Fibre-Optic Markers, Plus a Couple of Covered Hoppers

You've probably seen those white marker plastic or vinyl stick-type things with the orange coloured tops alongside a roadway or ditch and never gave them a second's thought, and just continued on with your day. I have too, but one time I saw some and wondered what they are.  Well, come to find out that they're markers for fibre-optic cable lines.  Hmmm...that's an idea...

So, I decided to make a up few and put them on the layout,  I cut some .005 thick styrene into a strip about 3 scale inches wide.  That was just a best guess.  I cut the strip up into pieces about an inch long or so, allowing for roughly half of that to be stuck down into the the "ground", leaving more or less a scale 4 feet visible.  This all seemed about right. 

I quickly painted the top end of the pieces with some orange craft paint and pushed the other end down into suitably sized holes I drilled into the tabletop. I've spaced my markers about 150 scale feet apart, which also seemed a reasonable guess - at least to me anyway.

I know they're very difficult to see in this photo, one is way down there by the brown boxcar on the left and another beyond the fire hydrant. Sorry, but that's the limitations of the depth of field of my camera.

Here you can see one of my fibre-optic markers much better.

I also busied myself this week with some freight car weathering

Above are a couple of cylindrical covered hoppers that I've weathered this past week for Jamie Barron. Wheels, trucks and couplers are painted, faded paint, some vertical grime and rust streaking, wear on the discharge bays, and a light layer of rust from the walkways onto the car bodies.