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.

North Louisiana & Gulf 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