Photo Gallery - Model
Page 7b
Photos and text are by Bill Becwar of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Click on the thumbnail to see the full size photo.
IMG_01 - NSL 745 in orange and maroon is the newest car we have running,
and servers as sort of a rough draft of the colors for my upcoming Greg King
North Shore 350 streetcar. 
This Skokie Coach was an old Walthers car from
the 1980s that I bought on E-Bay without poles or power. I painted and
refitted it to the correct NSL rigging for 1940. The orange and maroon is a
big improvement over the chocolate brown someone had painted it. The car's
backstory is that it was last repainted after being repaired from the
February 1930 wreck at Burlington Road in Kenosha, so it is in good shape
but slightly faded and the trucks and anticlimbers are normally rusted from
service. (The real 745 never turned a wheel in service after the wreck, and
was scrapped as unrepairable.) I was stuck for the textured side windows
for the toilet compartment until I found the perfect material at breakfast:
the side of a semi-clear plastic milk jug.
IMG_02 - Four of a kind - in a way: NSL 175 (left foreground) has a
custom-built Q-Mover drive in the original MTS sideframes; NSL 765 in 1940
paint has conventional North Shore MT010s; Kenosha, WI "Chicago" PCC 4606
has Q-Car Clark B3 trucks, same as the CTA 6000s; and the Philadelphia
Birney has the 79E Brill power truck MT10LP79EB. And all have Q-Car poles.
These cars are consistently our "best runners"; reliable performers that
don't need babying and can run with minimal attention. Only running repair
during the two-day show: a quick cleaning to fix a slipping spring belt on
765.
 IMG_03 - Another shot of the 745 with Q-Car MT010 power truck. Newly
powered, but ran very well while breaking in during Trainfest, having never
covered more than a couple of 18 inch runs back and forth on my desktop
before the show. One modification to a reverse turn on the layout and we'll
be able to run a three-car NSL train in 1928, 1938 and 1948 dress.
 IMG_04 - 745 comes into the city behind the distinctive Wadhams gas
station in its original colors. Built in the 1920s, several of these
stations still exist. This one is being scratchbuilt by Brian Siegl, all out of stock styrene.
The Ford gas bus is a St. Petersburg TMER&L. In the new storage yard, TM751
and Kenosha "Johnstown" PCC 4616 wait to enter service.
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