CNR 4-6-0 H-6-g Ten Wheeler

Original

This is my Van Hobbies CNR H-6-g 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler that came with a can motor. When I acquired this loco it was factory painted numbered 1369 with tilted wafers. I carefully removed the numbering from the tender, loco side and the number boards. The easiest way to remove old decals is to paint on decal setting solution, let is sit for a couple of minutes and then remove them with the tip of an Xacto blade.  If you are careful you can get the decal off without scratching the paint. I also use a q-tip with alcohol on it to sweep up the little flecks of decal. I added brass raised numbers to the cab. 
I installed a Soundtraxx 750 D&RGW decoder in the tender. While I had this open I installed an LED backup light.
I also installed a 1.1" speaker in the tender. Before installing the speaker I drew a template in Auto Cad and laid this on the floor of the tender and then drilled a series of professional looking holes in the floor. I then air brushed some black to cover the bare brass seen in those drill holes. A Soundtraxx double sided gasket was used to stick the speaker to the floor and because I did it this way there was no need for a speaker enclosure. I am considering installing a high bass speaker in the future.

 When I installed the decoder in this tender I made my own wire plug by cutting what I need from strip connectors. The connector is left inside the tender to make it tidy. I never take the tender off the engines very often, but if you need to do this you just have to remove the shell on the tender to disconnect the wiring plug. I filed a small notch on the bottom of the wall of the tender for the wires to pass through to the engine. I could not go through the floor because it would have interfered with the movement of the truck on the tender. 
This loco looks great and runs nice but as of this writing it will still only pull five 40' box cars on level track. I need to spend more time on trying to add weight or making some other adjustments so it will pull better. I also added semi scale Kadee couplers on the front and back. I painted the sun shades, driver rims and rods black. To paint the rims I just put it on my test track and give it some speed and then just held the brush against the rim.

The glass cover on the head light was done by putting white glue on the inside edge and then putting glue on a stick and dragging across the head light. It dries perfecty clear.

Foster Fire Hall

 

This is a building that I used to fill in a spot. This building is scratch built and the measurments came form the Bawlf AB Fire Hall that is still standing. Bawlf is just east of Camrose. It was a relatively easy build that makes quite a nice looking building. There is no interior modeled because when standing at the original building from 30' away you could not see anything on the inside through the windows. This is very typical of all buildings if you look at them with no lights on in the inside. I plan to add a fire truck out side if I can find one for the 1950's. The tower on the building was used to hang wet fire hoses to dry them out after use so that they don't rot. This was needed because of the material that fire hoses were made from back then.

Here I have added the dirt up next to the foundation so it doesn't look like it is sitting on top of the ground. I have also added grass, static grass, a tree at the back and added a little gravel to the drive way. In my home town back in 1959 we still had old style phones and a telephone operator in town. This operator had the ability to make all the phones ring at once both in town and rurally. They would then make an announcement that there was a fire somewhere. They could also use it to make community announcements. It was a big loss when we went to the new exchange around 1967. 

D7 Cat with blade

This kit is from Woodland Scenics which is not the best made kit. It needs filing and filling to get it together. The best part of the kit is the tracks and the blade. You get what you pay for and the price point is ok. But you can add some things to make it better.

A picture of the real thing

Here is the model I have. I have added leavers for stearing and the control lever for the cable lift, Add some weathering and looks good. 

Here is the finished model