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My 1500km road trip in the name of Lego . . . . some pics and commenta
Breakdown posted a topic in Community
There's probably a couple of you who saw just the 1500km round-trip part in the "Shameful Confessions" thread. For those who don't know I'm from Canada. Tariffs are a pain here, and 12V lego is virtually non-existent anywhere in the Americas. If you spend 48 hours, you are permitted $800, so I managed to grab a few outer rails for my blue 12V stuff, a few cross overs and managed to snag a great deal on a pair of monorail points. Ever since seeing pictures on social media from a friend I've had the abandoned turnpike on my bucket-list. The key has been finding a legitimate reason to go there. An auction winning from just inside the Virginia border would finally be the catalyst - stated on E-bay local pickup only. After much back-and-forth between the sellers and myself, along with a friend's house that I stayed at - around the Pittsburgh area. We settled on a date, and then it was just me my car, my friends and 1500km on the road. (For those with a keen eye for violations, my car was in park while taking pictures in juristrictions where there are laws against that kind of thing. I also had some help in the car. It's about an hour an a half to the US border. I selected the "Rainbow Bridge" because it was the long weekend. The picture, and by far the clearest I've ever seen in my lifetime at that location, is the duty free store, just prior to hoping on the bring. It's usually more time efficient to cross at the Peace Bridge, but inbound visiting the US, it's usually the worst or near worst of the three options. In all I spent about 30 minutes in queue awaiting customs. It's a pretty spectacular view. This is the view just prior to entering Grand Island. There's not much on the island, other than a small them park of sorts, which looks very dated. There's a $1 toll to cross into the island. This view, you can see the Skylon Tower, Minolta and the Casino down by the Falls. Obviously the bridge to the island. I look some Panoramas, and eventually I'll get around to processing some of those. I love the blue on these bridges. I was just weirded out by these patterns, it's as if they wanted to prevent walking on grass at all costs. You can't really walk in a straight or perpendicular line at all, this is from the lookout, where the pic of the bridges was taken. Bridges leaving the island are more attractive. But man are they skinny!! Welcome to PA!! This was the 10 minutes of driving on the way out where it rained, not hard, just just got a little rain. PA is the northern border of where we can get this stuff and OMG!! That sweet, sweet nectar. I was so hungry but it was totally worth waiting for Pennsylvania for the Sweet Tea. I can't get this at home and every day without it I die a little inside. -
Well another month another MOC! This is actually my first non-steam loco MOC, and, as far as I know, the first Lego model of this loco as well. Produced between 1950 and 1953, the RF-16 was an early diesel electric locomotive built by the soon to be extinct Baldwin Locomotive Works. While the RF-16 is typically synonymous with Baldwin's awesome "sharknose" trim (the main reason I wanted to model this loco), the styling had already been used on the earlier DR-6-4-20 and DR 4-4-15. 160 RF-16s served on the B&O, NYC, and PRR for about 10 to 15 years, though two units were running on the D&H up into the late 70s, and I believe the pair are still stored on some shortline in the boonies today. I've ordered parts to build at least one unit in a PRR black with pinstripe livery (the pinstripe and livery will probably be a sticker) - I would have really liked to do dark red with pinstripes, but dark red doesn't come on nearly enough parts. The part I'm least happy about is the windshield; Lego just doesn't have the resolution and doesn't make anything in the right shape to capture that funny windshield shape. From the start this unit was designed to run on PF unlike my T1 tender where the PF was kind of an afterthough. I've got two M motors geared 1:1 powered by the big battery box. The grate at the rear of the loco is a ladder such that you can shoot PF signals to the receiver behind it. And finally you can see some of the shenanigans used in the sharknose. Since I didn't have to mess with a complicated articulated chassis as in a steam loco, I haven't actually built any of this in brick, so it'll be interesting to see what happens when parts come. EDIT: Instructions for this model are now for sale on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-47470/NonsenseWars/148-baldwin-rf-16-sharknose
