Best Laid Plans-or Lemons to Lemonade

Per my last post, the new Aristocraft PCC brought a lot of new "juice" and excitement. My original plan was to purchase two of them, cut them up and produce an Illinois Terminal double ended PCC. Alas, the amount of cutting and reconfiguring was just too much, it would be easier just to scratchbuild one than to try and make one out of the Aristo bodies.

Of course in typical fashion, I had hastened to the local shop and purchased a pair of PCC's without looking first. So now I had a pair of PCC cars that I didn't especially want or need, and were something of a thorn in my side given the fact that while painted "Chicago", they weren't even close to prototypical.

I considered a couple of options, just sell the damn things and get my money back, paint and detail them into something unique that Aristo wasn't offering (at least yet), scrap the bodies and use the trucks to build a Chicago Rapid Transit 5000 series articulated elevated car (below)

I almost did this project, the primary thing that held me back was the big flanges on the Aristo trucks, the smaller rapid transit/streetcar style flanges are almost delicate in comparion on the prototype

(But I promise to build this at some later date !)

Anyways, it occured to me the obvious thing to do was build a "real" Chicago car out of the bodies. Chicago cars were longer and wider than all other PCC models, and had a third set of doors at the rear of the cars. It would be a relatively simple bash to add the length and doors, I didn't bother with the added width though. One nice aspect of the Chicago cars, they have full skirting, so the trucks are completely hidden,, what oversized flanges ??

One of the prototype cars, in a later CTA paint scheme.

Mine will be done in the blue/creme with red belt rail scheme,

like the car preserved at IRM.

So, with a plan, or at least an idea in mind, let the carnage begin !
The car is a total bitch to get apart, a billion tiny screws, the screws holding the body to the floor and power mechanism on one car were stripped and had to be drilled out, and removing the mega-thick window "glass" is a major job.

Stripped the cars down to basic body shells and fired up the X-Acto razor saw....
Oh, the humanity,,, I wonder if this is in any way a reminder of when the real cars were cut up for parts to build new elevated cars ?? (And yes, I know they didn't recycle the pre-war cars, only the post-war ones with the standee windows !)

I will say that the plastic Aristo molded the cars in is very workable, and takes MEK quite well.

Sharp-eyed viewers will see a bottle of Plastruct styrene cement, that stuff has been gone a long time, and I just keep refilling the bottle from quart cans of MEK bought from Home Depot. A lot cheaper, but be careful, it is nasty stuff, make sure you know what you're doing and VENTILATE !!

So, after a few hours hacking and slashing, mocking up, etc...

The basic concept....

Lot more to do of course, more filler, close out the skirts, sand smooth, prime/paint/etc.

All in all, not a bad job, relatively easy (my opinion only of course), but not for the faint of heart or light of checkbook. Several folks were shocked that I had just dropped $500 for a couple of trains and couldn't wait to hack them up, but for basically that same amount of money, I'll end up with a more prototypical car, and at least for the time being, something no one else has.

Fortune goes to those with the courage of their convictions I guess,,, and it don't hurt to have separate finaces from the wife either !

More updates as it get finished, and (surprise !), a bonus/smart-ass bash from the left-overs !

New Large Scale Aristocraft PCC car

The new Large Scale Aristocraft PCC car

After a roughly 2+ year wait, the new Aristocraft large scale PCC car is hitting store shelves.

This is a two part review, first being a review of the product as it might appeal to large scale modelers, and secondly, a review with an eye to prototype modeling applications.

To begin with, the car is (my opinion only) reasonably priced. Prices will vary around the country, and market conditions (online versus brick/mortar stores versus train shows/swap meets, etc) Looks like the starter price is roughly $225, I suspect these cars will be pretty commonly available within 6 months at less than $200.

Overall proportions are pretty good. The car is nominally 1:29 scale (more on that later), the only real glaring defect, is the front end treatment, it just doesn't flow properly, it's too flat. Having said that, the car is based on an earlier Brooklyn prototype so while it doesn't have the "classic" look/feel, and still isn't 100% correct for the prototype, in fairness, it's pretty close to the actual car used as the model. The split destination sign is another questionable feature, I suspect more people are used to the full window across design, easily modified of course. The windshield wipers should be removed immediately !

