Some scenes under the RR overpass

[herronpeter]

Peter

[Guest]

Nice!

[Allen]

Cool!
Can you tell us a bit about these images Peter?

[Paul S.]

Ooooh, I like me a Willamette!

[herronpeter]

Well, Paul, you have good eyes! That’s an OMI model of Medco #4 a Willamette for sure. The cylinders are a dead giveaway. The boys at Abanakee Lumber are thrilled the brass bought her from Medford Lumber. The 2-8-2T is an ex Long Bell lumber Company engine made by Alco in Schenectady, NY about 15 minutes from my house. It’s a NWSL Toby model. I installed sound in both as well as painted, lettered and weathered them. Scale is O, track is hand laid code 100 rail. The bridge was scratch-bashed from the sides of 3 old Lionel plate girder bridges. The columns are dowels inserted into a base and the abutment was made using photos of poured concrete applied to wooden forms. (I’ll post some pics of how I made them separately) The beams are either Evergreen or Plaststuct. That about it. Thanks,

Peter

[Allen]

Thanks Peter! Makes a post nice when you know a little more about it.

[Russ C]

I like the Willamette and the Minarets.
I had a NWSL HO version years ago but it never ran very well.








i like the Will

[Michael Whiteman]

Wow Peter! These are absolutely beautiful. I really like the lit cab interior in that tank engine. The real Medco #4 is being restored about 6 miles from where I live. I haven't seen it for a couple of years but I hear they are making great progress with her. Here's a link if anyone wants a closer look. https://www.soc-nrhs.org/page4.html I know you have this Peter.

[herronpeter]

Russ C. I'm surprised as the O scale 2-8-2T's made by Toby, run like Swiss watches with a Sagami Can motor and straight forward drive line.

By the way, I know most call these Alco made tank engines Minarets but the proper term for these built by ALCO is "ALCO saddle tank Mike". They are often called "Minarets" given the fact that the first examples of these were built for the Sugar Pine Lumber Co. that also operated the Minarets & Western Ry out of Pinedale (near Fresno), CA. However only the sole 2-10-2T that ALCO built was officially called the "Minaret Type" by ALCO as it was special built for the Sugar Pine Lumber Co. Pic below:



Peter

[Russ C]

Yep. The 2-10-2 was actually the minarets. I had a book on the railroad years ago, quite good too.
My engine was old, bought second hand which I think was part of the problem. It had an open frame 5 pole motor with a rubber tube universal between motor and gearbox. It had coil springs on each axle bearing which is how it came to have a 'nose down' look.

[herronpeter]

Michael, thanks for the kind words. I had no idea the real #4 still existed until someone asked me about the models "provenance" (their phrase) and I stumbled upon the web site I posted. Now 2 of my locomotives have been preserved. See video below:

https://youtu.be/KuFtif8UL_w

I modernized her for the Abanakee Lumber Company with new stack, headlights and converted the tender to oil.

The original Little River #126, was a rare 2-4-4-2 built by Baldwin in 1909. It was too heavy and returned to Baldwin who sold it to Columbia River Belt Railway where she was named Skookum in 1910.

She was restored to running condition by Oregon Scenic Coast RR shop.



Peter

[Russ C]

I liked that little 2-4-4-2. I had an Oriental Powerhouse series version. They were a brass mech with diecast boiler. I think my
friend over east still has it

.
Not a very good shot, made worse by the Photobucket thingy.

[herronpeter]

I only remember the Akane all brass one which was too dear for my father's wallet. I was SOOOOOO disappointed but it taught me a lesson-never tell the hobby shop owner you know for sure your father will pay for it if you order it! I was never able to show my face there again! I always wondered what the owner did with it!

Peter

[Russ C]

Yes, they came out before the Oriental locos. nice little locos though.

[LorenC]

I'll probably be escorted to the door but I like the 2nd photo (just the box car) of your first post the best. I can't explain why but the view of unencumbered space both beneath and beyond the bridge is magical to me.

[herronpeter]

No way, Loren. Everyone has different tastes, likes and dislikes! How dull the world would be if everyone liked the same thing. From a photographic standpoint, I agree with you, but I wanted to "show off" 2 of my Abanakee Lumber engines. Below are the rest of the box car pics. I was doing a focus test. I’m going to try to take the pictures again with photo stacking to see the difference…..

Peter

[herronpeter]

The first and third picture would be better with photo stacking. It would also help if I’d gotten rid of the acorn! Where that came from, I have no idea.

Peter

[LorenC]

Peter, thanks so much for posting the additional photos. Hahaha. I didn't see the acorn until you mentioned it. For me it is usually people that have fallen over that I don't notice until after the picture has been taken.

PS. I am about to bite the bullet and purchase a photo stacking program. Which one are you using?

[Allen]

Not trying to step on Peter's toes, but I picked up the Helicon Focus Lite version, the lifetime package for $115 when it was on sale for $85 a couple years ago.
https://www.heliconsoft.com/helicon-...censes-paypro/

Also just a note LorenC, if you have an iPhone, check out the app called CameraPixels lite. It's a free app that works great! The Lite version has pretty much everything one needs. What it does is to shoot an scene and every shot it takes it refocuses the camera.
If you set it for 10 images and hit the button, it will shoot ten shots consecutively and change the focus each shot. Then you can dump all ten shots into Helicon or the like and hit render.

Both programs work for what I need. I'm curious as to what Peter uses as well.

[LorenC]

Thanks Allen. I don't have an iPhone but my daughter keeps encouraging me to get one a promises that I will be able to see a lot more photos of the grandkids if I do. I guess that it is some photo sharing service that Apple has.

[herronpeter]

Allen hit it on the head. I use Camera Pixels the $9.95 version. However, it needs to be used with another program such as Affinity Photo to combine the pictures into one. Camera Pixel takes 10 pictures changing the focus from near to far. Importing the file into Affinity combines them and saves them as a single picture. The two together are way cheaper than programs that do both like Helecon Focus especially if you get the lite version which is free.

Peter