Locomotive "Asset Rationalization"

I sold off this Dash8 39-B locomotive recently, through the Facebook group "Canadian railway Modelers Buy/Sell". I think the railways or other big businesses would call it "asset rationalization". I simply didn't run this engine much anymore, and thought that maybe someone else would.

I recall that I had bought this Atlas locomotive at the train show in Woodstock from Bjarne Hansen, but I really don't remember how many years ago that was.  Bjarne had patched it from BC Rail to HLCX and done the light weathering with his airbrush.

I do remember however that Sean Steele got me a new handrail set for it, as one or two of the handrails had been broken. Anyway, I thought I'd post a couple of views of the locomotive.

Outside the shop at the JSSX

The lights are non-functioning, as they are jewels

A look at the conductor's side.  I always thought that the silver trucks and fuel tank looked real sharp on this engine

And a drone view showing some soot and grime

Switching gears a little bit, I'll include this nice photo of a FMC 50 foot combination-door boxcar sitting at the seldom used warehouse on one of the transload spurs (there are two of them) on the JSSX.

I did the weathering on this car.  The graffiti on the door and to the right of the door is a decal.  When I put such a decal in that location, I slice it horizontally into 3 pieces with a sharp blade. One narrow piece goes below the door track, a very narrow slice goes on the door track, and then the large piece of course goes on the car's door and side wall.  Road grime is sprayed on after everything is all settled.

Have a good week, and happy modeling !

A Bit More Scenery, Plus a Boxcar

I had picked up these small packs of Vallejo's static grass clumps a few weeks ago, and thought it was about time to try to spread a few pieces around the layout.

I found a better photo of the Vallejo static grass clumps, so I removed the picture that had all the glare from the lights and put this one in it's place.

I tried to spread the clumps around randomly in the same general area that I had just recently added the ground cover

There's one of the Caboose Industries ground throws that I had found.  I've painted them with Rust Texture before I installed them on the layout.  they look pretty good, I think.

Or do they ?

This ground throw looks to be wildly out-of-scale compared to the crew member that's just behind it. I had never realized how big these things are.  I think that I might have to figure out a "Plan B" as far as ground throws go.

Also, over the past week or ten days, I weathered this Wisconsin Central boxcar for Jamie. It's the drying time for some of the blisters and scratches that take the longest. 

Just out of the box this is a nice looking boxcar

Faded the paint colour down with Concrete Gray and a pink coral colour craft paint, and then masked around the door before painting it white.

The reporting marks have been patched with black trim film and stencil lettering from Microscale.  Some scratches and a few rust blisters added too.

Some Scenery Improvement

I finally decided that it was time to do a little improvement type work on the layout.  I haven't done much of that in quite a long while, so it will make for a nice change for me.

This is the general area that I've decided to spruce up first:

This is the GTW line across the back of the layout. You can see the need for some ballast and vegetation growth on the far side of the tracks where there is none.

Not really a ton of progress so far, but  it does look a little better. I'll continue on with it.

While getting the ballast and ground foam containers out, I happened across this package of Caboose Industries ground throws that I'd forgotten I even had.

I'll paint and install these on those two spur switches on the GTW line in the next day or two.

Here's a depressed centre flatcar that I've been weathering for Brian. He hasn't even seen it yet.  Until now anyway...

I didn't take a picture before I started, but when the car was fresh out of the box the decks were a fairly glossy black.

I brush painted the decks with Vallejo Rust Texture, and then added some powders in rust and silver-grey colours. Hard to see, but there's also some rust streaking down the curved slope white areas.

A side view of the flat car. I flattened down the yellow with a bit of  Tamiya Panel Line brown.

A bit of clear flat added, and it's all finished up for you Brian.

Birds Aren't Real

This is a view of my scratch-built billboard as taken from the Gratiot Avenue overpass between the JSSX and the GTW. I thought the message fit well with the urban industrial theme that I've been going for here.

Changes on the layout can turn out good, or bad I suppose, but regardless, I decided it was time to change up the message anyway.

I found the original picture of the sign message on the internet, and printed it out to the size of my billboard. I just had to adjust the perspective a bit and crop the image to the proper size using my Paintshop program. The "Birds Aren't Real" meme is a parody of the recent abundance of government conspiracy theories.  It was started a couple of years ago by a college student.

And here's a view of 5068 hooked onto their train, still waiting for 813 to get back to the yard so they can start out on their own assignment

Looks like at least one of the crew is enjoying the wait by staying out on the front of the engine 

I made a quick trip down to the Sarnia freight yard in the early afternoon on Monday.  Not much going on down there (again) as there was no sign of any main line trains coming or going.

There's almost always a freight car or two that I find to be at least a bit interesting.

This example is ICRX 570428 (Island Creek Corporation).  Looks like the reporting marks have been patched from something else at some point, but I find the various painted areas to be interesting, and the pattern to the rust is interesting as well.  Would make for a nice weathering project some time.