This and That to Close Out July

A few looks around the layout this week to start.  Here's a view of the far side of my JSSX maintenance building.A Pikestuff kit painted grey with a hardware store spray paint, plus a few odds and ends added.  I figure Brian must be around here someplace, 'cuz that's his motorcycle.

Old storage trailers out behind the maintenance building

Work train stashed out of the way in front of the long closed REA building.  The track is often used for transloading of covered hoppers.  I've got a short ramp that I'd like to put here to facilitate boxcar unloading.

This is old Athearn blue box car is weathered and patched for the Pee Dee River RailroadSay what you will about these old Athearn cars and their lesser quality details.  They were easily affordable and with this at least the doors can be opened, which give a nice opportunity to model the interior as well.

I'll close out with a couple of recently weathered freight cars, starting with this Tangent covered hopperLight weathering on this freight car

And also this Rapido SP boxcar

These two freight cars are weathered for Don Janes

And just one more thing.  I found this interesting photo taken by Jeffrey Bordner on facebook last week.

No indication was given of where or when this occurred, but yikes !

Layout Photos

 Just putting up a few looks around the layout...

This warehouse is moved on a temporary or trial basis to this section of the layout.  I kind of like the idea, but the building is too close to that new overpass.

A look at the four-laner that I call the Gratiot Avenue overpass

Low-boy trailer loaded with a Case excavator

GP38 813 caught switching a couple of boxcars

And just a look at the spur at one of the warehouses on South Industrial Blvd.

That's about it for now.  Have a nice week everyone.

NLG Boxcar 5226

And so there I was, using the latest leaser locomotive - BSTX 5859 - to switch a few cars around on the JSSX.  As I was getting ready to snap a picture, that little bit of green behind the engine stood out and caught my eye.

BSTX switching at the far end of the JSSX yard

Moving the camera a few inches over to the right shows a bit more of the boxcar.  And a bit more of an industrial looking background too.

That's boxcar NLG 5226 being shoved around the curve to be spotted

To me, NLG 5226 is not just any old Roundhouse/MDC car. You know, the ones they made with the molded-on grab irons. This is the very first freight car that I ever painted myself, and that would have been something like 30 years ago. I've never weathered it, and probably won't.

Back then, Model Railroader magazine often had a feature called Paint Shop.  It was a really well liked feature of the magazine at the time.  And in one of those, they had a guide to painting and decaling a North Louisiana & Gulf boxcar. I thought it was a pretty cool looking boxcar (still do) and I thought I just might be able to pull such a thing off.

I bought the FMC model boxcar in the GT paint scheme for $7 (price tag still on the box) at Broughdale Hobby in London, Ontario and stripped all the paint I could off of it.  I found the correct Herald King decal set at a train show, maybe from Terry Link in Komoka.

I kept what remained of the decal sheet, and still have it.  As an aside, I've long wondered why decal manufacturers use such light coloured backing papers when they print their white decals.  Common sense tells me that a darker coloured paper would make the white decals so much easier for us all to see.

I posed NLG 5226 for this photo.  I don't know how I came up with that exact car number.

I think I didn't know enough to put at least the car number on the ends back then.  So there's another project to catch up on.  I think I used a BN Green mixed with a bit of white for the paint, and silver for the roof.

So there it is.  My 50 foot NLG boxcar after some 30 years, still looking like it was just painted.

Have a great week everyone.  You going to do some modeling ?

Brownville and Ashland Boxcar

Received this really nifty looking 50 foot high cube boxcar a week ago that I purchased through our friend Luc. His railroad, the Brownville & Ashland, heavily featured the paper industry, as evidenced by the pine tree graphic at the right-hand end of the boxcar. This boxcar will help me to modernize the freight equipment here.

The boxcar is posed at the Tri-State Paper recycler loading dock.

Produced by Prairie Shadows and exclusive to Home Shops, this boxcar is one of only 50 of this particular model paint scheme produced.

I obviously haven't done any weathering on this one yet, but that's certainly on my list and I should get to that soon.

