CN Gondola

I picked up this Walthers CN gondola for $10 at the Woodstock train show this fall.  I already had another like it, but two is better than one, right?

The gondola had slight damage, but nothing too serious.  Once the repairs have been completed, I'm going to make it look a lot worse anyway.

Repairs are done, and this gondola is just too clean to fit in to the surroundings

I ran the gondola in to the scrap recycler spur anyway.

So here we go with the weathering / aging...

That's .005 styrene, cut to fit between the car's ribs.  I laid the styrene down on the street in front of my house and ran an old wallpaper roller over it to emboss dents into it.  I have done this before with some success.

Here's the gondola after a coat of grey primer is applied.

And after painting of the colour coat

Compared to the other gondola that I already have, the paint colour is a little more red than I would have liked, but I'm going to go with it as I think it will darken down somewhat when I get to the final weathering.

That's as far as I've gotten for now with this, with decaling, probably graffiti, and weathering still to come.

In other "news", I found this interesting...

I've thought this type of tank car kind of interesting ever since the first time I saw one down at the yard in Sarnia, maybe 3 years ago or so.  Any time I see them makes me wonder if anyone would release a model in HO Scale.

And now, it looks like Roka is doing it !

I haven't seen any indication of the pricing or release date

Have a Happy New Year !

SWeep 7104

This kitbashed guy had been back in the storage cupboard for quite a while, but made it's way out of there and onto the layout this week.  Built from an Athearn Blue Box SW 1200 and GP9.

7104 sits outside of the maintenance shop after it had wheel cleaning done before really heading out onto the layout

7104 is passing beneath the Gratiot Avenue overpass.

Side view

The cab end view

Brian Smith sent along these 60 foot high-cube boxcar photos, taken at Auburndale Yard, down in Auburndale, Fla.

With fewer posts / panels, this NS car is a bit different from the other two

Thanks Brian for sending these

Thanks for checking in, and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season

A Common Pellet Hopper for the Layout

I know that they're everywhere, but here in Sarnia, plastic pellet hoppers are ubiquitous. CN's C-Yard here might very well contain a couple hundred of them as you're reading this.  There's so many of them, that it kind of gets a bit boring.  Plus, the many private rail yards around here have even more.

On my layout, I have Mid-West Plastics industry, which has room to hold 1 to 3 pellet hoppers, plus spots for a single boxcar, as well as a tank car on it's spur track.

I found this pellet hopper down at C-Yard one day this fall, and thought the graffiti on this one was quite different looking, so I took the photo thinking that I'd try modeling it as best I could.

This Walthers car (below) has seen only occasional service as new on the layout, but seems quite similar to the prototype car, so I'll use it for this weathering project.

First step was to remove the Dupont reporting marks, and then to mask the areas for the graffiti. Masking took me a little while to get right.

The white patched areas for the reporting marks were done with white trim film.  I didn't have an exact match for the reporting mark decals, so I used some modelers license, and went with a stencil set instead.

Those sort of vertical rusty areas are rust coloured acrylic paint that I applied with the corner of a makeup sponge. I added the reflective stripes, which are made by Smokebox Graphics

Being shoved down along the GTW on the way to it's destination

My ICRX car being shoved toward the car spot at Midwest Plastics

A closer look to show that I didn't forget to change the reporting marks on the ends of the car as well.

 I didn't have photo of the other side of the prototype car, so I kept the weathering simple, with just some light rusting and a couple of unexplained paint patches on the side of the car.

Seems that the roof and walkways should have a little weathering added, but I haven't gotten there yet.

This pellet hopper will blend right in on the layout.

Have a good week

JBOX 149500

I pulled this boxcar out of storage this week to give it a little time out on the layout.  When I say "a little time", it's likely to be a few weeks.

This was painted and lettered by me several years ago.  I had wondered for a long time before that just what one of these might have looked like if there ever had actually been one in the 1:1 world. This is of course an Athearn model, as Tangent wasn't around back then.

The JBOX reporting marks were dreamed up by me.  The J is my first initial, but on the boxcar I like to think of it as for "Jumbo" for the size of the car. Those letters and numbers, as well as the RailBox graphic are Microscale decals.

The car number I used is taken from the "CAPY" number of the car.

I had a hard time finding the boxcar data decals in black lettering. I eventually found some from somewhere in Michigan, or maybe it was Illinois.

