Wordless Wednesday #113

Wordless Wednesday #112

Wordless Wednesday #111

Progress Report - 1 November 2015

These two photos show the difference between in the overall lighting in this section of the layout with the lights off (above) and lights on (below). There's not a great deal of extra light on the layout (although it seems far more noticeable in person than in photos), but the under cabinet strips serve to reduce the extreme shadow caused by the soffit and even out the "sky." 

Stic came by early on Sunday morning and we managed to get some new, much needed lights (undercabinet lights leftover from the bottom of the old upper deck) over the former White River Junction yard area. Amazing how much better it makes that section of the layout look. We also brought the homasote and plywood sheet downstairs and got the risers leveled out so now there's a big flat section of benchwork. 
Next task is to develop a plan showing what will emerge in this location. At the same time I need to figure out the staging arrangement in the utility room. 
Sorry I didn't have a chance to take some photos - I will go back and add to this post - it's really amazing how much different (and better) the additional lighting brightens up the area!

Wordless Wednesday #110

XTRA 471

This post is something of a work in progress. This is one of the set of photos that inspired my "Williams Creek" bridge scene. It's been something of an ongoing project to identify each of the cars in this train with the idea of modeling them.
I've managed to ID most of them - but believe I may have misidentified the boxcar in the second photo partially obscured by the bush. At first look I saw the Roman style "L &" (all that's readable in the photo, though there is clearly another single letter after the "&") and figured this might be an Louisville & Nashville car, perhaps one of the L&N's rebuilt cars with "reverse" Murphy ends. This seemed entirely logical. L&N didn't have a huge boxcar fleet, but it was a fairly substantial one, and entirely likely to show up in a wayfreight in south-central New England.

But closer examination shows the car has a flat end and a pronounced seam at the top of the end creating the appearance of a triangle on the top of the end. I couldn't identify a class of L&N boxcars that looked like the rest of the car with that style end. One group of cars with this end were the 1932 ARA boxcars. But which of those would have "L &" as the reporting marks.
The true freight car experts already have the answer of course. And, after doing a little more digging this weekend I'm now of the opinion this is a much more rare (considering sheer numbers) Louisiana & Arkansas 1932 ARA boxcar. As built these cars had a block, almost Gothic style lettering with the roadname spelled out above the reporting marks.
This one doesn't have the roadname and the lettering is clearly Roman. Which means this is the second scheme these cars wore, with the "L&A" and car number to the left of the door and a Kansas City Southern herald to the right of the door. 
I know Atlas makes a 1932 ARA boxcar - and even made one in this scheme. 
Guess who can't find one of those anywhere??

Wordless Wednesday #109