Hey there. Current time seems like a decent time to make progress on projects which have stalled or gone dormant or been set aside to do other projects in other genres.

As part of the overall scheme some more detail parts ordered via Ozark Miniatures arrived in today’s mail.

The other day it became necessary to repair a breakage on the V&T 4-6-0; somehow, the retaining pin for the main rod broke

Fortunately, the is the hulk of an ancient battery-powered Big Hauler from which to strip parts, the purpose for which it was acquired.

Also in progress, again, are some boxcar scratchbuilds for my freelance Willow Creek Traction line.

Construction was started when I was a poor man and couldn’t buy new materials specifically for such a large project, so they are a mix of basswood, balsa, and matt board.

They will have the typically lighter weight look of interurban boxcars; a look which includes a shallow arched roof with rounded ends.

After several years of pondering exactly how to construct the roofs I decided to raid the balsa planks stashed for making a couple more rubberband powered submarine models since they will likely never get made at this point in my life. Wood will be glued to roof base then carved to shape.

Am pondering covering the fairly soft balsa with something & I still have the light fiberglass from an un-done RC boat project of a decade ago. Would probably need to get new epoxy/resin though.

Also for WCT are some cars which will look like battery trailers sometimes used on mine electrics or industrial electrics - they will provide additional pickup points for the HLW Sparky with its 4 wheels.

EDIT: Oh, guess it might be relevant that the contact wipers are from Bachmann Big Hauler coach kits bought in 2009. They are flattened and tipped on their sides to contact wheel backs: on B’mann cars they went vertically between wheels on truck in an inverted V to contact rims of wheel flanges - in practice they made more efficient brake shoes than electrical contacts.

V&T Big Hauler is getting its firedoor cut out so as to make a thing and install flickering fire effect lights. They would look grand reflecting off the fireman figure at night as he tosses another log in to the firebox.

Modifying Ozark Miniatures lamps for LED lighting with 5mm LED.

A bit of bracket trimming is necessary to being the light emitter pert of LED in line with the lens openings.

Hole in bracket requires reshaping to allow LED leads to not short on it.

Both the above hold true for both the little round LED stripped from solar yard lights & the cylindrical LED stripped form Christmas lights.

The LED from Christmas lights have an end with inverted cone so as to throw more light out sides than ends.

That will need to be filed down a bit to allow LED to fit inside marker lamp casting.

Using warm white LED on class lamps & red on caboose marker lamps.

Nice work some nice things going on here. Like the lights for sure.

Thanks Devon! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
For a couple years have been pondering what to do for handrail posts for the electric locomotives.
Would love to be able to just buy exactly what I want. In healthier days I would have dived in to making a design me brain has dreamed up, but it involves a lot of tube cutting and parts soldering.

While I’m wishing things, wish I had exactly the right 1/24 scale figures to sit in the caboose bay windows then the bays and windows would be sized around them.

Made progress on illuminated markers for WCT’s caboose via caboose markers/switchstand lamps from Ozark Miniatures.
Goal is to have them powered by rechargeable batteries attached to solar panels on roof.
That all being pulled from a pair of those yard lights.

Lanterns have 4 lenses, 2 will be blanked.

–> Update: okay, that worked well enough,

Wow man, some people are doing metalwork, electronics, using shop tools, modifying commercial lenses; me, I glued some sticks to a couple boxes.

(https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)

The intermediate sills are not intended to be contest quality prototypical since my policy is for car bottoms to normally remain hidden from direct sunlight.
And if the abnormal does happen to happen, there likely are greater priorities than whether exact-to-scale scale construction had been used.

Getting a lot done I see. Great work!