I've Been Cleaning Dirty Track

I was noticing a little trouble with one of my engines here hesitating a little bit in a couple of places on the railroad.  So, time to clean some wheels and then to break out the track cleaner car.  It's been a few weeks since the last time I did this.

Wheels first, I tear off a piece of paper towel, lay it on the track and dampen it with 91% isopropyl alcohol, and run the locomotive wheels over it in both directions.

There's the paper towel afterward with the marks from the wheels carbon tracks easily visible

Next up is my all-brass CMX Track Cleaner car that I've had for several years now.  I'm not sure now what I paid for this car, but I know it was well over 100 USD, and I'm quite sure the prices have gone up since.My CMX track cleaning car along with a roll of the cleaning pad

Just have to cut off a piece of the cleaning pad, and clamp it beneath the cleaning car.  Load some of the alcohol into the tank car and let a slow drip of the alcohol moisten the cleaning pad.

Of course it's a simple thing to run the CMX car a a few laps around the layout behind an engine 

There's my CMX car coming around the curve behind 5931

So, I actually went through the procedure a couple of times that night, and here's how the cleaning pad s look afterward

So, the results are in, and yes, the rails were indeed dirty.

I got the CMX car and get the roll of cleaning pad from Tony's Trains Exchange in Essex Junction, Vermont.  Here's a link to the website in case you're interested:  https://tonystrains.com/

In case you've missed it, Athearn has announced their new CarKnocker Line of freight car models.  Looks like it kicks off with RailGon and CSX gondola models that feature a swayed back, some with faded lettering,  as well as a pair of data only models. They're looking for pre-orders, so who knows when the cars might actually become available.  

Here's the link to the Athearn video announcing their new "Carknocker" line of models: Athearn CarKnocker Line   Be advised that the video is pretty boring narration only until the 1:14 mark when they show images of those various gondola models.

And sending thoughts and best wishes out to our friend Peter.

A Touch of Grey

I had ordered this tank car at the same time as I ordered last week's featured replacement switch because, well, why not ?  It's an Atlas tank car (17360 gallon) that will fit in nicely with the few other tank cars that I already had.

This particular model is for transporting chlorine, but I just use them for general service as I like the size of them and I'm not really all that dedicated to modelling with prototypical accuracy.

It only took me about 20 minutes per side to remove the "Inhalation Hazard Chlorine" lettering at the right-hand ends of the cars.  I used MicroSol on a small piece of paper towel to soak the printing,  followed by some gentle scrubbing with a damp cotton swab.

 

I have a couple of slightly different shades of Microscale trim film on hand so I've cut some pieces and applied them as paint patches on both cars.

I've managed to somehow misplace my reflective striping stickers, so the newer tank car is missing them

A couple of views of the grey tank cars being moved along the JSSX. 

Passing by the Ferrous Process & Trading site

And that's it for now.  Have a good week.

Derailment Trouble & Repair

Ran into some problems here in the last little while, in the way of track issues. Might sound crazy, but this type of thing seems to happen here when the winter arrives and then again as summer gets here.  Two examples of problems are below:

First, one of my railcars, just one mind you, consistently de-railed at one spot. With a little closer examination, here's what the cause turned out to be...The curved stock rail had developed a nasty inward kink to the left of the switch rod.

I removed the switch, and tried to epoxy the rail back into place, and left it to cure overnight. The epoxy didn't work out, so I scraped the epoxy out and tried gluing with CA and allowing that to cure for a day, but the rail didn't hold in place with that either.

Nothing much to see here with the broken switch removed. I was able to slide all 6 rail joiners back, so then I misted the ballast with water/alcohol mix and lifted the switch out.  I cleaned up the cork roadbed with a paint scraper. 

I found and ordered a new switch from the Otter Valley Railroad website, and it arrived in a couple of days. Always good service from them.

The new switch is a Peco "Unifrog" type.  I'll use that Floquil marker shown above to paint the rails.

And so here is the new switch installed on the GTW and working just fine

I did paint the rail sides (I think that's called the "rail web") with that paint pen, but I'm not too crazy about the colour the rails turned out afterward.  Looks too brassy now, so I guess I'll still have to go over them with some brown paint.

Changing gears now, here's a really nice photo that was posted on fb by Lorraine Morrill looking west toward the sunset last week at the Sarnia VIA station.

Such a nice picture

So that's it for now. Have a great week everybody.

Bulkhead FlatCar Again

We're actually going to start off this time with this link 🔴 LIVE Trains Railcam | Houston, Texas (Tower 26) PTZ to the Tower 26 live webcam in Houston, Texas.  I happened across this on YouTube last Sunday, and it certainly seems to be a busy enough spot.

And now another look at the bulkhead flatcar that I put the wooden deck and ends.  I've finished what I wanted to do to this car, except I haven't made a load for it yet.  The instructions from Imagine That said to attach the parts with gel-type CA glue, so I did.  Here's a view of how I held that in place while the CA cured overnight.

I know size of the clamps might look like overkill, but that's what I had, and they worked.

