Reflections on Progress and Principle

It's Christmas Eve, 2024, somehow already.  This has been a year of intensity.  There has been some great progress but some monumental challenge, too.  

Progress on the OCS continues, and brings a great deal of satisfaction in a time when I am feeling flattened by so much.  Recent progress is getting trucks modified for car 12, and it went well, thanks to great resources by Wes Reminder again.  

Walthers makes aftermarket trucks, these being the GSC 41-N-11 models.  They are nicely done, and an even swap for the stock trucks with the Budd Lounge.  But a few changes are needed to more closely match the photos.  

Here's the changes on the left:  I modified the brake cylinders, machined flat the covered bearings and installed new exposed roller bearing caps, removed the exterior brake shoes, and installed a new level surface on the top.  I still need here to remove the vertical strut, before painting the trucks the correct CR Pullman Green color.  

Again, what a satisfying project.  The modified trucks on car 12 are on the left above, with car 27 on the right.  Between the roof changes and now the trucks for 12, it is neat to see the two together.  

A good friend of mine insists that time in your later 40's is a 'lunchpail job' - one where you wake up each day with the alarm, and go to work, then go home and do the family thing, and the drive-the-kids-to-activities thing, and deal with elderly family thing....and then crash at the end of your day only to have to do the whole damned thing again the next day, sometimes out of sheer principle.

It is hard to keep perspective.  So much we have and so much we do is only because of our good fortune, or hard work, or perseverance - or a combination of all three.  The feeling we ought to have is one of gratitude, not grind.  And yet our daily chores seem a grind, despite our best intentions.

Those chores, our volunteer activities and our lunchpail jobs have a lot in common with detail projects like this one.  No one makes you do anything, really, in your 40's.  You're the adult now, and so the motivation has to come from you.  And that is the case with work, fatherhood, husbandry, and modeling.  Sometimes you gotta just get up and get moving out of sheer principle.  It isn't always fun or rewarding, not right away; in any case it doesn't feel like something I have the energy to do.  

And here we are, Christmas Eve 2024...despite all of that.  When it isn't magic for you, that means you are the magic for those around you. 

May peace find each of us in 2025!   Merry Christmas! 

Number 401!

Somehow, I only noticed that the last post was number 400!  Hard to believe there are that many, but in any case that makes this 401 and I am grateful to have this archive available - and for all you readers who keep an eye on it.  It is a neat little niche in the OC story to have such a neat chronology of the successes and the trials, the mistakes and the learning that has all gone into this.

The next challenge is part of the growing OCS fleet, and that is to model accurately the 1994 version of car 55 - the former ATSF 'Big Dome' that was purchased from Santa Fe by Conrail in 1989 in its stainless steel glory, and repainted to the OCS green in 1993.

I need it painted - and painting over actual aluminum plating is a new challenge for me.  Stay tuned!  The first step is always to disassemble the car, so that much is ready to post here.

Best wishes as we approach Christmas and Hanukah, too, and no matter what you celebrate may peace be with you in the year to come.  

A New Adventure

There is a lot changing 'in the 40's' for me, as there seems to be for many people.  One of those things is a new interest that is growing for me in modeling passenger equipment, thanks in part to detailing up the Hickory Creek last month and also in part to the inspiration delivered by the new Rapido E8A locomotives in Conrail's executive Office Car Special paint scheme.  

Suddenly, I have a need for older passenger cars on the Onondaga Cutoff!

The fabulous research by Wes Reminder, a longtime Conrail modeler and fan of the executive train, is documented and available at his great website:  https://www.the-boring-the-adoring.com/conrail-blog

The basics are there along with Wes's spectacular modeling.  Each car on the prototype train has a whole story to it, and many were modified through the years.  I am working to emulate his work to create models for 1994 that will fit in line with the OC and with the regular operation it supports.  I will model several cars using the Walthers passenger cars available to get models that are close, and then will modify, detail, light and paint them to match prototype photos.

Walthers cars are great, and come apart with the sides as a separate molding of styrene.  When you remove the windows too, now you've got a side that is easy to strip.   

While the parts soak in 91% isopropyl alcohol, I worked on the new paint color. No one makes the correct color available for sale for custom painters, so we have to mix our own.  Here's my first try ever using TruColor paint.  This is a mixture of their Southern Green, PRR Brunswick Green, Pullman Green, and a bit of black.  

Close, but too light, by a slight margin.  So back to the drawing board.  

Too dark.  Hmmm.  A light sanding and back to the drawing board.  

Success!  At least, close enough for my eye.  

With the paint figured out I turned to detailing some of the interior of the first car.  I made the beds and painted the features to match photos I found online of the interior, or at least close enough.  I also installed lighting and replaced the wheelsets to ensure good electrical pickup.  

As you can see, I am getting into this and having fun.  It's satisfying work and will lead to a great new addition to the railroad. 

More coming, soon!