Accurail CN AutoRack

Last year at the train show in Woodstock, I bought an old Accurail kit of an open CN auto rack.  I can't really explain why, other than the sellers' price was acceptable and it looked like kind of a fun little project for me to do sometime.  And it was.  It doesn't fit my more modern era, and I don't have any vehicles to put on it, and am unlikely to go looking for any.  My understanding just from looking around on the internet is that the tooling for this car now belongs to Walthers.

Here are all of the kit parts laid out.  Doesn't look too complicated.  The most challenging thing about assembly turned out to be the instructions sheet, which was a somewhat cryptic exploded diagram.

The kit can be built as either a bi-level or tri-level car.  I went for the tri-level model, because why not?  Here I have all of the vertical posts in place on one side, and the others are cut out and ready to go for the 2nd side.  Then it'll be the triangular gusset pieces and the rest of the parts.

It took me a few minutes to figure out that the "X-braces" that are included in the kit aren't intended to go on the tri-level car model.  That despite that I found a couple of photos online of CN tri-level racks with that bracing.  Oh well.

Jumping ahead, here's my completed tri-level. I confess that in three or four areas, I managed to leave glue spots visible on the posts.  I sanded those off best I could, and then sprayed Tamiya Rubber Black, which is a pretty flat finish, over those bad spots and then over most of the car to blend it all in.

Here we are out on the layout.  If you're noticing a little bit of reddish colour on the decks, that's good because I had sprayed them with a little bit of red primer colour before I started assembly, just to try to show some wearing of the paint where the vehicle tires would roll.

The model came with Accumate couplers, but I put Kadee #5 couplers on it because I had them available and they're better anyways.  It also came with 36" plastic wheels, but I haven't changed them to metal ones yet simply because I don't have any.  And besides, this car won't likely see a whole lot of time on the layout.

I saw a photo of a CN autorack that was kind of like this but not really the same, and it had some posts along the top level with cable strung through them.  My guess is a safety thing in an effort to keep a worker from falliing.  So that might make for a nice modification sometime.

But that's going to do it for now.  A pretty nice model that went together well.

Happy Boxing Day out there, and everybody have a Happy New Year.

Conrail Auto Parts Boxcar

I bought this Class One Model Works auto parts car a year or so ago, and just a couple of weeks ago I got around to doing the weathering on it.  And that means it will finally be able to go out on the layout.

The fresh out of the box freight car.

 

First side done...with some paint fading, acrylic artist's paint for rust and grime streaks, and a couple of small paint patches done with decal film.  There are also a couple of small graffiti decals and I've applied SmokeBox Graphics reflective yellow stripes.

And the 2nd side is much the same.  I had a picture of a similar Conrail car (different number) that shows some paint wearing away at the top of 2 of the doors, so I  sprayed those same areas with a little bit of primer gray in a similar pattern.

And so here's the boxcar out on the rails...

Posed to show the first side

And the 2nd side

And there's my weathered boxcar spotted on the spur at my parts plant.

Last one (for now anyway) has CR 238012 coupled to a Tangent model Conrail car.  Now I wouldn't really mind picking up another one of these Class One models to go with this one.

And that's it for this time.  Have Merry Christmas everybody!

GP40 9302 Re-Weathered

A few weeks ago, I showed this GP40 that I had picked up through an internet sale and said that I was intending to re-do the weathering on it.  After a slow start, this one is all finished up now, so here it is...

First, the original photo (again):

The original rooftop weathering came off easily enough using some isopropyl alcohol on a cotton swab.

I tried to weather the sides to appear as the stripes and some of the black had worn off, but to be honest, that didn't work out very well for me, so I stripped that off with the alcohol as well.  I really didn't like the white of the stripes either, so I painted over them with flat black and put on new stripes using an old Microscale decal set that I've had for years.

The decal stripes aren't as white as the original paint, and I like them better.  They are however just a little tiny bit narrower than the original, but you have to look pretty closely to be able to notice the difference.  I'm going to live with it.

I faded the cab with some of my usual Concrete Gray, and also sprayed some of it to on the long hood to flatten the black a little bit.  Some dark weathering streaks are hand brushed onto the cab, as well as some panel line black to some of the doors on the long hood

Here you can see that there's some red primer that I dabbed onto the fuel tank, and some wear appearing on the walkway that was done with a bit of brown and black Panel Line.

And a few views out on the layout for the first time...

Coupling onto a pair of boxcars behind the fencing at the Tri-State Paper spur.

A less obstructed view of 9302 at work.

9302 lifting a couple of boxcars from Tri-State Paper.  I like this view.

The engineer's side

That'll be all for this time.

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.