Now some real world stuff:  Brian Smith sent me this picture he took on a nice stormy looking day last week at the yard in Fort Kent, Maine.

Brian informs that these logs will be sent on to Twin Rivers Paper Mill in Edmunston, NB.

Brian also sent this picture of a car loaded with logs for the mill

An interesting detail is that the car has "PROCOR" stenciled on the sill

And in the 1:1 world around here in Sarnia...

 CN GP38 7517 pokes it's nose out at the Cargill grain elevator on Friday, June 28th, 2024.

And here's a look at the freighter Burns Harbor as it passes beneath the Bluewater Bridges on Thursday, July 4th, 2024.  It's pretty rare for this lake freighter to pass by here, as it usually seems to stay in Lakes Superior and Michigan.  I would have liked to have seen it coming down from Lake Huron, but missed it by an hour or so when it was downbound to Cleveland a day earlier. 

1000 feet in length, Burns Harbor is one of the very largest boats on the Great Lakes.  On it's trip north from Cleveland to Superior, Wi. we can see the original brown paint on the Burns Harbor as the black is wearing off.

Have a great week everybody

GONX 310074 Model

I ran across this photo online a while ago and thought I've got the perfect car to try to model this.  Compare this photo to the finished car photo at the end of the post and let me know what you think.

So, here's my nice clean starting point.  It's an Athearn Ready to Roll gondola that I had picked up at the Woodstock train show back last fall.  I think I had paid $15 for it.

Work begins on this nice, clean gondola 

I first cut strips of .005" (that's really thin) styrene in widths matching the panels on the gondola.  I then created bulges by laying the strips down on the street in front of my house and rolling an old wallpaper roller back and forth over them to emboss the subtle irregularities of the pavement. The strips were then cut to length to match the height of the panels.

It was quite a simple matter to glue my styrene parts right overtop of the panels, and saved me the step of removing the original factory printing.

 

Primer grey over the entire gondola

Painted the overall gondola black, and referring to the prototype photo with the patching in mind, I only used the decals necessary.  I also had applied clear gloss before applying the decals.

My best guess for the colouring was to spray the gondola with Roof Brown to try to approximate the proper match for the sides and the yellow decals.

I sealed all that in with clear gloss, and then masked required areas to be able to paint them black

Above is the car, masked and appropriate areas painted black.  Remember the Roof Brown and the decals underneath the tape have been sealed in with clear gloss lacquer so the tape won't, or at least shouldn't, pull them off.

Tape is removed and the decals are still in place!

So the next step, and I'm sorry I don't have photos of all this for you, was to spray just a bit more of the Roof Brown to start to flatten everything down. Then I added the grey patches (Microscale Trim Film) for the reporting marks to go on plus a couple of black patches (more Trim Film).  Then the reporting marks, lube data, weights data, wheel specs decals, and the yellow reflective stripes.  I hand scribbled the little bits of white graffiti using a white Gelly Roll pen.

With that much finally done, I sprayed for a 3rd time the roof brown to really take down and dirty the colours and of those too clean and shiny decals.  Also I removed the trucks and masked the wheel treads and sprayed the wheels and trucks with Camouflage Brown. Then I added rust and black coloured Vallejo pigment powders.

And with all of that done, I added a bit of burnt sienna and burnt umber artist oils to the rivets and beside some of the vertical ribs.  A subtle difference, but makes it look better.

Now to rust up the interior, I used Rust Effects by Modern Masters.

That's the load I'll be using for this gondola, made by Chooch Enterprises, which is now a part of the Walther's line.

So here is GONX 310074 all finished and loaded up.

Here's the GONX loaded at the local Ferrous Metals & Trading site and ready for pick up by the GTW.  Those bulges of the .005 styrene show real nicely in this photo.

In closing, I remember that I said to Brian a few weeks ago that I figured this model would probably take me a month from start to finish, and I think I was pretty close to that.  Certainly not putting in 8 hour days working on it, and there were several days where I didn't do any work on it at all.  Just a little time here and there and GONX 310074 is now finally finished up and in service.

