Follow along with Moe and Joe as they journey from car restoration to delivery of lumber. Moe and Joe ride American Flyer 971 Lumber Unloading Car into the train shop for a complete restoration. Meanwhile, New York Central 8552, recently upgraded with Flyerchief components, is building a train. NYC 8552 picks up the restored car and takes it to the sawmill for loading and then continues building the train. The Nickel Plate Road 765 couples up to the train and heads off. As NKP 765 passes the campground, we find that some bear mischief occurs. Finally, Moe and Joe deliver lumber for a customer. ENJOY! Did you spot the bear at the end of the video?
Music during the mischievious bear scenes from Free Stock Music by Alexander Nikarada.
Video recorded from iPhone 13 at 1080p and 60 FPS and edited in iMovie.
Speech bubbles created with Balloon Stickies Plus app.
Stop motions created with Stop Motion app at five FPS.
Over the past winter many pieces of rolling stock were acquired. The NKP 765 was recently acquired. All of the pieces in this train are included in those acquistions except for the yellow NKP reefer car. Some needed simple cleaning and lubrication while others needed significant restoration. The 971 Lumber Unloading Car was disassembled and cleaned. Rust was removed from the sheet metal parts and then they were painted with sandable automotive primer. A coat of gloss black paint was applied. The plastic flatcar section was given a light coat of CRC 2-26. Two very small tabs for fastening the parts together had broken so very small screws with nuts took their place. The car was reassembled. Meanwhile, my wife restored Moe and Joe with beautiful paint work. It took some work to "tune" the operation of the car as precision is needed for the solenoid to operate properly. First, the sliding platform needed to be adjusted so that only the two contact points touch the rest of the car. Then the rear of the platform was adjusted so the solenoid would push out the sliding platform just enough to unload lumber and the return springs could pull it back.
The 772 Water Tower waited many years for restoration as it looked as if someone had stepped on it. I finally purchased a new platform with railing, four new anchors for the base, and a metal ladder recommended by Doug Peck from Port Lines Hobby instead of the original plastic one. I cut and glued pieces of styrene to repair the broken and missing pieces of the superstructure. Other cracked pieces were glued together. CA glue and Plastruct Plastic Weld were used as needed. The new platform was glued to the superstructure. Testors contour putty was applied and sanded to fill the cracks. After all seemed good, a coat of sandable automotive primer was used. The assembled superstructure was painted with Testors Flat Aluminum paint. The water tank and anchors were painted with Krylon All in One Matte Fire Red. The dried parts were then glued together.
Overall, I think these two models turned out very well. I really enjoy running the NKP 765. I have run into the situation that when the NKP 765 goes through track switches (coming in on the curve) the frog is moved away from the straight rail eventually causing a derailment. I am not sure why this happens so any recommendations for a repair would be appreciated. Please place them in the comments section.
Upcoming projects include expanding the railroad empire. I have more accessories and no place on the layout to put them. I am looking into building a small hump yard, which I think would be fun and interesting to operate. A Gilbert two bay hopper car is being repaired. I plan to repaint it with a different road name. The Pennsy GP9 is being repainted with plans to change it to the Western Maryland paint scheme and create a matching caboose.