxes will fit in well on these new bumpers.  I'm still not sure where to place the horn ...

I did some more work on my large scale trolley yesterday and today.  This is the same trolley we have on our mantle for Christmas.  I've never really been happy with the rounded front and rear bumpers that this trolley ships with and I felt the trolley was missing a step for passengers stepping up from the street so I went about trying to resolve those problems today.   First, I started making the front and rear bumpers to replace the rather toy-like bumpers.  Well, actually, I started by cutting off the front and rear rounded bumpers.  The original front bumper can be seen in the first photo below.  Then I designed a new bumper to be made using wood.  I wanted a chunkier narrow gauge look so I used wood for this.  Anyway, the photo below shows the front rounded, hollow bumper that I cut off... Below, is a photo of the new bumpers being glued up... Below is a photo of the front end after I cut off the manufactured front bumper.  I could...