Civil War era Pennsylvania Rail Road passenger coaches

Told you I was going to do some painting. I finally took the Bachmann Central Pacific coaches I got in that huge lot last year, stripped them down and repainted as Pennsylvania Rail Road cars. These are your standard Bmann Old Timer coaches. I custom mixed the paint to resemble something like a Tuscan Red, as I have concluded PRR didn't use dark green back then. The roof, trim, and trucks are the Testors rubber color, which is like a very dark brown. Decals are from the MicroScale Civil War era sheets. 

Apologies for not cropping the photos first. I'll need to do some minor adjustments to the couplers, both with height and to allow for a tighter turn radius. Right now at least one truck derails each time they go through the S-turn coming out of the loop. I should be able to file the coupler pocket a little wider. These coaches look sharp in person, and I can't wait to do more painting projects like this. I really missed it. 

Starting a Shelf Layout

I'm building a new layout. This time it's a shelf-style, utilizing the existing shelf in the boys' playroom. This was the original plan years ago, but I was holding off on it since we expected to move at some point over the last 12 months. That didn't happen, and doesn't look like it's going to anytime soon with the market being insane. So I went to the store, picked up some wood, and started cutting. 

The only guide I was using was a pencil sketch I made with some dimensions. You'll see in a sec the shape of the layout on the shelf. But the idea here was to create something that I could easily take apart and move if necessary. So I created a pseudo-module standard for myself. The two ends would be L-shaped to accommodate the loops, with 2x1 sections added between. I'm going use bolts to connect all of them, again for an easy way to take it down and reassemble. 

I used simple pine board for the frame, and 1/4-inch plywood for the surface. It's extremely lightweight, something I'm happy about. I also picked up the "model trains" foam board that I should have used last time. This is all an exercise in "what I should have done last time." 

The two L's are in place, with the 2x1 section in the middle. If we want to expand--the shelf this is on extends to the right about 10 more feet--it's as simple as creating more 2x1 sections and plugging them into the layout. The track is not a final arrangement. This was a quick "let's see what we can do with all the track we have" and it worked out nicely to get some trains running right away and the boys happy.

I have to adjust and buy more track to make the loops fit better and just improve this overall. And of course we also have to put down the foam board. But I can say with confidence this is a vastly improved layout design, with longer runs and much easier access to all the areas. It wasn't easy reaching three feet across the old layout when a train stalled. 

This is the very early stage, so stay tuned as we progress!