The blind side

Credit where credit is due department.
Living in the Chicago area, our local large scale "supermarket" is St Aubin Station in Woodstock, Illinois. Nice people, good inventory, decent pricing, highly recommended. They started the PCC rush in our area with two cars painted for Chicago, with two different destination signs, one for Wrigley Field (home for MLB's Chicago Cubs), and for the Field Museum (one of Chicago's keynote downtown museums). The Wrigley car is numbered 4391, to mirror one of the Chicago PCC cars just down the road from St Aubins' at the Illinois Rwy Museum, and give Aristo credit, they made the effort to number the Field Museum car with a different number 4392.

Having said that, the Chicago colors are off. The green on the model is too pale, and the cream color is more white than cream as opposed to the real thing. These models are also wrong to represent Chicago cars, all Chicago PCC cars were longer and wider than all other PCC cars, and additionally had a third set of doors at the rear of the cars. Will most modelers not really care about the prototype and slightly off paint ? Probably not. This is part of that G scale modeler versus large scale prototype modeler discussion.

Do whatever makes you happy, it's your car, you paid for it.

Other features

On the underside (and on the blind side of the car) is a set of three switches. You can turn the interior lights on or off, turn the motors on or off, and there is a separate switch to set the car to run off live overhead or off track power.

The trolley pole itself is a bit of a strange design, the base/spring set-up is far too long for anything prototype, not really sure about the logic of the design there. It's an otherwise nicely dimensioned pole (with trolley wheel, operating !)



The tail end of the car shows the rear markers/brake lights, said to light when the car slows, and the trolley retriever treatment. The retriever is non-functional, the "trolley rope" quite oversized, but trivial things.

The trucks are well proportioned with decent detail, suitable for most people's needs. The glaring defect as can be seen readily above is the wheel flanges. Again, G scale versus scale modeler, the cars are designed for use on the LGB 45mm standard track and oversized rails.
I did measure these flanges against much smaller, scale rail (as appropriate for 1:24, my personal large scale preference), that rail would still be oversized for a 1:29 car, but the car could make it, assuming your trackwork was basically perfect, not much room for error there.

The scale differences.
The long time argument in "G scale" is scale itself. G scale encompasses so many "standards" ranging from 1:32 to 1:20.3, with way too many stops in between. I did some side by side comparisons to show how the new PCC looks next to some more familiar "standards"

Probably the most common large scale trolley is the Bachmann single truck open and closed cars. These are nominally 1:20.3, almost a 10% scale differential, made obvious below.

Even the GHB 1:24 streetcar (closing the gap a bit) still towers over the new PCC

Is any of this a problem ? Ask yourself, it's your trains, your railroad.

You don't have to answer to anyone except you !


Getting to the interior is relatively simple, there are 4 philips screws holding the body to the floor/truck assemblies. Removing the screws (follow your instruction booklet) allows you to separate the body. You will find the body still attached by virtue of a wiring harness for the lights at the rear of the car. Simple connector disconnects the body easily .

The interior is minimalist at best. Cast seats, no real motorman's position details (farebox, etc)

Again, realize that MOST people buying this will be very happy putting it on the track in the garden or even indoors, with no overhead, just another car to run.

Overall, this car is sure to be a hit with G scalers. It runs very well (a bit noisy in my opinion, but most of that would be lost with garden railroaders), looks pretty good, and will be available in several paint schemes. Aristo has a good reputation for quality and performance, as well as follow up for service and repairs, so nothing but good things should be expected.

For the prototype modeler, I would say, consider a gauntlet has been thrown down, you have a good starting point to build something spectacular and unique, run with it. I personally purchased two cars with a specific kitbash project in mind, as well as a future use for the second pair of trucks. I'll document those efforts in the coming weeks, and I look forward to other's efforts as well.

CA&E - Rte 53 Overpass in Lombard

The contest theme for our local NMRA Division for December 2010 was "Diorama", which had to include a structure and a revenue piece of rolling stock. Diorama building is of course right up my alley as I always have a need for such things for my IoFV display, something to put the cars into a scenic (and hopefully somewhat) accurate setting.

As per my typical route, I waited until pretty much the last minute to do anything. In my defense, the workload at the office is still pretty daunting, but I looked at Thanksgiving weekend as my key piece of time to get something done.

First up was finding a suitable scene. I had done a couple of AE&FRE scenes in the past, it was time to do something CA&E, and try something with third rail. After going through many many books, pictures, ideas, I settled on a color photo in the Morning Sun book "The Insull Chicago Interubans (CA&E-CNS&M-CSS&SB)In Color", by Gordon E. Lloyd.

