MTL Loco Shed done, Sibley Tents, new Balloon Stacks

The Micro-Trains Line Civil War Era Loco Shed is finally
built and weathered. The Sibley tents are actually more
weathered than they looked when I took this photo.

After what feels like months of it sitting on the shelf, half-built, I've finally finished the engine shed. It looks nice, considering I wasn't entirely sure how to make it look like "new, but worn" wood construction.

The funny thing is... I have nowhere to put it on the layout! I'd have to rip up some of the existing track and make room for a few switches and the sidings going into the shed. But honestly, I'm not sold on doing that any time soon. This layout was never going to be my dream layout, and putting "rip up track" effort into it is not going to happen.

Whenever I do use the engine shed, it'll be a really necessary piece of the layout. I'm still debating where and when my dream layout will be--Alexandria 1862, City Point 1864, either of those two, but a different year? I have time. But what I do know is that finding this building and the Sibley tents was pure luck on my part, and I couldn't be happier.

The wood piles are coming along, too. They may require another round of painting.

New Balloon Stacks

Bonnet Stack from Kaloon Creek Models.

I've been in contact with Eric Cox about his Civil War era smokestacks. And he did adjust the size a bit and reduced the height they sit on top of the engine boiler. But I haven't ordered any of the remodeled stacks from him yet because he's also working on updating his other stock items, which I plan to order in one big batch.

In the meantime, I tried out these balloon stacks from the Kaloon Creek Models shop on Shapeways. They look very good. They're closer to the smokestacks found on the William Mason. I'll definitely use these on at least one of my four engines. The only issue is that the hole for the engine's mounting peg is too big, as you can see from how it sits a bit cockeyed here. I'd have to use something to either make the fit more snug, or glue.

You'll also notice two things about the engine. First is that the handrail on the far side is broken. Need to get fresh super glue for that. The old stuff didn't hold. Second is I tried to shade in between the wheel spokes. Eh, I'll work on it.

Balloon stacks for the Atlas 4-4-0!

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus, folks!

Presenting the biggest event in N Scale Civil War trains since the original Atlas/MTL run. Eric Cox of Panamint Models has posted his 3D printed Smokestacks and Cowcatchers for Civil War era locomotives.

This all came from me asking him if he would work up some designs. Turned out he had some already but never put them out because the print quality back then wasn't what it was now. I got to order the first public printing, and I got to tell you, they're friggin' incredible!

It completely changes the look and feel of the Atlas engines, which suffered from the blatant "this 1870s engine is good enough for Civil War modeling." Now, not only with the variety of balloon stacks from Eric, but the horizontal cowcatchers, these locomotives scream "1860." You can check out each of them below. In general, they're based on Rogers smokestacks, but will look great as Mason or Cooke engines, too.

I noticed they sit a little high on the post rising from the Atlas engine body. So what I did for the Rogers style stack is file out the inside of the base a little. That allows it to "hug" around the post a little more, lowering the distance between the bottom of the balloon base and the boiler body. I'm still working on it. Eric thinks they're a little too big still, and if he took them down another 5-10%, I'd be okay with that. Only the two bigger stacks should be taken down, if at all. The smaller one looks good as it is.