A Couple of Evans Boxcars

A couple of weeks ago, I posted photos of a few freight cars that I've weathered and then sold off for varying reasons.  Here's a look at a couple of Evans boxcars that I struggled with, but decided to keep.  These are both from the much earlier days of my weathering efforts.  These two freight cars are made by ExactRail.

The two boxcars spotted at one of the local warehouses.

I liked the idea of having a different looking GTW freight car on the layout, but I was never really overly thrilled with the way the weathering on the first of these fifty-footers turned out. I've even put it out for sale on my table at a train show.  It didn't draw much interest though, and I was actually kind of happy about that because there's something about it that makes me want to keep it for myself.

Painted and lettered originally for Rock Island, I painted out the herald and logo, and patched it for GTW.  I sort of went by a prototype photo that I'd found on-line as far as the large white patching goes, but putting the reporting marks and numbers in black over the white band was my idea.  If I remember correctly, the prototype had white numbers over the light blue, and they didn't show very well.

Back when I worked on this car, I didn't know anything about fading the original paint. The light blue might not have faded much, but when I look at it now I wish that I had at least done a little bit.

A closer view of the other side of the boxcar.  I don't know...maybe this one should be in line for a little bit of re-work at the bench some day.  I think I could do a little better.  Maybe it could become a future re-post subject.

Now, this next one is truly a bit of a lucky survivor.  I honestly don't remember just what I was trying to accomplish when I weathered it, but I clearly remember that it just wasn't working out for me at the time. 

In fact, I was so frustrated with it, that it very nearly flew across the room and into the wall at one point.  However, my cooler head prevailed and I put it away on a shelf for a couple of months.

When I brought it back to the workbench, I was stripping off whatever I had done to it, and then just experimented with rust tones on the panels.  I figured I'd alreay pretty much ruined it, so what more could go wrong? Quite the opposite happened, and I somehow developed a nice oxidized texture all over the boxcar's surface, so I just kept going with it.

You can kind of see the surface texture of the rust on this car.  A couple of repainted/replacement doors and patched reporting marks later, and this car became an unexpected win for me.

The other side of this weather-beaten Evans boxcar.  Despite the odds, this one turned into a keeper for me, and makes semi-regular appearances out and about on the JSSX.