A few minor adjustments to the station area have been made.
A hedge now disguises the foundation of the Section house. A new pair of Oxford 1950's passenger cars have been added to the congestion around the back of the freight house. Otherwise not a wheel has turned on the engine service tracks or yard tracks of Port Costa.
The westbound mainline trackage around the curve at the west end of the layout has been tentatively laid out and tested with hand pushed freight cars. It is not yet powered. The layout for the turnouts for the crossover between the eastbound and westbound mains has been also laid out at the far left of the photo. The radius is a little tight at about 27" but what's a poor boy with only and 14 foot long layout to do. And the curved ramp from yard level to mainline level trackage works.
On the freight car building front, I have finally completed the painting and decaling of the UP A-50-16 automobile car from an early 2000's Trix RTR version. National Scale Car formerly Speedwitch decals were used to correct the incorrect Trix all yellow scheme and other lettering issues. The paint used is a base Taimiya Red Oxide primer with a hand brushed mix of 3 parts Vallejo 70.982 Cavalry Brown and 1 part 70.953 flat Yellow. Pledge Floor Gloss was brushed on the decal areas and then Tamiya Clear Flat spray used to seal and return a flat finish.
I am awaiting the delivery of a nickel silver sheet of 72 sets of etched the distinctive SP C-30-x caboose end platform ladders. I hope to have these available at my cost reimbursement price ( estimated at about $5) at the SPH&TS convention in Modesto September 14-18. I have been practicing assembly of the ladders using the UP brass ladder set I received earlier in the year from Bill Lugg of the UP modelers group. Bill helped me get in touch with Bill Meridith of Leadville Designs who has handled the design and production of the ladders as a custom etch. If there is sufficient demand I will fund the production of additional etch sheets (72 ladder sets per sheet.)
This is the etch which shows the two part ladders that were bolted through a flattened section of the end handrails. These are intended as replacements for the ladders on the Walther's C-30-1 model which tend to break over time. After soldering buyer supplied .020 brass rod ladder rungs in place they can be attached with canopy glue to the existing Walthers hand rails if they are intact. I am also working on how to build new hand rails if they are broken as are the hand rails on one of my Walther's C-30-1 cabooses.
More on this once the etch arrives.
The change to of at least two of my active steam locomotives control from DCC decoders to LocoFi WiFi control is still on hold as LocoFi has not completed the and released the Android app upgrade with steam locomotive type cab controls and wav files for steam exhaust, bells and whistles. I am also not particularly fond of using the Amazon Fire mini-tablet for the Android app and may change it over to my old Galaxy S8 now that I have bought a Pixel 6
I guess that's all for now folks....
