Not Much Going On

Not much going on at the layout again this week.  Here is another boxcar that I've got finished up though, so now I'm all caught up on work for other modelers.  Maybe I'll be able to get some more of my own projects done, or at least started.

A coat of clear gloss goes on first, which helps hide any edges of the graffiti decals.  The vertical panel lines and door ribs are highlighted (or is it low lighted) with ivory black, and then the whole car, but especially the lower areas get layers of light brown to give the overall fade and grime. Clear flat finishes off the weathering.

I don't think I've ever taken a picture from this viewpoint before, and that's kind of saying something because the layout's not very big.  That's GP38 813 of course coming around the bend behind the trans-load facility pulling a plastic pellet hopper.

Speaking of pellet hoppers, I wonder what Nova Chemicals thinks of the artwork on this, but I'm pretty impressed.

Saw this down at C-Yard in Sarnia on Friday. 

I'll finish up now with this photo of a service truck that I keep on the layout.  

The focus in the picture is pretty poor, but I've found a solution to that.,,

Here's the "after" image:

I simply asked Chat GPT to 'sharpen the focus on the truck in this photo" and attached the picture.  Worked out pretty well.  Now if I can just get rid of the "Made with AI" tag at the top right of the picture...

That's it for now.  Have a good week.

July This and July That

Last time, I said that I'd re-take this picture of 813 running light but waiting for CN 9302 to cross the diamond, so we'll start off with that this time...The focus is much better this time.  I don't think I've taken pictures at this location very often before. Maybe because the track isn't all ballasted here.

I had been looking for these two products for some time through various store websites, and finally found them at Sunward Hobbies in Toronto...I ordered these online from Toronto on Tuesday night this week, and received them in Sarnia on Wednesday at about noon.

Been doing weathering for another modeler on a few more freight cars recently...I was asked to make them all look somewhat current/present day, hence the graffiti.

The graffiti on all 3 cars is decals, produced by various manufacturers.

The boxcars were all shiny new when they were brought to me.  Because the decals are all pretty bright looking when new, I normally put them on first and get them all well settled into place.  Once that's done I can rather easily blend the weathering right into them as I go along.

Sorry 'bout the telephone pole, but here's all 3 of those boxcars posed on the layout here.

Thought I'd include a view showing the roofs.  The CSX roof was dark blue, the CN roof was boxcar brown, and the SOO car roof was silver.  The RBOX cars are both mine.

Once in a while I like to post a picture of one of the lake freighters that pass by here.  Here's the "American Integrity" Thursday evening heading into Lake Huron on it's way to Two Harbors, Minnesota to load up with another load of iron ore.Not an easy picture to take facing west in the evening here with the sun setting.  And then the guy at the left side stepped into my frame and cut off the very back corner of the boat just as I was about to click the shutter.

And a Saturday morning edit to the blog...

Eric from the Trackside Treasure blog (listed in the sidebar on here) edited that guy out of the picture, so here's that.  I don't know how to edit photos like that. Thanks Eric.

So that's about all for this time.  Happy August Long Weekend everybody.

Engine Running Light Back to the Yard

Three weeks ago (has it been that long already?), I left off my "Follow a One Car Train" post with that RBOX 31916 having just been spotted at the customer's dock over on South Industrial Blvd.  For this time, I thought I'd try to document the trip back to the freight yard.

There's that boxcar, and it looks like the brakeman was just about to climb back onto JSSX 813 to head back to the yard.

So here's 813 just starting out on the trip back toward the JSSX yard.  There's a yellow derail there that had to be reset after the engine clears the spur.

 

Here's an example of an area that I need to do some work.  The roadway is looking pretty scraped up, done with perhaps some not-so-careful use of my track cleaning block.  I'd better get a newer coat of paint on that pavement.

If you look closely, the cab of 813 can be seen at the right of the picture as the engine passes behind the abandoned tower.  The draw bridge is a photo of one that crosses over the Black River in Port Huron, Michigan.

Pretty disappointed with the way this photo turned out.  It's supposedly showing 813 waiting for CN 9203 to clear the diamond where the JSSX and GTW cross.  Maybe tomorrow I can try to retake this picture and show it another time.

813 is just coming out from under the Gratiot Ave. overpass now.  In the background is the Grey Warehouse, and the Midwest Plastics plant is partly visible there over on the left on the GTW.  This is one of my favourite spots on the layout to take a picture.  The overpass has always seemed to "frame" subjects so nicely.

The crew of 813 has gotten a late message from the office to pick up and then spot this lone covered hopper at the nearby trans-load facility.  So that's going to involve a little more work before they get back to the yard.  I'll cover that next time.

Have a good week out there, and try to do a little model railroading.

Who Doesn't Like an RBOX ?

I've picked up a couple of new Intermountain Models 50 foot RBOX cars.  I bought them pre-owned through the facebook Canadian Model Railroad Buy/Sell group but they had never been out of the box.

I haven't done any weathering to them yet, but I will.  And toward that goal, I bought and have received the complete set of six weathered/faded RBOX decals from Precision Design Company.  I've used these same decals before, and they are top-notch quality.  I ordered them online of course, and buying the full set of six saved me $5, plus the company pays the shipping (mailing) cost.

The complete set of 6 weathered and faded RBOX decals.

And so here are a few looks at my 2 new Intermountain boxcars.