The scene depicts the Rte 53 bridge in Lombard, Il.
A two track, concrete, Art Deco styled overpass

This is the photo from the book, it was lifted off of someone else'e webpage where I suspect they scanned it from the book, so chase down that guy first. In any event, of course the photo credit goes solely to Mr. Lloyd, and I will remove it if asked.

Back to the model. I didn't have any measurements, and frankly was just to damn lazy to go to Lombard and do any measuring. The overpass still exists as part of the Illinois Prairie Path Bike Trail, or at least I assume it does since I haven't been that way in about 10 years, and I remember seeing it back then. Maybe I'll look at Google Earth when I'm done here, ah the internet, world traveling from your desktop.

So, based on (a) the size of the piece of foamcore I had handy to use as a base, and the generalized measurements of the Pullman and St Louis cars in the photo, I came up with a typical model railroad "selectively compressed" version. The bridge/overpass itself is built from styrene, the colums are simply long narrow boxes built up from strip styrene, edges sanded smooth, and the tops filled in with modeling putty and sanded smooth. In point of fact, this was an incredibly easy build, really suprising just how dynamic of a scene it creates given the honestly minimal amount of effort needed to put it all together. The basic scene and the overpass were built in one day, the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2010. The scenic elements (the two hillsides) were done the following Saturday, and the track was laid and ballast added the first Monday and Tuesday of December. All just enough to get things to set up, and dry and be ready to be handled for the Division meet on Sunday the 12th.

The scene has two failings, one is that it doesn't have the railings in the photo. I may add those at some point, I really left them off because (a) I was lazy, and (b) they'll end up being pretty fragile, which will simply irritate the hell out of me when I snap one or more of them off somewhere down the road, most likely just before a train show starts. The other failing is that it has Code 148 track which is a bit big. I purchased some Micro Engineering Code 148 track for my O scale layout about 9 months ago, in typical fashion, once the damn track was laid, then ME announced that they were coming out with Code 125 ! Oh well, it looks okay and given that I have an interest in older "historic" models that were built in the days before fine scale standards and such, it's not such a bad thing to have something a bit heavy handed that can handle those cars and deeper wheel flanges.

In the very likely event that I won't get around to posting anything else in the next 14 days, consider this my extended wish to you and yours for a safe and happy holiday season, regardless of your religious preferences (or lack thereof) and credit card limits !

*** UPDATE - After posting all this, I just couldn't leave the thing without those railings, so,, after a couple hours of hacking up some more innocent, unsuspecting styrene, here you go.

It makes for an obvious difference, and was well worth the effort, I would have seriously short-changed myself by letting it go without those railings.

Elgin Aurora and Southern

Two updates in two days,, what, did he lose his job ??

Anyhow,, for those of you faithful readers playing along with the home version, you may recall the saga of the Aurora & Geneva Rwys #2, a brass GHB Brill Semi-Convertible car in 1:24 scale. For those of you not playing the home version of our game, or those that can't remember, check the older posts, I'm far too lazy to rewrite the story again.

The Aurora & Geneva Railway Company #2

Fast forward to September 2010

Another one of these relatively rare cars found it's way onto eBay. The car was listed at a much higher price than the original 25+ year old price I was able to get mine for, and the car didn't sell. I sent the seller a friendly FYI email advising of market conditions and what I paid for my car, and sure enough, a day or two later, the car was relisted with the lower price I paid for mine.

I posted a notice on the Yahoo Large Scale Trolley Group in case anyone else might be interested in the car, and luckily no one bit. We'll get to the luck piece in a minute...

About a week later, the seller sent me a private email and offered the car at a much discounted price from his lowered asking price. Fool that I am, a fool and his money were soon parted !

And for the record, I don't know why I do this to myself. I had no interest or desire in having two of these cars, even with different car numbers !

In any event I ended up with the car. I'm glad it was me and not someone else, because I had mentioned the car to any number of folks, and it was NOT as advertised on eBay, the car was a far cry from the "Excellent Condition" it was listed at. Even with my discounted purchase price I was left feeling a bit cheated, and I can only imagine how someone might have felt getting this thing at full price. I bit the bullet and kept it, deciding to make lemonade out of this lemon.

(Dumb idea, I like beer, not lemonade !)

Anyways, the problems with the car weren't overly bad, just very frustrating and time consuming. I made the decision to work around the issues and build something different, settling on Elgin Aurora & Southern Brill cars of a similar era. The major differences were wood front ends, and Brill Model 77 trucks. A fellow LST member had a use for the original Maximum Traction trucks and a deal was quickly struck, further lessening the sting of the purchase !

