Some This and That In April

Looks like I'm going to have to find someone fairly nearby to do some lighting work on engines for me since I don't have any idea how or have any of the materials to do it myself.Really disappointed that the lights, all of them, on this SD38 stopped working two weeks ago.  I don't have any idea why.  One day they were working, the next they weren't.

This is about as far as I got this week repainting one of my older Athearn 8-door auto-parts cars.

It's just grey primer, but so far, so good.  I thought I had a picture of the boxcar as it was, but I can't find that now so maybe I didn't have a previous photo.  The green tape on the roof is there because I like the way the roof looks, and hopefully I'll be able to preserve that.

Back in the 90's, Trains magazine featured B&O 2002 as the magazine's average locomotive.  They had some formula worked out to calculate which engine out of all of the engines they knew of would be just the average locomotive at the time.  I took this picture myself of 2002 down at the local CSX yard here in Sarnia, so this is a scan of that print

2002 was here in Sarnia for a few years, and the last I knew of it was that now it's at a museum in Maryland, although repainted.

 

And speaking of Sarnia, here's a covered hopper with a message at the C-Yard 2 weeks ago

A visitor up from the south

This 50 foot boxcar is spotted along South Industrial Blvd here on the JSSX

And I'll close out for now with CN SWeep passing under the Gratiot Rd. overpass

I bashed this one together years ago, but I think one of the manufacturers had said they were going to produce SWeep models sometime.  Anybody know if that's right, or am I totally mistaken ?

Have a good week everybody.

New Auto-Parts Boxcars Arrived

Received a couple of new 86 foot auto-parts boxcars from Class One Model Works early in the week.  These are from their newer run, and I had "pre-ordered" them back in October of 2024, so about 5 months or so waiting for their arrival.

This is how the packaging looks

The top flips up to reveal the models through a window, and includes a nice diagram. Nice packaging. The box top is held closed with magnets.

The two models look really good.

But then the troubles begin...

Fresh out of the box, I realize that one of the cross-members (that loose piece on the left) from the frame is broken off, and so is one of the end cross walks.  And then a short time later, I realized that the air hose had also broken away from the the end of the car, and was dragging (clicking) along the track ties as I tried the car out for the first time.  And that was just on the B&O car.

One of the end walkways was/is bent upwards on the Conrail car too.

None of these are earth shattering defects, and I can make the repairs, but for $75 each, plus shipping, plus currency exchange of about 43%, plus tax, plus customs handling fee, (I don't think I even want to know what all that totals up to in CDN dollars) I would hope for and expect them to be in better condition.

The customs invoice I had to pay upon delivery

Oh well.  It is what it is, as they say.

Here's a bit better look at the both boxcars.

Now I'll have to try to find pictures of similar prototype cars that I can use as examples for weathering them.

Class One has done nice paint jobs on both cars.

Layout Cleaned Up & Things Are Changed Around A Bit

Well, after that dusty fallout from the renovation drywall, my cleanup of the layout is finished, done over the course of a few days.  Certainly not 8 work hour days or anything like that, but probably about 6 or 7 hours of actual working time.

The whole layout surface has been vacuumed, so it looks pretty good now, although bits of gravel and some scenery unintentionally made it's way into the vacuum.  And the buildings and structures have all been cleaned off as well.  And I also ran the CMX Track Cleaner around for a while to clean up the rails...again.

Changed a few things around on the layout while I was at it.  I changed locations of some of the industrial structures.  It's pretty easy for me to do that as 3 of the industries take up the same dimensional footprints as each other.  Mounted on the same size pieces of MDF creates kind of a "structure module", so I can just slide back the rail joiners that connect each structure module to the rail spur and then lift out the whole structure and rail spur.  Really, I could swap them around any time I wanted.  It takes me about 5 minutes to disconnect, lift out, replace and reconnect a structure module.

Here's the left end corner of the layout as it looked before with Mid-West Plastics as the industry.

And just a couple of minutes later, here's that same location with entire the industry module removed in one piece for clean-up/maintenance

And a couple minutes after that, my auto-parts plant has been moved into that location, easily dropping into place and fitting right in to the overall scene.

The parts plant had been at the other end of the layout.

And down at that other end, where the parts plant used to be, it looked like this...

...that is until I've re-located the Mid-West Plastics plant into that spot.

Swapping the locations of the two industries was quite simple, took me less than 10 minutes, and kind of gives the layout a bit of a different look without needing to acquire anything extra.

Now, with everything cleaned up and relocated, I'll just have to start getting freight cars and engines back onto the layout.

Basement Renovations are Affecting the JSSX

Doing some renovations to another part of the basement here, including new drywall in one of the other rooms.  My layout room and the space being renovated share a few feet of one wall.  And that meant...dust. More than enough of it, even with doors closed and a plastic barrier put up. I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad, but I was wrong. 

So, with pretty much every thing and every inch on the entire layout receiving at least a light coating of grey drywall dust, that meant plenty of cleaning and vacuuming and moving stuff around. I took a moment or two to grab some photos, so here's a sampling.

Next to the layout room, the walls in this room had been covered in wood paneling from the 1960's, so this is new studs and insulation and the drywall stacked on the floor.

Sorry for the blurriness, but with new wiring going in the lighting was non-existent for a few days.

So a couple of views from the workbench and layout areaFreight cars and engines to be brushed off and vacuumed are stacked up on the workbench

A whole bunch of accessories and detail bits from all over the layout to be cleaned off after the freight cars and engines are done.

Peter Mumby passed away on Thursday, the 20th of March.  First day of Spring.  I met and was fortunate enough to get a little bit acquainted with Peter through many train shows. I remember that it was him that bought one of the first freight cars I'd ever weathered, a blue Pillsbury covered hopper.  I was quite pleased that it was Peter that thought it was done well enough to buy.

Here's Peter and I when he and George Dutka visited me and the JSSX almost 6 years ago.  Such a nice guy. Condolences to Peter's family and friends.

Corrected a Years-Old Mistake

 So, I posted this picture (below) on the facebook group "Proto-Freelance Model Railroading" just over a week ago.  It's a new group for me and it was the first post I've put up on there.

The facebook posting has had well over 1000 views so far, and a bunch of comments left as well. I imagine that you have probably seen my pictures of my JSSX 813 before on the blog here, as I know I've shown lots and lots of them. It is my favourite engine, and I've always been really pleased with it.  

Everyone that's seen in person on the layout has noticed it and no one has ever said anything critical about it.  Until now.It only took one of the facebook comments to kind of bring me down a notch.

Here's that facebook comment from Rg Hough... "I have to ask, is that fuel tank on backwards?"

And then Doug Stark explained that "where there is a single fuel fill, it tends to be at the front. Air tank on EMD second+ generation typically offset to the rear of the tank/unit".

What?!!!

It's been this way ever since I painted the engine several years ago.  I didn't realize it was wrong, and no one ever mentioned this before.  It's really an easy enough thing to fix.  The fuel tank is just friction-fitted, and slips right off with a gentle pull.  No screws to remove or anything.

So now I'm thinking should I go back through my pictures of 813, re-do them, and delete the ones with the fuel tank backwards.  I'll maybe re-do some of them.

Here's that facebook post picture, re-staged and done over with the fuel tank corrected.

And since the backwards fuel tank was visible in the blog header photo, here it is staged and re-taken.

Well, the picture is almost the same

Also, I purchased this Atlas model from Sean, and received it last week.Atlas GE Dash 8 40-B, it should eventually look good with JSSX 5068 (below)

Same Dash 8 40-B model, different number which I repainted some time ago

That'll wrap things up for now.  Have a great week.

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.