Recent Acquisitions, impulse buy edition

Bachmann E60CP with DCC factory installed!  (Apologies
for the bad focus . . . it was a hasty photo for this hasty,
impulse purchase)

Sometimes, I'm a sucker for anything with pantographs.

This little ditty was staring at me up in Timonium a couple of weeks ago while I was buying a DCC decoder for the C&O/CSS&SB GP-7 . . .

The Backdrop Tree Line is Done

The Tree Line and Backdrop.  I plan to go to the real Mineral Springs Road sometime in the next year or so (while visiting my son, who is an e-commerce big shot) to get a photograph that will actually fill that gap where the road dead ends. 

Sharp-eyed readers of my recent GP-7 post may have noticed that the tree line behind the C&O loco looked denser, nay, even more complete.  That's because I bought a bunch of much needed foliage at the Timonium train show, which I promptly glued in.

Next up: track ballast, grade crossing lights, and the flagstop parking lot.

Recent Acquisitions, Part Deux

Duneland Electric by Donald R. Kaplan

I journeyed up to Timonium, Maryland last weekend for Howard Zane's Great Scale Train show with my neighbor Doug. He is an N scale modeler who is getting ready to build a layout for his collection.  Doug didn't have much luck at the show but I happened upon this copy of Duneland Electric by Donald R. Kaplan.  It's a great mid-eighties snapshop of the South Shore, focused on my favorite 'Duneland' area between Gary and Michigan City. Page 41 even has a couple of photos of Dune Acres, which is the inspiration for my own Mineral Springs Road flagstop.

Recent Acquisitions, Part 1

With No. 2 son finishing up high school and choosing a college and churn at work, it's been interesting times.  Work on Dunes Junction has slowed but not stopped.

This Atlas #8355 GP-7 5746 in C&O colors will soon be a South Shore 1500-series GP-7, appropriate for late 70s/
early 80s operations on the Dunes Junction.

One recent bit of Dunes Junction activity was finally(!) finding an Atlas GP-7 in Chesapeake and Ohio livery that will become a South Shore 1500-series GP-7, courtesy of eBay. The South Shore acquired eight C&O GP-7s in the late 60s when the road had fallen on hard times, so these second-hand locos mostly stayed in their old C&O paint scheme, save for South Shore heralds and road numbers.

CSS&SB GP-7 #1503 at Burnham in
1979.  Photo by Tom Golden
Courtesy rrpicturearchives,net

My goal is to use the Atlas C&O GP-7 as the starting point for a CSS&SB model. I know, I know, it's an evil old diesel, a symbol of the South Shore in decline, the end of electric freight, blah, blah, blah.  But it's part of my memories of my beloved old South Shore, and I'm excited to have this project underway.

Looks like it will need a nose mounted bell, spark arrestors, sunshades, and a five-chime horn.  Plus the heralds and lettering need to come off--I'm reading on the interwebs that Solvaset and pencil eraser will do the trick. I have the Atlantic seaboards largest collection South Shore decals (both Walthers and Champ made 'em), so that's where the heralds will come from. The road numbers look like they should come right off a C&O diesel sheet, and the bugboards are standard fare as well.

First Attempt at Tree Planting

First go at tree planing on Dunes Junction. A line of shorter, younger trees will go in front of this row of trees just in
front of the backdrop.