Painting and Weathering of JSSX 5068

This first photo has nothing to do with JSSX 5068, but here's a quick look at CN's GP38 4730 from this past Wednesday.  Not that I have a spare GP38 around, but I'm trying to figure out how in the world I would go about emulating weathering such as this...

According to the rrpicturearchives website, EMD built this locomotive in January of 1973.  Note the odd looking (replacement?) number boards it has, and also that the green light above the number boards is lit.

And now, on to the main subject for the week.  Here's a rundown of what my Dash 8 40-B 5068 went through.

The engine started out in Conrail blue, and I'd sort of weathered it and patched it for my JSSX quite a long while ago. At one time I tried to get ditch lights installed on it, but my installer couldn't get it apart to put them in, so that didn't work out. Too bad, because I really would have liked that.

Then I got the idea for re-painting and weathering it from a YouTube video that Brian Smith sent me, featuring  CCET's (Cincinnati Eastern Terminal) 5895. The CCET locomotive is actually a B36-7, and a former TTI and Conrail engine. Not quite the same type as my Dash 8 40B, but somewhat similar, and certainly close enough for me.

I chose to keep my model's number as 5068, as it made things easier in that I could just leave the number boards as they were.

5068 in it's Conrail blue

Workbench looked a bit occupied that day.

Taken apart on the workbench, and the Conrail logo is removed.  I took a shortcut though and didn't strip away the blue paint.

The basic re-paint is done,  2 colours of grey and the light yellow stripe on the sills.

Unfortunate that a bit of paint pulled away with the masking tape when I sprayed the dark grey patches.  I fixed that later.

Engineer's side with the weathering well underway.

5068 in the doorway of the maintenance building.  Notice the novel location of the JSSX reporting marks.  I got that idea from the YouTube video I mentioned above.

Weathering's done, handrails are back on, this thing's looking like a winner. Something a little different are the yellow numbers on the cab.

5068 across the road from the scrap metal yard.  Some may think the location seems a bit appropriate.  See what I did with that spot on the side of the short hood where the tape had pulled the paint away?

And a look at 5068 from up above.

JSSX 5068 Out of the Shop

With the super nice summertime weather, there really hasn't been a great deal going on here at the JSSX. However, with the door up on the maintenance building, I did spot a new used locomotive poking it's nose out into the light.

One-time ConRail Dash 8-40B 5068 is close to ready for service on the JSSX

5068 is out of the shop and good-to-go

I'll have more about this engine another time, but for now here's one more photo.

And here's a link to the "Seaboard Central" June 2020 video update on YouTube.  It looks like a really well done layout, and it appears that the owner posts a new video pretty well every month. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAeBWlAIbn0

This and That This Week

Just having a look at  https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-82.8/centery:43.4/zoom:8 website this past Wednesday. The link is live, so any time you click on it, it should show the real-time view of boat/ship activity in my area. Anyway, I saw that there was a freighter that I didn't recognize coming up the river (northbound) that looked to be a bit unusual. And another boat that was coming in off the lake looked like maybe it would be here at about the same time.  It appeared that there'd be enough time to get up to the riverfront to have a look, so off we went...

My SO took this photo of the SAL Calypso as it emerged from under the Bluewater Bridges on it's way to Bay City, Michigan.

SAL Calypso with a load of wind turbine blades.  Linda Stamos photo.

Maybe half a mile or so out into Lake Huron, there's the Calypso on the right passing by the barge Ashtabula, coming in from the lake, downbound on the left.

A closer look at 610 foot long Ashtabula, which is being pushed by the tug Defiance

And now back to the regular model train-type stuff, with just a few random shots from around the layout...

GT 6210 & 6212 bringing a gondola into the Iron & Metal recycler yard.

I kind of like this view of GP38 #815 idling in the JSSX yard

DTI boxcar 26035 is one of my favourites

Slightly faded and lightly weathered, this WC covered hopper done for Jamie Barron looks pretty good on the street trackage

This waffle sided boxcar, which also belongs to Jamie. features light rusting along the roof.

And I got a bit of a start on modifications to this 86 foot auto parts boxcar this week.  However, progress might slow for a while though, as I realized that I don't have enough styrene "Angle" for use as the upper door tracks.

A Couple of Small improvements

A new month, a new photo posted up at the top of the blog.

I managed to get around to working on and finishing up to a couple of small and simple jobs on the layout this week.

First off, I had grown tired of accidentally pushing a boxcar off of the end of the spur at the MidWest Plastics plant.  The loading dock door is a bit closer to the end of the spur than it probably should be, and sometimes when coupling onto a 60 foot boxcar there, well, the car would bump right of the end of the track.

Then one day, JSSX management (me) finally clued in that there were a pair of wheel stops sitting beside the maintenance shop, and wondered why they hadn't been installed at that spot.

There's the wheel stops sitting to the left of the two barrels.  Brian must be working, that's his bike parked there.  Maybe I should put up a no parking sign in front of it.

The wheel stops installed at the end of the spur. Sure, it was easy, and it only took 2 minutes...unless we want to count the 6 or so months since I last worked on the MidWest Plastics industry.

Then, building on the relative success of that little improvement, I also made up a short piece of chain link fence to put at the end of the MidWest property, just behind the wheel stops.

At the same time, I made and added a swinging entrance gate that the train crew (me) will have to open for access and close when they leave. That will be in addition to operating the derail on the track leading into the plant.

The gate and fence are made from .025 steel wire and bridal veil tulle, then painted with Vallejo's Rust Texture.  The gate measures a little over 16 feet wide, which may be just a little bit oversize.

This view shows the derail at the left and the new entrance gate to the MidWest Plastics plant.  Both are details that will have to be operated by the train crew.

So, to switch out cars at the MWP plant (a busy place), I'll now have to line the switch, flip the derail, and then open the entrance gate.  As it should be.  I've also just received 2 more derails from GLX, so those will need to soon be installed elsewhere on the layout.