'Trench' loco arrived, very nice!

[Fred Klein]

Hello Ton,

I just saw the video of your layout and I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how much I enjoyed watching it. What a great layout! It's kind of what I'm striving for in my layout (when I get it built - have to tear down my N scale layout first).

I have a question: In the comments for the video, you mentioned that you scratchbuilt the rolling stock for the train using a Silhouette Cameo 3. I recently acquired a Cameo 4 with the same intention in mind. Is your rolling stock made from styrene or from another material and did you have any problems cutting whatever material on the Cameo 3?

Thanks for sharing your video of your great layout.

Fred Klein
Okeechobee, Florida

[Ton N]

Hi Fred, I use 0.5mm styrene sheet to make the "cardmodels" to make the rolling stock.
The Cameo 3 does not completely cut through the sheet but i don't mind.
keeps the parts together anyway.
You can brake-out the parts or cut them out with a knife.
Most of the bodies are made of at least two layers of styrene to give the model strength and depth.

Ton

[Fred Klein]

Ton,

Thank you for the quick reply. The fact that you use plastic is great news. I have done a lot of research on the 'net and have found various sites saying that they have cut plastic anywhere from .010" (.3mm) up to .030" (.8mm). From what I can find, the plastic you are using equates to roughly .020". I agree with you about needing 2 layers to make the model sturdy enough.

According to the hype from the Silhouette website, the Cameo 4 is supposed to exert more downward pressure than previous model, so I'm also going to attempt to cut some .030" (.8mm) styrene at some point. However that will be somewhat in the future. When I do, I'll post the results here.

Again, thank you very much for the information and the great layout.

Sincerely,
Fred Klein
Okeechobee, Florida

[p51]

The online Model RR Hobbyist magazine for October had a two-line announcement that said Bachmann was coming out with a second run of these locomotives:
https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/
I hope they make one that is far more accurate for the post-WW1 era markings. They should be black, not OD green!
Their 'WW2' one doesn't have very accurate markings for the type of stencil they used (don't take my word for it, look up the photos to see what I mean). But a black engine with those markings would still look more correct than that horrible OD green one, which wasn't used on a steam engine (the Davenport one at Fort Benning was simply painted with the same OD green paint they painted everything else with there outdoors but never was run in that color).