I had just enough time the last week or two to get the car semi-presentable for Trainfest. New poles and hooks from Light Rail Products, new Brill 77EX trucks with NWSL Carpet Drives, some other minor detail changes (Car is no longer convertible). Much more to go, needs steps, final truck mounting, clean up, re-install the interior, etc.

The new trucks

Updates when it's all done !

Trainfest 2010

Slowly but surely getting back to modeling..

Had to scramble a bit last week to get everything finalized for Trainfest 2010. Several new models which I'll detail in the next week, including a conversion of the brass GHB Brill Convertible car (not the one I originally post about, a new addition). Several new memorabilia additions as well, including an original AE&FRE rollsign (cut in two unfortunately, but the cut is clean and centered between two destinations,, best part is it's cut perfectly for display purposes, probably the reason it was cut to begin with), and a CA&E headlight.

So, here's what we had last weekend, (Sat/Sun - 11-13, 14)

As always, thanks to those that stopped by and visited,

and especially those with a kind word or two !

At long last, summer is gone and an update

What started as a promising summer of sun, fun, and enjoying life and the new CA&E cars out at IRM came to a pretty loud crashing halt by the end of July. I find myself torn between bitching about working so hard/so many hours, yet juxtaposing that with the realities that our national economy is still struggling to get back and a lot of the work I have done, has been translated into lots of new toys ! Ahh, perspective.

Anyways, it seems like the worst of the worst is in the rear view mirror and life can return to normal (or what passes for normal for your friendly host/blogger). I really got back into the thick of things last month with our first monthly NMRA meeting of the new season. I was fortunate enough to take first place in our monthly contest which was "New", something with a fresh/out of the paint shop finish. I painted up the nice custom built brass CA&E Miller car I purchased earlier this summer. I said it then, and I'll repeat it now, I don't think I truly deserved to win, but I ain't giving it back ! Anyone truly desperate to see the car can see it on our Divsion webpages in the Oct 2010 Semaphore newsletter. Go to http://www.foxvalleydivision.org/, select the "The Semaphore" tab on the left and pick the Oct 2010 issue.

Anyways, now with what I hope is the worst of the workload at the office behind me, I can concentrate on getting back to business. Of course a quick look at the calendar reminds me that I now have slightly less than 3 full weeks to get done the 8 weeks of work that I need to accomplish before Trainfest ! Typical, typical.

So, at long last, an update, short on goodies, but better than nothing.
More within the next week at most, I PROMISE !

Updates - Finally

It's been a couple of overly busy weeks, so both the promised updates (and any real modeling) have been in short supply. So, somewhat spraying to all fields, here's what you missed, and the "plans" for the near-term future. If memory serves, the last time I left you, the faithful reader, I was swamped with work, which really screwed up my typical last minute push to get things ready for a show. Anyone who feels the need to ask why wait till the last minute, clearly doesn't understand model railroading !

And for the record, all of this last minute push was done to get ready for the July 4th Trolley Pageant/Yahoo Large Scale Trolley Mini Meet at the Illinois Rwy Museum and I can happily report that the big guys do the same thing, they were feverishly finishing touch up paint and final lettering to at least 3 newly acquired CA&E cars (the full size ones) on July 3rd !

This year the Yahoo Large Scale Trolley Mini-Meet featured something not done previously, a contest, or "challenge". It was thought of pretty much last minute, 98 days out from the 4th of July. The challenge, starting at that moment, build something new that would be finished and operable on July 4th. In typical fashion, I went immediatlely for the kill-shot and started on something big, flashy, and frankly, inappropriate,, an Illinois Terminal Streamliner.
I got a really good start on it, before deciding that it wasn't really in the "theme" of things, and stopped and scaled back my plans. It will be finished at some point because it's simply too damn big and cool not to complete, but as it turns out, it would have had problems clearing even the biggest loop we had set up with 6-7 foot curves, this thing is big.

Scaling back (and really having to build something that would fit any available on-hand power trucks), I decided to keep with the Interurbans of the Fox Valley theme, and built a single truck line car, Aurora, Plainfield & Joliet #3. Yes, it is a prototype car, circa about 1885 or so.

In progress, about 2 weeks before the 4th

And the finished car, such as it is. I was fortunate enough to be named the winner of this year's competition, although I think the judge's decision (Jan Giradot, the Yahoo LST list owner) was based on his collective idea of how much effort I had put into making the event work out, and how much he enjoyed the Interurbans of the Fox Valley display I put together for the event in the depot, but that's another story, I won, and I ain't giving it up, so there !

