Industry Re-Location on the JSSX

I decided that this industrial structure that I had kitbashed in the early part of winter just doesn't work for me in this location.  It creates a problem obscuring the view of the other industry in the background.  So, I've decided to pick the whole thing up and move it somewhere else.I'll swap this structure into a corner location (diagonally opposite from where it is now), moving a couple of oil tanks that are there over to here. Doing so should fill in the other corner quite nicely, and open up the view at this spot. This whole industry setting is mounted on a piece of Gatorfoam that George gave to me, so it will all lift up as one piece.

The corner as it appeared with the tanks

And the way that same corner looks now

And JSSX 815 with the switching duties

I'll have to show those re-located tanks another time.

The Woodstock Train Show is tomorrow, Sunday the 27th of April.  Looking forward to going to that.  I had thought about getting a table and selling a few items, but instead will just be there looking to find and pick up something of interest.

Boxcar Re-Paint Project

Last time, in my "This and That" post, I mentioned that I thought I had a "before" picture of the boxcar I was in the process of re-painting.  Well, I found that picture this week, still in the camera, as I had somehow overlooked downloading it over to the computer.This previous rendition was from back when the JSSX upper management (that's me) thought they could or should develop their own roster of rail cars.

I stripped off most of that black paint job, patches and lettering, and then primered and re-painted the boxcar.

The paint is a blend of Craftsmart Golden Brown and Craftsmart Espresso craft paints.

I was trying my best to match that faded brown colour of the boxcar in this old photo that I took at Sarnia many years ago.

I think that I got pretty close to the shade I was after.

So with the basic painting done, time to move on to the fun of cutting out and applying decals.  Now, I'm not sure that CN actually had any 8-door 86 footers in the brown paint, but regardless, they're about to have one on the layout here.

Keep in mind that we're looking at the still-glossy finish necessary for applying the decals.  It will look much better when the flat clear finish is on the car, and probably some weathering too.

The white area at the ends of the boxcar is white trim film cut to be a scale 2 feet high and 12 feet long to wrap around the sides about a foot or so.  Both pieces slipped right into into place surprisingly easily.

The decals aren't all on the car just yet, as I'm still working on the reporting marks at the top of the ends of the boxcar.  Those are taking longer than I had hoped, as the numbers are soooo small and difficult to keep straight.  I only do a couple of numbers or letters at a time on the ends.

The decals I've used on this boxcar are a set that I had custom printed 2 years ago by PDC Decals, as well as from a Microscale stencil lettering set for the ends, and an old Herald King set that I used for the large CN noodle logo.

That's as far as I've gotten on this project at least so far anyway.  Maybe more next time.

Have a happy holiday weekend everyone.

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.