Here's How That SP Auto Parts Car Turned Out

Here's a few looks at the way that 86 foot SP auto-parts boxcar from last week's post has turned out:This is kind of a before and after view...the same type of boxcar on the bottom is of course a different number, but this view shows the difference between the boxcar's original clean appearance and my weathered model.  (I've also started weathering the one on the bottom now too, but that'll be for another post).

My finished boxcar, is fully weathered.

And a few from out in the wilds of the layout

SP 615243 is spotted at the parts factory

The car's colour seems to be "off" a little bit in this view.  I don't know why.

This look shows the weathered roof as well.  I really like this view.

And now, not to bore anyone, but I've also now begun the weathering of SP 615222 (below).

Weathered on the left end, still clean on the right.

So that's it for this time.  Have a good week out there.

Just Started Weathering an Auto-Parts Boxcar

I got a start on weathering this boxcar just this week.  Been putting doing so off for ages, as I've been afraid to mess it up.  I actually have modelled 4 of these.  Looking new like this, they just don't look right when mixed in among my weathered 86 footers.The clean car.  Some years ago, I worked hard to add the exterior ribs and get the car painted, but those grey arrows are decals, and were by far the most difficult part.  Getting them to settle down over vertical and horizontal ribs seemingly took forever.

Here's that boxcar (the one on the left) coupled with two of my other exterior rib auto-parts cars out in the wilds of the layout.

Anyway, here's the way the first side looks as I've gotten started on SP 615243.

Faded the overall car with my usual Concrete Gray, and I've added some streaking rust and just a few rust blisters as well.  That's as far as I've gotten. So far.  More to come on this.

I also sold a couple of 86 footers this week. Here's a look at those.

This Conrail car has gone to New Brunswick

SOU 42538 is gone to a new home in Brampton.

And in the 1:1 world, down at C-Yard in Sarnia, a picture of a Nova Corp. plastic pellets hopper with a generous amount of artwork on it.

Can't quite decide if I like this or not, but I would think quite a bit of time and effort must have been spent by somebody.

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

Trying Out Chat GPT

I've not really been able to get to the train room at all this week, with other stuff going on, but later in evenings I have been trying to quietly get photo files sorted and organized on the laptop.  I've got a long way to go with that.  Doing a few at a time, but making progress seems to be slow.

While doing that I ran across this particular photo that I had saved from somewhere on the internet some time in the past, that I thought I might possibly be able to use on a backdrop for somewhere on the layout.And when I came to this one while sorting throughn my disorganized files, I wondered if I could clean it up so that it might be more suitable for me and then perhaps actually make use of it.

My first thought was to eliminate the "perspective" angle of the picture if I could, so I tried to do that with the Microsoft Designer program that came with Windows on the laptop.

This is a bit more of a square -on view, but still not really what I was wanting.

I cropped the edges of the picture using Microsoft Designer again and I think I messed up a bit by somehow also cropping out the left end of the building without realizing it.  I saved it that way so that was a mistake by me.

Anyway, now enter Chat GPT.  I have next to no experience using this before now, but I asked Chat GPT to remove the vehicles from the bottom of the picture, and this is how that turned out.

That was pretty easy. Those work trucks are gone, and the part of the building that was not visible behind the trucks is complete.  I have no clue how the program can do that part, but I considered it a win for me.

Now this where things got really interesting for me.  I asked/told Chat GPT to square-up the image and get rid of the perspective, and this happened:

The image is about as straight on as I could hope for, and I notice that it has somehow decided to add a wall section to the far right hand end of the building.  That section was originally around the corner on the end of the building.  Looks real good though.

I don't care for the top of the buildings' elevator shaft above the roofline being narrower, so i aske the Chat GPT to widen that to match the width of the sections below.

Looks pretty good now.  I have to figure out just how I'm going to print it, if my printer will even cooperate as that's not guaranteed.  But I'm pretty happy with the way this has been going.  And it's been a good distraction from trying to organize a few hundred photo files.  Maybe more work and progress on it soon.

That's about all I've got for this time.

Have a good week.

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.