Gotta straighten that one stirrup

The yellow overspray along the edges of the roofs is a nice touch.

And out on the layout, two weeks ago we followed a one car train heading around to drop an RBOX along South Industrial Boulevard.

Sorry to repeat myself by showing this view from that previous post again, but I want to point put that I had weathered that RBOX a few years back using a PDC decal set.

Here's a look at engine 813 and the single cylindrical hopper it picked up on it's way back to the JSSX yard.

I'll have more on that part of the operation next time.

Have a good week out there.

2-Bay Covered Hopper

I haven't spent much time at the model railroad for a little while, not intentionally, but it's just sort of worked out that way.  And no, not "taking a break" from it, as some might say.  It's just that the nice summer weather has provided opportunities to do some other things.  

Anyway, I've weathered this DT&I 2-bay covered hopper for Brian over the past week or so.That orange sure is bright.  I thought that the irregular spacing of the numbers on the car was a little unusual looking.

Faded and flattened, and with a few rusty scars.  And some rust along the edges of the ribs.

And the other side. Added a light touch of silver at the tip of the Kadee trip pin to try to suggest a glad hand.  Wheels and trucks done with Vallejo Rust Texture.

A view of the top of the car.

Looks pretty good here, as it's out on the rails of the JSSX

And I made a trip down to Broughdale Hobby in London this morning.  I haven't been there for quite a long while, so it was real nice to see Jason (owner) and to go through the shop looking for to see what I might find.  Here's the few items I came away with:

Couplers, rail joiners, Microscale clear flat, and Vallejo Dark Brown and White Gray, and a pre-owned 65 foot mill gondola.  Hoping to use that White Gray for paint fading.

The Walthers 65' Mill Gondola came with a load of what looks like coal.  I'll be cleaning that out though, as I don't have anywhere on the layout that coal would be headed for.

So that's about all for now.  Have a good week.

Follow A One Car Train

 I thought that this time we'd try to follow along as JSSX 813 heads out to drop off an RBOX.

Here's good old 813, lights on, and just leaving the maintenance department.

813 in the JSSX yard has hooked onto the RBOX car.

After leaving the yard, the train reaches the front of the railroad where we get a closer look at RBOX 31916 (an Intermountain model).  I think of a train doing switching in this area of the layout as 'working the front'.

And a "going away" view of this very short train at the switch where the JSSX diverges off from "the front" toward the South Industrial Blvd. section.

Here's a clear look at the switch where "the front" section diverges off to the left to begin the route over to the South Industrial job.  Over to the far left is a GTW train passing under the overpass.

Now just entering the street trackage at South Industrial Blvd., 813 will have to drop the boxcar and runaround to it's other end and then shove it into it's spot at the customer.

During the run around, and it looks like the truck driver got the transport out of 813's way just in time.

And there's RBOX 31916 finally being shoved into place at the customer's dock. Look closely through the fence to see railroad employee standing at the far end of the boxcar.

Thanks for looking in.  And have a Happy 4th of July.

My SD38 is Back in Service

Several months ago, last year sometime actually, the LED ditch lights on my GT SD38 inexplicably went out and would not come back on.  Not having any idea what I was doing, I tried in vain to get them working again.  Failing at that, I put the engine away in it's box and stored it in my cupboard.

I pulled the SD38 out again just this week, to take another crack at getting the ditch lights working again.

Here it is earlier this week.  The headlight at the top of the cab work, but not the LED ditch lights.

Here it is on the bench, opened up.  I'm looking at this as a bundle of wires, as I don't know or understand anything about wiring.  The lighting was all contracted out for the LED ditch light installation almost 9 years ago.  I've lost track of where the fellow went that did the work for me back then.

Anyway, after staring at this wirey mess for a minute or two, I took the bull by the horns and jiggled the wires.

And also somehow in all this I managed to knock off both of the cab's sunshades.

With the wires jiggled, I placed the engine on the layout track, and the unthinkable happened.  I tried the lights, and they worked.  Imagine that !

Here we go, with the shell back in place, couplers re-installed, powered up, and the lights actually still working.  But I've still got to replace or repair those sunshades.

I've always really liked this engine, so I'm happy to have it back in service.  As I was running the SD38 around the layout for the first time in 8 or 9 months, I thought I might as well have it drag the CMX track cleaner car around and get the rails shined up.

So, not much else going on here this past week, but at least I got that much accomplished.

Have a good week out there.  Happy Canada Day next Wednesday.

CSXT Patched Boxcar

A very nice article titled "Fixing the Cause of Derailments" was written by Paul Hurly and printed in the May 2026 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.  Paul included this picture of my 86 foot CSXT patched auto-parts boxcar as part of his article.  It was a real nice surprise to see have my model included in the article with a picture of it printed in the magazine, particularly considering that this boxcarcar is one of my favourites.

This former L&N boxcar is an Athearn blue-box model that I patched and weathered about 6 years ago. The stirrup steps have also been replaced and the reflectve stripes added.

With Paul's RMC article fresh in my mind, I thought I'd show a few other photos of that 86 footer.

This is the way the Athearn boxcar looked originally.

This is just a view to show the coupler box that I used to replace the original Athearn swing arm.

An older view of the side of the car not shown in the article.

And a look from the other end

And that'll be all for this week's post.

Summer's here !  Enjoy the warmer weather.