Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

The finished loading crane in Emsingen Over the last couple days I built Vollmer's 5727 "Ueberladekran", a loading crane for the Emsingen freight area. This is a fairly straight-forward build. I used the nice weather today to set up on the patio and spend the afternoon on finishing up the model after I mostly painted yesterday. As usual for my recent builds, I did some light weathering with acrylics and weathering powder. Here are some more details and close-ups.

The portable workspace is getting a workout ... ... I just need the whole dining table. I'm building the crane for the Emsingen freight area.

Today I went back to fix the Brawa BD4yg Umbauwagen that fell to the floor a little while ago . The Roco BR211, that was in operation on the Welztalbahn undetailed for the last 2 years, still needed its detailing, too. Getting inspiration and the correct color scheme of stirrup steps and handrails Detailed 211 082 in Talheim I also tried my hand at some light weathering of the roof and the hoods. I used thinned acrylics and Bragdon powders.

A Grenzzeichen in Emsingen What's a Grenzzeichen you ask? Grenzzeichen are used on in Germany wherever tracks diverge that are used to store cars or a train stops. The Grenzzeichen marks the location where a car on one track will foul the other track. This is obviously useful for in switching yards, freight stations, and similar situations. The typical Grenzzeichen is a pipe stuck into the ballast with a round enamel head painted white and red in quarters. I have thought about how to model German Grenzzeichen for a while. I considered painting a round piece of styrene. However, in HO scale the head is only 2mm in diameter, and painting quarters of that in red accurately was a little bit more than I felt like doing. I considered early Reichsbahn Grenzzeichen, a white stick with a red top, but by the early 1970's they would have been replaced pretty much universally. The other issue is that a scale Grenzzeichen is really small, and easy to overlook when switching cars. If I put t...

May, time for Makerfaire. This time around the weather was overcast and not nearly as sweltering hot as the last couple times.  We had fun this Saturday, but I do notice that the novelty has worn off. Yes, there's lots of cool stuff to look at, and yes, we recognized exhibits from last year.  Nevertheless, there's always opportunity for surprises. One of my favorite part is the combination of metal working, sculptures, and fire. There were several opportunities to press buttons and send some fire into the air. The Megabot exhibit was well attended, but they had a weapon system failure during the show we saw, so the oversized paint guns did not splash a car in paint. The "Mission Impossible" booth were one needs to pass through a web of laser beams to "steal" the glowing ball was quite popular. Overall,  this was a good way to spend a Saturday. The proliferation of Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and 3D printers continued. There was a vast supply of kits and add-ons o...

A quiet moment at Bayshore Yard To my surprise Silicon Valley Lines operated today. I thought we would just have an Open House for attendees of the NMRA PCR meet. As it turns out trains were staged and guests were ready for some action. For a change (and because I had a committment later in the evening), I ran Bayshore Yard, which was a very laid back way to spend the evening. Nowheres Yard is busy as usual and there is traffic in Jacksonville I also finally installed the two turnouts in the wood yard at the South Hallelujah paper mill. I'm starting to come up with a concept for the style of the various buildings and connecting infrastructure. Wood yard turnouts installed

Just in time for Bike-to-work-Day, rain is in the forecast, and as you can imagine in times of a severe drought emergency and mandatory water conservation, every drop of rain is welcome. Having lunch outside in a light drizzle is fun, too.