December This and That.

Next to nothing done or accomplished on the actual layout this week.  However, I have been trying to figure out whether I can find a way to use this image that I found online somewhere on the backdrop of the layout.

I don't know where it is or what this building is used for.

First step though is to try to square it up a bit

I used the straighten and perspective tools on my Paintshop program to get this far along, but when doing so a bit of the top right corner of the building's elevator shaft is lost.  More on this if or when I get any further along on it.

But in the meantime, as I try to figure that all out, here's a photo that Brian Smith sent me from his layout.  A real nice look through open boxcar doors of a worker moving freight on the loading dock.

Good stuff here Brian.

I received these few items from Otter Valley Railroad.  Two ESU decoders, Kadee #158 couplers because I had run out of them, and a bottle of Plastruct Plastic Weld just in case I ever get around to building a couple of kits that I've had waiting to be put together.

The decoders are pretty basic 8-pin decoders, not for sound equipped engines.

It was hard not to notice this boxcar rolling around on the layout this week.  This one makes an occasional appearance since I painted and lettered it about 3 or so years ago, and then weathered it sometime after that.

I've often wished this was an 86 footer in the 8-door variety, although I don't really think the AnnArbor had any like that.  I'm not too sure how I could lay out these decals on an 8-door car anyway.

And a look at GT 6212 which was leading the auto parts cars

That'll have to be all for now.  Happy December everybody.  Stay warm.

Some Views From Around the Layout

 Just a few random views of what's been out and about around the layout recently...

A Walthers gondola that I repainted to GTW and have loaded with scrap metal (it's styrene actually)  The load of scrap is easily removable so the gondola can be spotted empty into  

JSSX 813 with a pretty well-aged (Exactrail) boxcar.  Two of my favourites in one picture.

SD40 beneath the overpass is shoving parts boxcars into place.

Same engine and location, different angle of view

A sharp looking 3-bay plastic pellets hopper out there this past week.  Painted this one myself.  Thinking of maybe selling this one, as I have two more that are the same paint scheme (different numbers).

I noticed WC 12125 showing some wear and tear as it was passing by on the GTW.

Plastic Pellet hopper car patched and with some mild weathering.

That's all I've got to show this week.

Fork Lift Trucks for the Layout

First off, I picked up a copy of the December MR at WalMart, and found a really nice article written in there by Don Janes about his layout.  Check it out.

As for my week, I spent time painting the 2 fork lifts that Brian's friend Leo 3D printed for me.  I needed to do just a little bit of filing on them, which only took a couple of minutes.  I showed the raw prints last week, but here's one of those photos again anyway:

Now please excuse me as I digress into a story about a fork lift incident back when I was supervising a shift in the factory I worked in, some of the guys left a bit to be desired as far as work habits and ethic was concerned.

One night, there was an unexpected and very loud crash and bang.  Upon looking into whatever might have caused that, I didn't have to look too far.  One of the guys was driving a forklift and had turned the corner from the loading dock into the plant and drove through - and I mean through - a roll-up style door.  He was thankfully un-injured.  He said afterward that he didn't know the door was there.  The door had been there for longer than the 6 or 7 years he had been an employee.

Now back to my painted models.  Truth is, it never occurred to me 'til now that I ought to weather them a little bit.And there's the paints I used as well.  I've painted the 2 pallets that were included too.

And on the outside dock at Gray Warehousing.

At an open door at Tri-State Paper.  I should sometime try to find a seated figure for these now, and add some wear and tear on the fork lifts as well.

That's it for now.  Have yourself a good week.

A Couple of New Items for the Layout

I've received a couple of new items for the layout this week.

First up I have this Atlas Master Series GP40 in CN striped scheme, which I bought as a used item through facebook's Canadian Railway Modellers Buy/Sell group.

The model arrived from Montreal in good condition on Thursday.

I removed the body shell to install a decoder, an ESU LokPilot, successfully tested it with the body off, and then put 'er back together.  Took only a couple minutes and done.  Runs great and the lights all work as they should too.

