John Bull and Lafayette train sets.

[Penn1974]

Warflight,

You said that you used EZ Track for your layout. Is that the gray roadbed with nickel silver rails? That has to be the best ballasting of that type of track that I have ever seen. I wish mine looked like that. Possibly some time can you post how you achieved that look? Again great job.

[WoundedBear]

Ditto from me, Warflight. I would have never believed you could hide that plastic roadbed so well.

And compliments to toptrain as well.

Nice modelling.

Sid

[Warflight]

EZ track is the easiest I've ever ballasted...

Here's what you do... you get your Elmer's Glue All, and don't dilute it just yet... and you paint it onto the side of the roadbed (you can use a brush, Popsicle stick, damp sponge brush... whatever is easiest for you) Then for spreading the ballast, get the simplest ballast spreader that Bachmann (or anyone) sells.

This is the one I used:




For my ballast, I mixed Arizona Rock and Mineral "red" ballast, with some well washed "beach sand" (if you use sand from the beach, you need to not only wash out any and all salt, but you also need to take a magnet to it, just in case of iron filings, but then, I suggest using magnets for any "outside dirt" you may use for a layout)

The important thing though, is to apply the "Glue All" in a thin layer on all of your roadbed... it takes just a few seconds to do. And don't bother with any of the fancy ballast spreaders... I have tried them all, and the easiest to use, that gave the best coverage, was the simplest, no frills one.

The ground you see in the photo, BTW, is "Durham's Water Putty". I used that for my "shell", then painted it with a custom mixed "Red Rock" coloured paint from Home Despot, and then, while the paint was wet, applied dried tea leaves (tea from used bags for the finer grit, and used loose leaf for the forest floor, as that looks like HO scale twigs, and forest flooring) and then the path was made by dropping some beach sand, but, while it was still damp, running my "Groovy Wheel Groove" tool, which is basically, two plastic pizza cutters hot glued together, for making wheel ruts in roads:



The rest is static grass... some directly applied, and some where I just put a stripe of Glue All on a piece of aluminum foil, and made grass strips, and tufts.

That gives my finished product, in just a couple of hours:

[rich1998]

With Flickr, after you upload the picture right click on it and select "inspect element". This will open a subwindow below the picture. In the left hand portion you'll see a line that says "zoom small" and a bit below it on that says "zoom large".

Right click on the line that says "zoom large" and in the pull down that will come up select "copy link". In this case what you'll get is:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4918/45436288664_b32f4559a5_k.jpg

If you put that between image tags [i m g] [/i m g], without the spaces, you picture will show up in your post. Like this:


Len

When the TT is finished, it would be cool to see a couple workers pushing a loco around. Not many model a wood covered TT.

Rich

[WoundedBear]

When the TT is finished, it would be cool to see a couple workers pushing a loco around. Not many model a wood covered TT.

Rich

I also model a wooden decked turntable. I use the Atlas one because it is a Canadian prototype.

Sid

[AlanMintaka]

...
Hell, I have a Pegasus, that I installed DCC and sound in (using a Digitrax 8-bit N scale sound decoder) that has been running like a champ since I bought it two years ago.
...
I have a friend named "Mo" who recently put DCC into a DeWitt Clinton (simply because everyone told him he couldn't) Next step is DCC and sound (N scale decoders can be easily hidden on the tender, if you shave some detail down, and use some painted medical tape as a "tarp")

Hi Warflight,

I'm going to be taking a stab at adding decoders to my old HO 4-4-0 tender-driven engines.  Once I get the hang of working with decoders (assuming I can!), I'd like to do the same thing to my own Bachmann classics: Dewitt Clinton, John Bull, Lafayette.

I can already see why adding some weight to the classics is a must.  The things seem to fall off the tracks if I breathe on them the wrong way.

Does your friend Mo have a forum posting or some other online description of how he/she added the decoder to the Clinton?  Have you posted any instructions for how you added the decoder to your Pegasus?  

Thanks for your time and keep up the good work, these photos are great eye candy and fantastic inspirations that it can be done, despite the detractors of the classics.

[Warflight]

Documenting my build wasn't something I even thought of at the time I did it. I know Mo documented his build, but I think it was on one of the facebook model train forums, so I would have to try to find it.

[JLK2707]

Who are John Bull and Lafayette?

[Warflight]

Who are John Bull and Lafayette?

Well, "John Bull" is an American term for a British person. The "John Bull" was a British built 0-4-0 locomotive that was shipped to the US in pieces, with no instructions... once assembled, it became a 2-4-0 locomotive named "Stevens" after the president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad in 1833, however, it got the name "John Bull" because the crews kept calling it that, until the name stuck.

The Lafayette was a 4-2-0 "Norris" type of locomotive built by Norris Locomotive Works in 1837 for the B&O railroad (it was their first locomotive to feature a leading truck) and was named after the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette. It was based on the designs of the "George Washington".

Both locomotives, of course, have been offered in sets by Bachmann (and I believe the John Bull was offered as a separate locomotive outside of a train set... I don't believe the Lafayette was ever made outside of a set, though, I'm not 100% on that. They did offer the "King of Prussia" as a single locomotive. The "King of Prussia" was also a 4-2-0 "Norris" engine that was exported to the Germanies at that time)

I have found it interesting, that in the 1830s, we went from exporting locomotives from England, to exporting our own locomotives to England, and the rest of Europe by the decade's end.

[Warflight]

This is the "John Bull" locomotive:




And this, of course, is the Lafayette: