NTS&B Spring Power Stations

I finally got time to build a couple new power stations for the 'spring' section. Actually, the one on the right is for the 2 outside loops.  The one on the left will be for the center most loop, and the newly planned ceiling loop that will be above it.   It took most of the 4 day weekend to get them painted, assembles, and placed.  

NTS&B Rolling Stock Paint Scheme Started

A couple years ago, I  picked up a couple box car shells with the idea of someday coming up with a color scheme for the NTS&B rolling stock.  Also, a while back, I screwed up and made my depressed center flat car, which I had been using for my digital camera, into a permanent TV Camera car.   The depressed center cars work great for the digital camera, since they sit lower than a regular flat, so you see more of the buildings instead of just the roofs.  Since the depressed center cars seem to carry a premium price, I recently picked up a plastic ($1) and a long metal ($2) car (no trucks), so I purchased wheel sets for them while in York.  Since these cars needed painting, I decided to come up with the paint scheme and paint all of them now..  2 9020 flat cars that I paid $2 each for donated their trucks for the box cars, and I still need to find doors for them, which will be painted red.  After that I will have to make some decals with the NTS&B logos.   Below are the results so far

  3 of the new 4 cars

The plastic depressed center car

One of the 2 box cars painted, still needing doors

Metal Depressed Center Flat Car.  After I put it together, I discovered that the car was sitting higher than a normal flat car.  It had extra height where the trucks mounted, so I ended up trimming almost 1/4 inch of them. The center now sits slightly lower than a normal flat. I had also purchased 2 trucks with long shank couplers, since the coupler mounting pint was in father than normal.  They turned out to be too long for the car, but were the perfect length for my wooden test car, so these trucks were used on that.. The trucks from the  6017 caboose (see previous post) fit perfectly on this car (maybe a smidgen short, but not a problem).

The other box car, still needing doors

The long metal car, with the camera.  Notice the camera has plenty of room, but still sits a little high

The plastic car sits lower, but the camera has to be on an angle.  Note, the last 2 pictures were taken in a mirror, since I only have one digital camera.

NTS&B Caboose/Search Light Project cars

While at the York Spring Eastern Division TCA show in April, I picked up a broken, filthy 2357 caboose for $2 to use the trucks on another project car (depressed center flat car) I had going..  Then  I found a short spotlight load, that looked like it would fit perfectly on a caboose frame, do decided to use the caboose frame for that, and bought a couple extra trucks for the flat car. .  When I got it home, the caboose chassis cleaned up so good, that I decided to use it on a nice 6017 caboose.I had (unlit) that Jen had bought me for a birthday present, then use the unlit chassis for the search light. Now the 6017 is lit, has a smokestack, chimney,  ladder, windows, and tool boxes, and looks sharp

After several missteps, I finally came up with the right combination of trucks and power picks for the search light.  The 6017 had plastic trucks, so the power pickups I had purchased wouldn't work.  I purchased some modern power pickups, and discovered they wouldn't work on the 1960s model caboose trucks. I then swapped the trucks with a 9020 flat car, and discovered that had plastic wheels.  I finally discovered that I had a set that would work on my wooden clearance checker car, so robbed them for the searchlight. Here it is, finally finished and lit up.  The searchlight looks a little funny being so short, bu should go really well with the rest of my snow train