This gondola was scratch-built by Norman (in the picture) and Jon for the Tradewinds & Atlantic Railroad. They started by visiting the local railroad yard (with permission) and taking measurements of a prototype car. The model was shortened to fit in the space allotted in the club barn, but is otherwise a scale model. It is equipped with seats, airbrake reservoirs, and brake controls for use behind the club's Diesel locomotive. Like most of the stuff that comes out of their shop, the car is of all-steel construction. The shop is equipped to handle steel from start to finish, with equipment to cut, bend, shape, sandblast, and paint. Jon has found there is little room for compromise when it comes to painting and only uses Nason Fulthane© automotive-type paint. Miracle Railroad Products produced custom lettering for this project.

While we are talking about the club locomotive, Jon painted it in its current Atlantic Coast Line-inspired scheme of purple, silver, and yellow. TARR member Lew Agnello deadheads it around the track.

And while we are talking about painting locomotives, Jon painted this Baltimore & Ohio F-Unit for another club member. It has four colors of paint. Peeking in between is Kevin's Railway #4. This diminutive L'il Gasser locomotive was given to Jon's son Kevin for his fourth birthday. We'll talk more about Kevin's Railway down the line.

In keeping with the general size of Kevin's L'il Gasser, Jon has built a train of down-size cars for it to pull. This piggyback flat was built to the same size as Kevin's gondola and the trailer was then freelanced to fit on it. Everything is made of steel except for the rubber tires (caster wheels). The graphics were done locally.

This coil car was built from a kit offered by Precision Steel Car Co. It contains 250 parts and about 300 screws, although the basic parts are welded. The covers are removable like the prototype and Jon forced Connie Miracle to push the envelope on the graphics.

Here is a shot of Kevin's train as of early 2006. You can see the earlier scratchbuilt auto rack, gondola, tank car, and caboose at the rear of the train. Note that the locomotive is now #8 - Jon made so many cars for Kevin that #4 was just too light to pull them all! So, #8 was purchased in 2005 and repainted into the Kevin's Railway scheme.

  Always seeking unusual new things to build, Norman and Jon took on the task of creating a scale-model of a Union Pacific CA-13 class caboose for another club member. Working only from a simple line drawing and a few pictures, Norman and Jon created an exquisite model. While the roof was purchased from Mountain Car Co., it had to be extensively modified, rebuilt, and reinforced to be suitable for the narrow carbody. Mountain Car Co. trucks were extensively modified as well. In fact, the only things that weren't scratchbuilt or modified were the brakewheels, Tom Bee couplers and grabirons from Precision Steel Car. Again, Connie Miracle stepped it up a notch to produce the desired graphics.

A chance arose to build a scale flatcar. This 50-footer has over 6oo rivets in it. The front-end loaders still need blocking and chains to hold them down to the car.

 Norman's model of New York, Ontario & Western 2-6-0 (Mogul) is frequently seen sitting still around the track. :-) Britt Harrington joins him for a break.

Three recent cars out of Norm and Jon's shop.

Norman assembles a Mountain Car Co. kit for a TARR club member.

This is what they have so far. The trucks are kits from MDM Locomotive Works and have been finished for several years. Each of three axles on each truck has a .55hp DC motor and working air brakes. The scratchbuilt frame is done but needs to be repainted and have the handrails installed. The cab and body are scratch-built out of 16-gauge steel and the steelwork is complete. They are now in the process of going over the bodywork to make sure everything looks as good as it should before receiving a second coat of primer. After that comes a new set of modern electrical equipment to pass the power from four six-volt golf cart batteries. After that comes a paint job as shown above, which is the second paint job the prototype locomotive received.

Above, Jon stands behind the cab of the 5740. The cab still needs windows, windshield wipers, handrails, handbrake, radio antenna, and numberboards, but work is progressing quickly. The middle picture above shows one of two fabricated dynamic brake grilles in the jig to be soldered. The batteries are in place in the chassis, the underframe and trucks have been painted black, and the long hood needs a bit of blue paint where the EMD logos will go. The air compressor has been moved to the battery bay and the electronics section comes behind that. At the bottom of picture #3 above you can see a shiny black box. This is a 300 Ampere 4QD controller. It controls all the power going to the motors and also provides regenerative braking. This means that the power generated by the traction motors during braking is used to recharge the batteries a bit instead of being wasted as heat.