The previous owner had done a little weathering, mainly on the top surfaces.  I'm not crazy about the way it looks right now, so I'll either remove that weathering it, or if that doesn't work out my plan B would be to just paint black right overtop of it.

Also this week, I received these two HO scale 3D printed forklifts.

My friend Brian asked a friend of his if he would print these for me.  They turned out great !

Once I get these painted, they should look great in the doorways of a couple of the loading docks along the railroad here.  So special thanks to Brian and Leo for creating these for me.

That's all for this time.  I hope you all have a good week.  I gotta go rake some leaves outside.

BKTY 153277 All Finished Up

Well, after close to 3 weeks of chipping away at boxcar BKTY 153277, I'm calling this one done.  Mostly done few minutes at a time here and there.

Anyway, here's my finished boxcar in few locations around the layout:

Since last time, I dirtied up the doors with PanPastel Burnt Umber, and sprayed a few really light coats of Roof Brown along the boxcars' lower areas.

Same side, different angle.

The other side received the same treatment with the Pan Pastel Burnt Umber on the door, and the Roof Brown spray.  I find that brown works really well to flatten down bright colours.

I painted all 4 tack boards with an aged wood colour, then added a really light touch of thinned Dark Gray Vallejo wash.

I had mentioned before about painting sealant on to the panel seams on the roof, so here's how that turned out.  I used Primer Grey and a 0000 brush, also adding sealant above the door.  And a light touch of the Pan Pastel onto the panels, which I had already painted with Vallejo Rust Texture.

I'll close this out now with a look at the B-end of the boxcar.  Those reporting marks at the top were time-consuming decaling work.  10 individual decals on each end.  Cutting out 20 letters and numbers which I could barely see was tricky, and then getting them to settle straight on the model was touchy too.  Never had to get any stitches in my fingers though, so that's a win.

That's it.  On to the next project, whatever that might be.  Have a good week, and thanks for looking in.

MTW Boxcar Weathering Progress

I've had quite a cold all week and I'm not happy about it, and haven't really felt like doing much.  But, I've made a little more progress on that (now former) MTW boxcar.  I've got the other side of it mostly weathered now, with Fusion Scale Graphics graffiti decals added as well.

I really try to take my time with weathering, doing it in layers and allowing a couple of days to dry in between.  It's slow, but it seems to work out better in the end.

Here's what the 2nd side of the boxcar looks like now:

I've also patched over the original MTW reporting marks and changed them to BKTY.  I just made up the number, but it's at least in the correct number range for the prototype.  Also, I've added the yellow reflective stickers along the lower sills on both sides. 

Here's the first side again, but with the reporting marks patched.  I still have to get the data decals added, and to paint on the roof sealant like I referred to last week.  Then some overall grime and of course a clear flat to be sprayed to finish up.

Just as a reminder, here's how the car looked when fresh out of the box:

That's what's accomplished on this freight car project so far.  It's not a lot for this posting.

So I thought I'd add just a couple of older pictures from the layout to this post:

My duo of SW1200's alongside the maintenance building

And a drone view of the maintenance area.

So that's actually all I've got for this time.  Have a good week out there everybody.

Game 7 tonight.  Go Blue Jays!

Follow-Up To Last Week

Went to the train show in Woodstock last Sunday, driving an hour and a half through rain.  The admission price was still $5. But I was pretty surprised to see the first 2 rooms were full of Pokemon cards vendors, so just the main room had model train sale tables.  Oh well, I did come away with these couple of freight cars:

The WC Branchline kit and an ExactRail waffle boxcar both looked like they had never been out of their boxes until now.

Drove through the rain all the way home too.

Now, here's some follow-up views of the MTW boxcar I'd shown last time.

After the fading of the original green colour last week, I masked most of the boxcar and sprayed a primer colour along the bottom area of the door.

So here's that, along with some of the primer freehanded on one of the horizontal seams of the door and a bit on the lower door track.  Can't really see it well here, but the roof has been painted with Rust Texture.

