A Trio of TBOX's

I often look at the Tower 26 webcam in Houston to watch trains roll by.  I've often seen long trains with lots and lots of TBOX boxcars.  Many of these modern high-cube boxcars seem to have their yellow paint somewhat faded, with generally light weathering otherwise, and lots and lots of graffiti.

Here's a look at 3 models that I've done with all that in in mind...  

TBOX 662786 with faded paint and a fresh paint patch.

Opposite side of the same car, but in the layout setting

Here's TBOX 661273 but maybe not quite as much fade on the paint as on the first car

And 661273 out in the wilds of the layout here

TBOX 660959

And same car posed along the track.

That's all I've got for now.  Have a good week.

Gondola Scrap Loads

Last time I mentioned that I'd have more about the scrap loads for my gondolas.  Here a a few pictures of the ones that I've got finished up.  I've done or re-done five of these - so far - with scraps of plastic and styrene.  These are all for 65 foot gondolas from various model manufacturers (Walthers, Athearn, ExactRail).

All five are easily removable from the gondolas.  The only problem is that not all of the gondolas are exactly the same size inside.  They're close, but not all of the loads are completely interchangeable.

Here are the five loads sitting on the workbench.  Different combinations of AK Interactive colours give the variations in tones.  I kind of like the one at the top the best, as it has an overall darker tone.  The one at the bottom also has a bit of rust powders added.

Some looks at the loaded gondolas:

Last time I showed a picture of the scrap yard.  Here's a similar photo, but taken from the opposite end of the recycler's yard.

I'm intending to extend this industry spur.  I believe it can extend roughly another 16 inches or so.  And there's part of my scrap train on the line to the right too.

So that's it for today.  Enjoy your week.

  

Some This and That

Further to fixing up that fence I've shown here in the last couple of posts at the back of the Ferrous Processing scrap metals yard, I've also now sprinkled some track ballast and ground foam "weeds" along the bottom of the fence.So here we see the view down the GTW track now. The switch that 5931 is about to cross is ballasted now too, so that's a bit of an improvement to the layout as well.

Speaking of the scrap metal yard, here's a view from one end of that industry.

The Ferrous Processing industry has been easily able to hold 3 gondolas quite comfortably, and it's one of my favourite industries to switch.  As such, I've been thinking of lengthening the spur track inside so that it could hold one or two more cars and maybe create a little more action there.  More on that another time perhaps.

And speaking of those gondolas, I've also been busy fixing up a couple of removable gondola loads.

Sheet styrene cut to fit inside gondolas and covered with the milling machine "busheling".  With some styrene scraps that I've been saving glued on top, they're ready to take a quick coat of grey primer.

I'll have pictures of the finished loads next time.

Meanwhile this week, Brian Smith sent along this photo from New Brunswick of a couple of covered hoppers, presumably part of a potash train, with some pretty serious weathering going on.I've cropped out the sky and foreground, as well as part of the cars on each end of these two.

That's about it for now.  Have a good week everybody.