I've added a bit of graffiti (decals) to the side of the B-end bulkhead and to the front of the A-end bulkhead. I wasn't sure about applying a decal to actual wood, so I first gave the wooden bulkhead surface a double-shot of Tamiya's clear gloss.  The decal was an old one from SGS (thanks Sean).

 Hard to see them in this view, but I've also added the Smokebox Graphics reflective stripes.The entire car got a light spray of Rail Brown to flatten down the colour and then Tamiya Clear Flat to seal it all up.

As for making a load for this flatcar, I was going to use some Rix I-Beams that I have, but they're 50 feet long, and the actual flatcar deck is only 48 feet in length.  The bulkheads each take up 6 feet of the 60 foot overall length of the car.  I don't feel confident that I could cut length off of the I-Beams very well, so I'll have to think of something else. 

And so I'll close out with this scanned this photo of CN 1317, taken probably around 30 years ago or so, by the late Bruce Peachey.  I lightened the contrast on the image here by 20% in order to be able bring out the trucks and fuel tank a bit better.  Seems like scanned photos often appear darker than the original print.1317 is sitting down alongside the St.Clair River here in Sarnia.  It would have been there to work the CN car ferry that would run back and forth from Sarnia to Port Huron, Michigan.  That's Port Huron in the background of course, and if you look at the upper right end of the picture you can just make out the Bluewater Bridge, back when there was only the one bridge.

Have a good week everyone.  Take it easy if you're shoveling snow.

Photo Struggles on the JSSX

I was wanting to get a good photo of my LTEX SD40 leaser engine coming around the curve pulling a few covered hoppers.  Using the overpass to sort of frame the view, but I either didn't notice or couldn't really see under the bridge what the camera could see.I often find that photos from the layout can be quite helpful in making the layout better.  The camera seems to see things in photos that I don't really notice otherwise.  A case in point is above.

Cropping the bottom portion of the photo takes out those exposed drywall screw heads, but really doesn't do anything much for that spider web, does it?!

A slightly different angle of view, but there's another web.

I finally managed to get a couple of shots that I'm pretty happy with

But I think I like this next one best

This interesting aerial photo of Lambton Diesel Specialists here in Sarnia appeared on my facebook feed a couple of weeks ago.  I saved it with the intention of posting it here. No photo credit was given and no photo date either.

Lots to see...various vehicles, some of the footings from the original CN roundhouse's footprint, a blue and red Imperial Oil switcher, a flat car with 2 diesel engines on it, a CN slug, a CN switcher, A CP switcher, 3 SW9 and slug sets, yard leads, and the CN main at the top left the CN main leading to the St.Clair Tunnel.

Photos From Around the JSSX

I posted this first photo on a facebook page a couple of weeks ago, and it appears to have been pretty popular on there, with over 400 views.  I never get 400 views.I featured the MISS boxcar on the blog back in May 2024.  Of course my favourite engine, JSSX 813, has been here on the blog countless times.

813 working again, and lurking there in the background over on the GTW is one of their GP38's.

This time on the JSSX, my 813 is pulling that former ROCK boxcar and a pair of old SOO LINE cars

Over at the maintenance building

This old flatcar has been loaded up with spare concrete Jersey Barriers.  That pallet is one of my creations from a couple of years ago.  A couple of old boxcar doors, a set of concrete steps, a random plank, and a few lengths of old rail.

And there's that engine 813 sneaking into the picture again

Below, a single boxcar spotted at one of the warehouses.  I really should put some trees in at the end of the tracks here to hide the backdrop wall a bit.

Shortline track can often have a few wobbles develop over time.  That's my excuse anyway.  Truth is I'm just not good at laying track

Wood Floors for Two Freight Cars

I ordered on-line two different laser cut wooden decks from Imagine That Laser Art, and received them last weekend.  These things are only 7/10ths of a mm thick, so you would have to look pretty closely at their thickness to even notice it.  Really nice.

One is for the floor of an ExactRail Thrall gondola, and the 2nd one is for a the deck of a Walthers PS 60 foot bulkhead flat car. They fit the two freight cars perfectly and they look great right out of the package.

So here's a look at these...The bulkhead flat deck on the left, and the gondola floor on the right.

These simple little kits are certainly easy enough to use... even I can do it.  Just gently cut or pop them out, and do a little bit of very light sanding or filing of the tiny tabs that hold them into the wooden frame.

The two railcars about to receive their new deck and floor.  That floor that's in the gondola now is a removable one that I previously made from styrene.  And just a quick note about the length of that Walthers 60 foot bulkhead flat, between the bulkheads length is only 48 feet.

 

The Imagine That instructions said to use the gel type of CA glue to attach the parts to the models, so that's just what I did.  Maybe some weathering will be done later, but for now I'm going to leave them as-is.

One thing that does bother me about this little project is that Imagine That did not include boards to run down the centre of the bulkhead flatcar as part of the kit, and I wonder why not.  

I haven't yet added the wooden bulkheads, as I was wanting to put some graffiti on at least one of them, but I haven't quite gotten to that yet.

