Entrance Gate is Installed

Last time here, I had posted about a simple (manually operated) gate that I had put together and weathered for the rail entrance to my Tri-State Paper industry.  Well, I got that installed this week, so here's a few photos from that accomplishment.

It is going to be so much easier to install the gate if I just bring the industry over to the workbench.  Just slide the rail joiners back a bit, and I can then lift the whole thing out of place for maintenance such as this.That's the gap left in the layout when the industry has been lifted out.

And here is the entrance gate installed at the workbench.  Just had to drill a small hole into the MDF base and slip the gate post into that.  The fence to the left of the gate was a bit of a lucky find in my parts bin and happened to fit quite nicely into place.

Not a great picture, I know.  Anyway, the whole industry module is back in place, and the rail joiners have it connected it to the layout.  Not sure how I managed to get make the gate a foot taller than the fencing but it's really not so noticeable from the aisle.

And the gate is swung into the open position.

Gate open, and CN 5931 shoving a GTW boxcar into the industry spur.

The 5931 has got the boxcar into place now.  The new gate worked out just fine ('cept for that height issue), the power is connected to the spur (see, the headlight is on) and it looks like  all's well at Tri-State Paper.

That'll be it for now. Have a good week out there.

Some This and That in September

I had posted last week a picture or two of this engine, but failed to mention what type of engine it is, so...With just a single boxcar in tow,  here is BSTX 5859, a B36-7 locomotive, from Rapido.

Passing beneath the Gratiot Avenue overpass.

And speaking of locomotives, I had this one out of it's box and onto the layout for only the 2nd or 3rd time a week ago.  It was running just fine around the layout at a nice low speed.  Until it wasn't. 

It just stopped.  Right about here.

Pretty sharp looking SD40-2 from Bowser. Not sure what made it stop, but I carried it over to the programming track.

Here's what happened when I tried to re-program it.

Can Not Read Configuration Variable.  It will not respond at all. I think I'm going to have to replace the decoder.  Rats.

On a happier note, I've made up this gate for the rail entrance to my Tri-State Paper industry.  This was a little bit of a kitbash from a Walthers kit.

And after some weathering

The fencing that runs along the rail spur at Tri-State is pretty worn looking, so the gate might as well show pretty much the same appearance.  I haven't got it actually installed yet because the paint, er rust, is still wet.

So that'll be all for now.  Have a nice week.

Replaced a Switch at the JSSX Yard

Had leaser engine BSTX (Brian Smith Transportation) 5859 out on the layout for some work this week, and almost immediately ran into some track trouble.  Kept hitting a spot at the track switch at the JSSX yard entrance where the engine would either: a) stop cold, or b) derail.

So that was annoying.

I've had trouble at that same spot before, and this time was enough that I decided to lift the offending (Atlas) switch out and replace it, this time with one from Peco which I happened to have had on-hand.

Here's an older "file photo" of that leaser engine, although it is in a location at the other end of the yard from where the trouble is/was.I had weathered this engine for Brian (he's the CEO at BSTX), and then ended up buying it from him, breaking my moratorium on buying new engines.

Anyway, here's some boring pictures of that trouble-causing switch (middle of the picture)If you look closely, you can see that there's a small piece of rail, probably an insulated section, missing just to the left of the frog.  I don't know why it's not there, but I kind of think it must have been this way for quite some time.

I soaked the ballast with water and isopropyl alcohol, let it sit for a few minutes, slid the rail joiners back, and was able to lift the switch right out.  Snipped a couple of feeder wires too, and then scraped out the ballast.

There's the Peco replacement switch in place.  I soldered in the feeder wires, and put the ground throw in place.  That's actually moved over about an inch from where it had been.  (I've since filled in the ballast at that other switch at the bottom of the pictures too).

After a few successful test passes with the engine and a few freight cars, I replaced the ballast and applied the glue to hold it all in place.  Maybe paint some ties tomorrow, and add a little bit of ground cover here and there as well.

And I'll close out now with this view of that 5859 waiting for the ballast glue to dry overnight before being cleared to run through the new switch.  The whole process was over and done with in about two hours.  Could have been worse.

Have a real good Labour Day holiday weekend everybody !

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.