This is actually the other side of the boxcar with some graffiti decals added, as well as rust spots and streaks.  It still needs some finishing up that I've not gotten too yet.

A better look at the roof.  I think I'll be adding some sealant to the panel seams as well

That'll do for this week.

Go Blue Jays !

October This and That

Starting off the post this time with a couple of views from the layout

A couple of SOO boxcars that have spent a little time on the layout.

Here's a view looking south down South Industrial Blvd.

That's GMTX leaser 2001 on the street trackage

Changing to my next project now:  I ran across this photo of a really nicely done model on the internet somewhere quite a while back, and saved it at that time to use as future reference.

Stinger Arthaus model

Well, the time has come as I've pulled this brand new boxcar out of my storage cupboard to weather.

I've only just gotten started on this one, using several light coats of thinned Concrete Gray to fade down the green.

I know it doesn't look like much now, but there'll be more to come on this one.  The intent is not to copy the Stinger Art model, but to do something similar.

Woodstock train Show is this weekend on Sunday.  I had been thinking of getting a table at the show this time, but decided against that, so I'm figuring on just attending as one of the many, many customers hoping to find a bargain.

That's it for this time.  Have a good week.

Switching Auto Parts Cars at the Plant

Haven't really done a whole lot of switching on the layout in recent weeks, so I thought I'd better get going on that.  I knew that 3 boxcars (86 footers) in particular had been in the same spot for at least a couple of months, so I decided I'd better get busy there.

A view of CSXT (former L&N), an old Athearn BlueBox model, on the spur at the parts plant.  I like the view looking underneath the overpass, as I think it helps to frame the boxcar and also kind helps helps add a bit of context to the industrial area.

The next car on the spur...

The Conrail boxcar is a Tangent model.  I weathered it somewhat similar to a prototype photo that I had found online.

I know I said there are 3 boxcars at the parts factory, but I've failed to get a good picture of the GTW car at the far end of the spur.  I meant to show it, but somehow managed to blur the picture, so we won't get a clear view of that one here today.

There's the nose of the SD40 that's doing the switching as the engine creeps in on the boxcars

A good look at GTW 5931 moving in to begin switching the plant

A low angle view with 5931 still in the shadow of the overpass as switching begins.  And there's that 3rd boxcar way down at the far end.  

Next time, I'll see if I can show the replacement cars going in.  What I can tell you now is that these ones being lifted are all 4-door 86 footers, and the ones going in will all be of the 8-door variety.

To everybody in Canada, have a Happy Thanksgiving this weekend.

Engine 812 Warehouse Switching

First, this picture from the top of the blog shows my version of ZVBX 97337 (Ferrous Processing & Trading 97337) gondola after it's been loaded and picked up from the local scrap metals yard.

The gondola's bulged panels are .010 styrene cut to size and laid over top of the original panels.  Painted with a mix of SP Gray and Grimy Black.  And the load was made by Chooch Industries.

And here's a look at the warehouse switching of this weeks' post title:

View down the empty tracks at the Gray Warehouse on the JSSX.  There should be a car or two there in a minute...

A better view of the warehouse

JSSX 812 has arrived and is now shoving a couple of boxcars into position along the warehouse dock.

Another view of 812 switching.  Sorry we can see the edge of the layout.  It is what it is.

Saw this photo below from modeler Martin Kamenicky on facebook the other day.  

I thought to myself that if that engine is 1:1 scale, somebody is going to have to call in the armed forces to take down that monster.

And I thought I'd finish off the post with this: Here in Canada we are over a week into the throes of yet another mail strike, the 2nd one in less than a year.  The owner of Otter Valley Railway in Tillsonburg, Ontario is Lorne James, and he was featured a few days ago in a CBC television interview about the impact of the strike(s) on his business and customers.  

Lorne James Interview

Above is the link to that interview. Click on it and it should open in a separate window for you.  It's a long segment from the news broadcast, so you might prefer to skip forward to about the 17:45 mark for Lorne's actual portion of the story.

Have a good week everybody.