Some of the happy Yahoo LST group, from left to right, we have:
Rick Hannegan from Pennsylvania, Bob Kutella, from Illinois (and IRM)
Jan Giradot, from Colorado, Bryan Anderson, from Iowa, Charley Sheets, from Ohio, and on the end, the incredibly svelte looking one is yours truly.
Cliff Burnstein from Kentucky was clever enough to avoid picture taking !

All in all a very successful weekend, we set up on Saturday the 3rd, and operated some of the afternoon on the 3rd and all day on the 4th. 4 operating loops, including one with live overhead (supplied by John Nelligan, who graciously offered the layout's use even though he was out of town), and we had operations with 2-rail and battery power as well.

A special note of thanks to some of my local NMRA Fox Valley Division members. The call for help went out in mid-June, and Jim Allen stepped up immediately, offering not only to help with setting up and tearing everything down, but also brought his "Action & Reaction RR" display, which is a HO scale train that operates on a bicycle wheel. As the train moves, it turns the wheel, so there is motion, coupled with a sense of being stationary. Has to be seen to be believed.

Jim also brought along Mike Hirvela, and both guys stayed much of Saturday and all day Sunday, helping with the day's events. We were also joined early Sunday morning by Jim Osborn who also helped with some of the last minute set-ups.

I also set up a version of the Interurbans of the Fox Valley display in the depot.

Couple new additions, most significant I suppose is the original Fox River roll-sign I got earlier this summer. One special/strange moment,, someone was viewing the display, and then seemed to get all excited. They took off, and then came back a few minutes later with a friend and the latest issue of First & Fastest magazine (which the IRM bookstore has on sale). I was lucky enough to have the IoFV display noted in the current issue and this person had apparently been thumbing through it in the bookstore and then realized he was able to see the same thing in person. Funny, weird, strange. And no - I'm not signing copies !

The display inside the depot (Jan Giradot photo)

I'll wrap up the July 4th reporting with a final thank you to the folks at IRM, starting with Bob Kutella who is the defacto host, and all the people who helped make the day successful. Of note, Barb Lanpheir, Buzz Morrisette, and John Faulhaber come most quickly to mind. I know I missed many more names than I included, and my apologies, feel free to contact me to edit this post and include the missing !

I wrapped up the July 4th weekend by getting some measurements of display cases out at IRM. I was asked to put together a semi-permanent display of the Interurbans of the Fox Valley.

Got my info and then spent the following week trying to visualize the whole project, spent the following Saturday building displays, mounting materials, and then finally spent the better part of Sunday the 11th setting it all in place. The finished display is up now and available at no extra charge to IRM visitors. I'll likely take it down sometime early-mid October in order to use some of it at Trainfest in November and store the rest for the end of the season.

The IRM Display. This is in the Art Train car, which is parked just south of Barn 4 where the Electric Car Department does much of it's work. Next to the Streamliner cars which are also open for display. (Special note, both the streamliner cars and the display car are air-conditioned,, this is the single best-kept secret at the whole museum on a hot summer day !)

So, other than all of that, my personal modeling hit something of a wall. Just too much needed to be done to keep up with shows/museum/displays/etc, and way too much going on at work. In the interim, I've done the next best thing, spend some of my hardly-earned income on new toys.

I've really built up the O scale fleet the last couple of months, it's really been something of an embarrasment of riches. Lots of goodies finding their way to the marketplace at very favorable prices !

In no particular order :

The Illinois Terminal C-Class motor. My plan was always to expand the Interurbans of the Fox Valley concept to Interurbans of Illinois, so this will come in handy. Keeping the theme of expanding to Interurban of Illinois, I also grabbed 3 Clouser North Shore cars (already in preliminary Greenliner paint, just needs finish details and lettering), a little GE 25 ton steeplecab, also destined for North Shore paint, a B/W steeplecab which will be paired with a sister in CA&E colors, and a great CA&E modernized Kuhlmann coach. I also picked up another CA&E Pullman car, one of the new Bachmann Peter Witt cars (Indianapolis Rwy maybe ??) and as of today, compliments of Ed Skuchas, the final Fox River 300 series car is on it's way to me, giving me all seven in the series.

Needless to say, plenty of projects, painting, and building for the next few months !

The plan for this weekend is to chill out a bit (no pun intended as we're in the middle of a two week 90+ degree temperature run in Chicagoland) and sort things out, get resettled and rearranged. Hoping to get the track in place for the GS layout and maybe even ballasted !

Will update that series as we get back on track !