Saturday 14 November 2020

Patched RailGons

 A few weeks ago, Jamie brought another group of freight cars over for me to weather.  I thought I`d show the pair of Railgons that he left with me. These are, I believe, older Roundhouse models.

I started off by brush painting the original black insides of the gons with 3 coats of Vallejo`s Rust Texture. I tried to make sure to use vertical strokes on the inside walls, and then painted the floor of the gondolas with long brush strokes, doing my best to not leave brush marks. With that all dry, I feathered in light layers of different shades of brown so as to not leave the entire interiors all one colour.

I thought I`d show Jamie`s two cars being spotted into the scrap metal recycler on my layout.

I cut out a few graffiti decals and put them on just one side of each car. After the decals were applied I went over the car sides with a few thinned coats of Espresso (dark brown) craft paint, again sticking to vertical strokes only.  Doing this flattened down the colours of the graffiti, and does wonders to age the shiny black original paint.

As I was working on the gondolas, it occurred to me that maybe I should change the reporting marks as well in order to represent gondolas that have been sold and patched to a new owner.  I made a quick phone call to Jamie, and he suggested patching both cars to CSXT reporting marks.


Looking closely, you can see the vertical lines left by my paint brush on the inside wall of the gondola. I was careful to do this on purpose, to try to simulate vertical rust streaking. Although hardly visible, it looks a great deal more prototypical than if any visible brush marks had been horizontal.




In other news, I met up with George Dutka (of the White River Division blog), Don Janes, and Luc Sabourin at the Sarnia train station platform last Monday.  George had the idea and set it up. Peter Mumby and Brian Smith weren't able to make it, understandable as it is about a 60 mile drive for them and George as well.  The four of us all had a great visit though, and we each brought some along models to share too. I didn't take any pictures, but George did, and he posted some of them to his blog, so please click on the link below to see that post.


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6 comments:

  1. James H14 November 2020 at 11:34

    That scrap pile behind them is as attention grabbing as the finish on the gondola. Great work!

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  2. Dave15 November 2020 at 10:29

    Good industrial look to these, Jim. I'm not sure if you ever saw it the first time I asked but I would like to know where your scrap piles came from, and if they are something I can buy somewhere. Keep up the good work and I'll have a new post up in a few days.

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  3. Jimmer15 November 2020 at 19:33

    James and Dave...those scrap metal piles get more compliments than anything else on the layout. For the bases, I shaped a couple of pieces of scrap styrofoam insulation, and then painted them brown. Then I glued down a material called "busheling", which is real metal chips from a milling machine. The stuff was given to me by my friend Brian, who is a tool & die maker by trade. I also used some of the busheling to make some scrap metal loads for my own gondolas.

    Thanks for chipping in here. (see what I did there?)

    Jim

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    Replies
    1. Dave15 November 2020 at 19:51

      That's right...I knew you described it somewhere. Maybe I can find some place near me and convince them to sell me a bag or two.

      Delete
  4. Jimmer15 November 2020 at 20:02

    Dave - be sure to get the chips from a milling machine, not the turnings from a lathe, which are waaay different, and don't look appropriate for what you want to us them for. Maybe just try a machine shop somewhere nearby. Also, looking forward to your next post.

    Jim

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  5. Angel17 February 2021 at 19:07

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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