Obviously unweathered, this boxcar does stand out when it's on the layout.  So I'm thinking that some weathering may be in order for this boxcar.  I'll update things as that happens.

Switching to the real world now, this is the kind of day we had here last Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. There was a derailment of two cars down here the day before, and I think these two tank cars are them, but I'm not sure.

The orange flame of the refinery flare, if you can spot it in the distance, adds a nice touch to the scene once you see it.

Have a good week. Do some modeling. And some Holiday shopping.

Wisconsin Central Boxcars

GTW 5931 is at the top of the blog for December.  Seen here, the SD40-2 is pulling a string of empty 86 foot auto parts boxcars that are bound for the parts plant just a couple of minutes down the track.

A while back, I weathered a Wisconsin Central boxcar for Jamie, and now I've done another for him.  And one for myself as well.  Here's a few looks...

This first one is done for Jamie...As the boxcar looks (well, looked) fresh out of the box.  The reporting marks came already patched like this.

Here it is masked up for paint fading, done similarly on the other side

Faded with my usual concrete grey airbrushed, and some rusting

Some graffiti on one side as well, mostly done with decals from Blair Line.  The white graffiti scribbles by the ends are made by me with a white paint pen.

 And this next car is mine.  The process for this boxcar was done pretty much the same way.

And the other side

Again I used Blair Line graffiti decals, and the white paint pen.

A view of one end.  The couplers are rusted as well.

Here's my boxcar finished up and out in the wilds of the layout.

Happy Railroading

Along the GTW

GTW 6252, an SD38, is pulling into the siding to allow 5931, which will be approaching along the main line from the opposite direction, to pass.

5931 with auto parts cars is rolling by the Mid-West Plastics plant.

A closer view of the 5931

I was a bit disappointed to miss out on buying another one of these CN/GTW SD40-2's in the North America scheme a few weeks ago. 

A look at the GTW line, to include a view of some of my poorly executed trackwork.

I didn't do a great job laying the track, but I kind of like the way it looks anyway.  And fortunately, I don't think I've ever had derailments around here.

 I stumbled across this The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larsen, so thought I'd add it in here.

I'll leave it at that for this week.  Have a good one.

Boxcar Re-paint

Just before we get to the boxcar re-paint, I want to say that I was finally (somehow) able to get logged in correctly to Google, so now I can reply to any comments left in the comment section at the end of the blog posts.

Regarding this boxcar, Luc had asked if I could paint, patch, and weather a model to look like this prototype boxcar for his friend Radisson.  They were wanting the car to be lettered for Radisson's railroad, the ACRR.  So that's what I've spent much of my modeling time doing recently.

Luc and Radisson provided me with this Exactrail model as the victim...A nice looking Exactrail model of a PS 5344 boxcar

I removed the original logo, etc., using Solvaset, cotton swabs, and round wooden toothpicks. The toothpicks were dampened with water to soften them a bit so as to not scratch the model.

Next step was to primer the boxcar to cover the bits of Exactrails's original pad printing that wouldn't come off.

In hindsight, I wish I had used a lighter colour for the primer.  That would have helped to show the brightness of the final coat(s) a bit better, and maybe fewer coats of paint.

Here's the boxcar after the colour coat(s) have been sprayed on. Long ago, Luc had given me a bottle of Mission Models Red Oxide paint, I thought would be a reasonable colour match.  He also gave me Smokebox Graphics decals to be used on the boxcar.

The colour looked to be about right when it was in the bottle and while it was still wet on the model, but it actually dried to appear quite brown.  To counter that, I've sprayed thin and light coats of SP Red overtop, and the result turned out rather well.

Luc had said to me that I could do paint overspray on the roof if I wanted to. 

I hadn't actually done the roof overspray before this. It's a subtle detail, but I think it turned out rather well.  That dark area at the lower corner of the picture is just a shadow

Here's the boxcar, all finished up: re-painted, patched, and weathered. I had sprayed a gloss coat before applying the decals of course, but I also added another coat of gloss on top of the decals.  I think htat helps hide any outline of the decal edges.  Then I covered the whole boxcar with Tamiya Clear Flat to eliminate the shine. 

If we include the patches, the graffiti, and the old notices by the doors, I think that there are a total of something like 78 separate decals applied to this boxcar. (And after cutting all those decals, I still have all my fingers.)

Here's a final look at ACRR 5455, along with sister car 5450 out on my layout

I think this project turned out to be quite successful

Have a great week.  And go do some modeling.