Industry Kitbash

Thought I'd try to show what (little) more I've accomplished on the Walther's and Pikestuff kitbash structure that I had shown a view of last week.  It is however still a work in progress.

I said last week that I was wanting to add a foundation around the bottom of the Pikestuff warehouse, so I've got that at least partly done. I made the foundation of .060 styrene, and then laid concrete block patterned styrene sheet available through www.modelbuilderssupply.com  overtop of that. That product is however 1:100 scale, so just a bit small for HO.

I'm trying out an open dock sort of area that might be used for loading or unloading the rail cars. From my parts box I also came up with a couple of silos and a tank that I think I can put to use.

This view looks along the spur 
An airslide hopper spotted in front of the silos, and a 50 foot boxcar can be seen in this view

For this photo, I've reversed the warehouse building

I think I like this orientation a little better, but it does force the covered hopper closer to fouling the adjoining track

A closer view of the covered loading area of the main building

A 50 foot boxcar spotted inside the loading area

Here's a view of what had been in this location before

This grey structure and loading dock are styrene scratch builds from a few years ago.  The small red brick building was a $2 train show find.

A little closer look at that boxcar from the views above when it was in front of the other warehouse

Former Maryland and Pennsylvania boxcar.  If you look really closely at the right-hand end of the car, you can just barely make out the faded old Ma & Pa graphic.

This and That for June

I'm testing out this structure here to see how it works at this location.  I assembled and painted the main structure last year, and have had it sitting on a table away from the layout. The kit is the Walther's Roberts Printing kit.

The small warehouse portion at the left is not actually attached - yet.  An easy to assemble Pikestuff kit, I just put it together recently.  I think this will look a lot better after I can make a foundation around the bottom of that part to raise it's height.   

Below are a pair of 60 foot Norfolk-Western high-cubes that appear to be set out and waiting for their next move

Turns out that their next move was to another layout, as these two boxcars have been sold

Here's a look at the boarded up tower, the scratchbuilt ACME Welding shop, and the closed down and derelict Jimbo's BBQ.  Prototype for the ACME Welding is in London, Ontario

Kind of a sketchy area of the city here

Now, away from the layout and modeling, a couple of times a year I try to post a photo of a Great Lakes freighter, so here's one that I snapped this past Wednesday evening.  This is the American Century, coming into the St.Clair River from Lake Huron and on it's way to St.Clair Michigan with coal for the DTE power plant, and then onward to Monroe Michigan to Ford.

At 1000 feet in length, American Century is one of the very biggest freighters found on the Great Lakes.

And to close out, the Ford family in Detroit has been restoring the former Michigan Central train station in Detroit for several years. The station was re-opened just last week for tours.  Here is a link to a Detroit television news story about the 1 billion dollar (yes, that's billion with a "b") renovation.  The video runs a little over 5 minutes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8C-LC_FgLI&t=92s

Happy Modelling Everybody

New Home for BSTX B36-7

Just took delivery today of this Rapido B36-7.   I had this one here two or three years ago to do the patching and weathering for Brian Smith.  I had really liked the way it turned out back then, and last week a picture I had taken of it popped up on my laptop.  I knew Brian was beginning to downsize his collection a bit, and with one thing leading to another, we (perhaps surprisingly) agreed on a price.

And so here is my BSTX 5859...

I had the engine out for a shakedown run this afternoon.  A little hesitation from the motor for a few moments, but likely just a result of perhaps not being run for some time.  The grey patch on the sides is where the BSTX had the "Seaboard System" words painted over, but the distinctive yellow and red graphics remain, illustrating it's heritage.

The GTW line on my layout here is a closed loop, so I'm able to just let engines run for a while.  The B36-7 will transfer over to the JSSX shortline soon.

I'll be keeping the BSTX (Brian Smith Transportation) leaser reporting marks on it.

Note that the reporting marks are stenciled in different places on the two sides of the cab

And in case you've got nothing to do next Sunday, there'll be this:

Have a great week.

And thank you Brian.