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