Coloma Rails - N Scale Model Railroading

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone... When I first wanted to get (back) into Model Railroading, the one locomotive that I knew I really wanted was a Chicago Metra locomotive.  Growing up on the West Line and riding the Metra into the city, I always loved this locomotive. So last night on Christmas Eve, my youngest child, wife and I opened presents.  To my behold, my wife got me a KATO EMD F40PH in the Chicago Matra liverly along with it being the “City of Elmhurst”, Elmhurst is the suburb I grew up right next to on the West Line. Since I knew I wanted one for my collection, I already had a TSC DCC K5D7 decoder ready for it, so this morning I followed the directions and got the decoder soldered into the locomotive and then programmed on my layout. It really is a Merry Christmas!

Back at  Trainfest in November  I met Lowell Smith in the vendor area and loved the cars that he designs and sells.  Back in 2010 he came out with the Disney Christmas Train line and each year reveals a new car at the Walt Disney Family Museum.  These cars sell out very fast and I was lucky enough to be able to purchase the 2011 ‘Mickeys Good Deed’ and the 2013 ‘Bambi’ cars from him while there.  The 2017 car was releasing on December 2nd and I knew I had to get my order in right away or I’ll miss out. Well I am glad that I ordered when I did.  My car finally came in the other day, and when I went back to his website this morning, the car is already Sold-Out, along with every other year.  It will be challenge to find/collect my missing years. Here is the 2017 Disney Christmas Car ‘Donald Duck’.

Well last night I got to complete the City Park for my layout.  Minus a few bushes here or there that I may add, it is now complete.  Since the pictures from the other day, the fencing was added, statue and cannons, and the trees. In the background is where my C&NW Terminal will be going, and on the rail with double bumpers, that will be the track to showplace some of my locomotives.  The Park will double also as a Train Park.

I am a little late on this post, but a few weeks ago I was able to add another diesel freight locomotive to my roster with the KATO Chicago & North Western #6847 EMD SD40-2. “As a prototype, the SD40-2 was the most popular second-generation diesel with sales of over 3000 in the U.S. and more than 700 in Canada.  There were many variations of this popular diesel because of the long production run.  “Early” units featured an 81” nose, chicken wire grills and a ratchet brake vs a brake wheel that would be found on later units.  C&NW #6847 and #6858 would carry the “as delivered” paint scheme that adorns them through their entire operational life, with the #6847 remaining operational to this day at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL.”

It has been aboout three weeks since my last update and things are moving along on my little N Scale layout.  The first week in December I had my son visiting from out of town so not much was accomplished, then doing scenery work takes a lot of time.  Waiting for paint to dry, waiting for glue to dry and so on.  So here is a litte update on how things are going with my City and Park.  It is still all a work in progress, and it will probably still be awhile before I get to any actual buildings.  I am working on the areas where the building will go first, then the actual buildings.

This past Sunday I started work on the scenery for where my Model Power ‘Freight Depot’ will be residing.  I was hoping to originally start my scenery work with the area around North Western Terminal (the parking lot and surrounding areas), but my order for my sidewalks did not arrive on Saturday like it was originally scheduled for.  So instead I elected to start on another part of the layout.  I already had the ‘Freight Depot’ in hand and knew where I wanted it to go and it would be a good location to test out my scenery skills (it has been a few years since I played around with any of the Woodland Scenics materials). First I applied some Brown craft paint as a base coat for the scenery. Second, I laid out some Brown Fine Ballast to be used as my dirt roads.  I plan on using this Brown Fine Ballast for all my dirt roads in the Industrial section of my layout. Third I sprinkled on some Fine Turf in Earth color (trying to avoid the road as much as possible), although a hand held vacuum

After watching plenty of videos on YouTube on ballasting N scale and specifically KATO Unitrack, it was now time to get it done on my C&NW layout. Growing up and attempting previous model railroads, ballasting was always an issue for me, but with the help of the internet, I think I finally got it right. There are plenty of YouTube videos on it now and I elected to go with the following approach. Items needed: Ballast White Glue Isopropyl Alcohol Scenic Cement Baby Spoon Craft Paint Brushs Eye Droppers Steps: I applied Elmer’s Glue-All full strength (white glue) on the edges of the Unitrack and a little on the trackboard. With a craft flat paint brush, I spread the glue evenly. I used a baby spoon to distribute the ballast over the edges of the track.  The baby spon allowed a bit more control to apply the ballast. With a fine paint brush, I cleaned up any ballast that was built up on the ties. With a wider flat paint brush, I brushed up at an angle any ballast on the track board clo

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! It was another good day for me yesterday with USPS.  A lot more packages started to come in from Ebay and Facebook purchases.  A bunch of the N scale buildings I will be using for the city started coming in.  I am still waiting on a few more, but from the looks of it, I may run out of room in the city.  My plan for the city may have to slide more into my suburban area.

Well the last couple of days I have really been giving our USPS lady a workout, packages and packages arriving for my layout.  I added another diesel freight locomotive to the roster with a KATO Chicago & North Western #928 SD40.  This model I had purchased used through a Facebook Group and already equipped with DCC. The following is borrowed from  Don’s Depot . 928 was built in September 1966, #32099, FN 7912-8, as CGW 408. It became C&NW 928 in 1968. It was retired on September 25, 1987 and sold to Washington Corporation in November 1989.  It was rebuilt for Corporate Leasing Inc as 3001. It then became MRL 3001 and was later renumbered 220. It was later transferred to I&M Rail Link as 220 in 1997 and sold as Iowa Chicago & Eastern 220 in July 2002.  It was retired in February 2007 and scrapped by Jabco Industrial in March 2007.