Reminiscing about O Scale National 2009

It was my first 2R meet and biggest meet outside York's TCA show.  I got to meet a lot of the movers and shakers in the 2R world from master modelers to guys like John Dunn, Mike Pitogo, Rich Yoder from RYM, Pat from P&D Hobbies, Ted Schnepf from Rails Unlimited, and Glenn Guerra from MRMW.

I remember the clinic on scenery, talking with Kirk Mitchell at Justrains' booth and grabbing a building and 2R trucks from him, staring at all of the parts available from SPL and appreciating even more the effort it takes to build steam locomotive models, sifting through the many detail parts, mesmerized by the amount of brass models available NIB, snatching up the 70T bettendorfs made by Auel that I saw at PDT, and just having an overall blast.

And then there was the model contest.  I remember being psyched about that.  A time to show off some of my work for the first time in person.  I was glad to be among the talent displayed in that room and was shocked to have won two awards my first time in.  It has sparked my interest to obtain the same level of craftsmanship or better.  Below are my two place-winning entries.

They are indeed from OST #46 and you can see the whole PDF version of this issue and others of O Scale Trains for free here:

OST PDF Issues

If you like this kind of modeling, be sure to subscribe to Joe G's magazine.  It truly is a great read everytime and its great to see others modeling efforts, stories, tips, and tricks.  It is also a fantastic resource to keep up on the latest products and local train meets.  If you're not a modeler yet, it may inspire you to give it a shot.  It's definitely more fun than a lot of people think.

As always, images are always clickable for larger resolution.
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O Scale 2R SOU 3-Bay Hopper 74139

Quality > Quantity. Always.  This means I usually limit my purchases to the most detailed rolling stock and engines available from importers and kit makers.  This also translates to me never buying any Atlas Trainman cars, but I feel there are a few cars I could use if I wanted to take the time to upgrade them to my standards.

I took some time to upgrade this Atlas Trainman Hopper.  I did this by  shaving off the plastic molded in grab irons and support railings and then drilling and adding metal ones instead. I also had to add rivets back where I accidentally shaved them off.

This took several hours, but it is well worth the effort.  I used Lehigh Valley Cornell Red to repaint the shaved plastic and grab irons.  It is a very close match for what Atlas used to paint their car.  The car was also weathered with an airbrush and Bragdon powders and had a railroad tie load added.

Note that to keep things prototypical to my era, I removed the COTS plates with isopropyl alcohol as well as the rebuild year.

As always, you can click to see larger images.