This is my "drone" view of the Thrall gondola with the wooden floor installed - it just drops right into place - as it sits alongside another same type of ExactRail gondola with one of my styrene floors.  I'll have to try to figure out what loads might be used on this wooden floor.  I don't think the railroad would want a backhoe or something digging scrap off of the wooden floor.

That'll be all for now.  Happy modelling.

Ex-ROCK Boxcar Weathering Project

Thought I'd feature my most recent freight car project, another ExactRail Evans boxcar, that came rolling down the track here in the last couple of weeks.  I've just finished up the weathering on this boxcar.  I'd estimate I've put about 16 hours actual working time into weathering this one.  That time includes masking, patching, gloss coating, decaling, flat coating, rust pitting and streaking, and flat coating again.

On to my boxcar in just a minute, but let's start with the inspiration for my model.

I had stumbled across this photo by Ray Lewis somewhere on the internet.  At first, I thought it was an actual boxcar, but when I looked closer, the coupler trip pin gave the model away.  I printed the photo, and pinned it up at my workbench for reference as I began work on my model.

So, special thanks to Ray Lewis for this...

Here's my boxcar.

This is/was the starting point for my project

All taped up and ready to paint patch.  The other side used just as much masking tape.

The grey patch areas are a grey craft paint sprayed through the airbrush.  The blue patches are Microscale decal trim film that I cut and applied after the grey was well dried.

With the new reporting mark and data decals added.  And the roof is done with 3 coats of Rust Texture hand brushed on.  That stuff clogs the airbrush up (believe me), so I do that step by hand.  Next step was to add the scratches and rust streaking.

Here's my completed car, rolling down the track on the JSSX.  Notice the reporting marks on the ends of the car on a patch of white trim film.  Those numbers sure are tiny, and took a lot of fussing to get them straight.

I say completed, but I haven't decided whether to add some graffiti or not.  I'm happy with the way it is, so I think I'll leave it this way at least for now.  The yellow reflective stripes from Smokebox Graphics help modernize the boxcar. 

Here's a few more pictures of the boxcar all finished up, away from the workbench and in service on the railroad...

Beneath the Gratiot Avenue overpass

At one of my favourite railfan locations

And showing the other side of the car

So, this is what I accomplished over 16 hours or so.  I'm really pleased with the result.

In the real world, I'm not sure what the weather's like in your area, but this is how it was here in Sarnia one winter's day sometime back in the 1990's when I took this photo.  The view is looking toward the east.  I've always liked this picture, and I just learned how to scan my old print photos to the new laptop, so here it is...

That's a westbound CN train heading for the tunnel to Michigan. Quite a few cars in the station parking lot that day.  Now, we're not supposed to park or even enter that area, as it's been cordoned off with concrete Jersey barriers for a couple of years or so.  My guess is that the railroad figures if they block the area off, they don't have to maintain it.

That dark vertical sort of thing that is seen near the centre of the photo is actually an end view of one of the iron cast tunnel liners from the original St.Clair tunnel.  There is also one of the concrete liners beside this one from the new tunnel as part of the display there as well. 

That's it for now. But if anybody knows Ray Lewis, I'd like to message with him.

A Couple of Mis-Matched Things

I don't think I've posted this picture before, but maybe.  It was taken quite a long while ago.  We're seeing GTW SD38 6256 rolling slowly through the simple 3 tracks GTW yard with what looks to be 7 loaded gondolas, 3 boxcars, and a plastic pellet hopper.  The JSSX engine maintenance area and office is seen in the upper portion of the photo as well.  And the 3 track JSSX yard to the right, with the short interchange track connecting to the GTW.

And nothing to do with the above photo, I've probably shown this boxcar here before, but I recently pulled it from the cabinet. The real story is that I had suffered not one, but two failed efforts at weathering this freight car a few years ago, gave up on it, and seriously thought about just throwing it away after the 2nd time  But then, I decided to try to make lemonade from that lemon, and this is what it turned out to be.

This had started out as a really nice looking (ExactRail) Rock Island boxcar, and as I remember, things spiraled wildly downward from there.  This is the result of not knowing what I was doing weathering-wise, trying to fix it and making things worse.  The white door tries to look like a replacement.  All of those brown rusty looking areas is really a lot of burnt umber trying to cover up where I had unintentionally removed areas of the original paint while trying to clean up earlier mistakes.

I actually kind of like it in this angle of view

Rusty roof too, but a couple of panels looking like they've been replaced.

Here's the Evans boxcar sitting at the Tri-State Paper dock awaiting loading.It actually does fit in kind of nicely on the railroad, so I'll be leaving it out on the layout for a little while.

One more view at Tri-State.

And just so you know what we're looking at, here's an image of what the boxcar originally looked like before I messed it up the first time, although not likely the same car number.

I have another of the same boxcar that I've only recently been working on.  Maybe I can show that one here soon.  It looks a lot better.  At least I think it does.

I hope you'll check in here next time.  Have a good week.