Apr 25, 2015

Calvin returns to the Evergreen!

Snowbird Calvin spent the winter in Arizona and returned to the club this Thursday. Marvin explains what we've done recently to Cal as Marv's Boeing train passes by.
 
New member Steve Wesolowski showed up with more prize winning models with this beauty of an SP&S FA with all the goodies on it. All that's missing is the weathering!
 
My Big Boy was taken out for a spin as Don's Milwaukee Road steam train makes its way over a bridge on the Green branch.
 
Marvin waits for the arrival of his 3 Northern Pacific passenger locos so in the mean time he was
using my freight units to get it over the line.
New member Richard Mewes passes the stock yard recently installed with his UP SD45
John Schwarze entered the action with his Western Pacific set of GEs and EMD power as it cruises
past the port district.
The Milwaukee Road F45s catch up with Steve's SP&S freight. It shows the seperation between the 2 major rail lines we have on the Evergreen. We call it the Blue main in front and the Red main further away. Got any name suggestions for the lines?  The Green branch goes over the top of the Red main.

Apr 10, 2015

The Amazing Wesolowski

The Evergreen club had a special visitor this afternoon and Steve brought in some of his prize models to show us what he has been doing. His first offering to show off was this Montana rail Link SD40-2 model in HO.
 
These units get into Spokane from time to time and Steve has the details on his models almost as good as the real ones.
Working headlights, working blinker, extra real chain on the railings, hoses everywhere, lift handles coupler chain, grabs, etc. Nice work!
His next item was this lumber car showing off the tie down cables just like the real ones.
Must have just come form the factory?
Another was this SP&S wood car for wood chips including some that dropped into the girders!
A few MRL empties done very well. Steve should be an inspiration to all of us modelers to reach up to the next level of modeling our favorite railroad items.

I've been working on the railroad!

My latest 3 projects for some of my customers are as follows. I turned this Southern Pacific wide vision caboose into a pretty SP&S model. It's an O scale model and I was able to weather the trucks but that's it!
 
The next project was to make the B unit to look like the factory painted A unit and I think I nailed it. HO model. No weathering as there was another A unit that went with this set and I didn't want them to look out of place.
 
Probably the toughest paint job I ever did was doing this Great Northern 4-8-2 in the Glacier Green paint scheme for passenger service. The white wall tires were a bear to do. I little grey dusting on the drivers and a dull coat after the photo was taken. Next is an NP SD45 remake of the cab.
 
 

Thursday night action...so we must be in Spokane!

Our newest edition to Evergreen is the cattle pens and we are now filling up the place with real cattle! Well almost real. The driveway is nearly complete along with the rail crossing to get into here.
Scotty showed up with an impressive collection of CP locomotives and lots of Canadian grain cars.
 
Keith had a set of SP&S and BN locos on his train including this #2085 that he actually ran the real one on the BNSF.
 
Keith also had his favorite F units pulling a SP&S passenger train through it spaces.
Burt keeps adding more trees to the new forest we are creating towards to back of the layout. here will be a log reloader up there on the flat to get the logs on the trains for the mill.
 
Chuck showed up this evening and ran his Southern Pacific 4-8-2 around with a terrific sound system. Once you go sound you'll never go back to quiet!