One of the several tricky steps of building Miami Jai-Alai is fabricating the distinctive arches on the sides and front top. No commercial parts are available and it would be impossible to get clean cuts by hand. Time to dust off the craft cutter. The first step is to draw the arches in CAD. One […]
Category: CSX Downtown Spur
Miami Jai-Alai Dec. 26
Since my last posting, I’ve managed to complete the exterior sides and roof. The shape is fairly simple but, even so, the relatively large size made ensuring I got everything to the right size and fit a little more time consuming. Also, the larger size required far more effort to make sure that everything was […]
Miami Jai-Alai Dec. 12
Today I was able to get most of the core assembled and, of more importance, braced. A Gatorboard panel is inset as the base to keep things square. I also used a piece of it in the middle. After yesterday’s post I found some pieces of 3/4″ C channel in the shop so used that […]
Miami Jai-Alai Dec. 11
Sometimes the hardest part of a project is simply launching and making those first few pieces. I found a new source for large slabs of .060″ styrene sheet on Amazon. With materials in hand, I’m able to start. For larger structure projects like this I prefer to have a large, clean, work surface to spread […]
The Lowly Shuttle
My first encounter with The Downtown Spur was in February of 2006 where I caught GP38-2 #2639 (above) heading light back to Hialeah Yard. Clearly it was a shuttle of some sort, the details of which I have no clue. I think it’s safe to assume he had a car (or several) that needed to […]