Ex-Berlin Mills Boxcar

My "artist" paints have been getting pretty old and kind of drying out a little bit so I made a trip out to the local Michael's craft store this week. I was a little surprised that the price had gone up as far as it had, but I picked up tubes of water mixable oil colours Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber, a new 3/0 brush and a bottle of "Bittersweet Chocolate" craft acrylic.  Then I got discounts when I paid so that helped.

Everything happened to be on sale for 10% off when I was there, but the tubes of paint were also buy one get a 2nd one 50% off.

I've finished up that former Berlin Mills boxcar now, so here's a few looks at that:

Here's the underside of the boxcar after it's been sprayed with that "Bittersweet Chocolate" paint that I got at Michaels.  Of course this won't be seen much, but I typically do it anyway.  I also sprayed some flat black nearer to the ends.

Here's a view that shows wear on the end of the car. On the top of the horizontal ribs I've brushed on some PanPastel Burnt Umber powder.

The boxcar out on the JSSX showing it's wear and tear. Can't really see them, but the wheels and trucks have been painted/weathered with Vallejo Rust Texture.

Weathered EEC 3148 on the spur at the South Industrial warehouse fits right into the locale.

 

That's all for this time. On to the next project. Have a good week.

Getting Back to Some Freight Car Weathering

Spent a considerable amount of time the past couple of weeks organizing photos into folders on the laptop.  I had far too many pictures that just weren't "keepers", so I simply deleted those. But going through everything has certainly kept me busy.

With most of that done, I began trying to catch up on weathering some cars for other modelers. I got started on this Rapido boxcar, but it's nowhere near finished up yet.

This is the Rapido model in it's original form.

This view shows the boxcar roof after the first two coats/layers of Vallejo Rust Texture, which I just brush on. The silver of the boxcar roofs is not easy to completely cover, so I generally find that I have to put on a 3rd coat of the Rust Texture.

Now there is no sign of the original roof colour.  This view is taken after that 3rd coat of Rust Texture, and then some Pan Pastel Burnt Sienna powders to vary the colour a bit. 

The boxcar's original blue paint has been aged or faded using Rapido's Proto Paint "Flat Haze".  I hadn't used this product in quite a long time.  It made for a nice change for me.  Also, one side of the car has begun to get some rust.

Weathering continues with more rusting, making use of Pan Pastel Burnt Sienna and Red Iron Oxide. I'll be taking some of that back off with0 Q-tips dampened with a touch of water.

The other side is underway with rusty scratches and overall rust on the door.

So, that's is as far as I've gotten with this boxcar project.  Still have plenty more to do, including the ends and underside of the car and the wheels and trucks to work on as well.

Leaser Engines on the JSSX

When I first started the JSSX, one of the things I wanted to do was have the shortline use leased power, which would provide some variety of locomotives and paint schemes.  I thought I'd show a few of the leaser engines that find their way onto the JSSX from time to time, which is really just code for I haven't really done much productive work on the layout in the last couple of weeks.  Thanks for looking in.

South Industrial Blvd. has boxcars spotted on spurs lining either side as HLCX leaser 5556  has come into view while switching some of those cars out.

A closer look at HLCX 5556, a former CP SD40

Former Chicago North Western SD38-2 NREX 6656

And also in CNW colours

I had ditch lights installed on GP38-2 NREX 3885

Just for comparison, here's the real 3885

Alan Gaines photo found on the internet

And one more of my lease engines is LTEX 3415

A former Union Pacific SD40-2 with the "snoot" nose, Sean Steele did a wonderful job painting this one for me.

And  from time to time I've posted pictures of lake freighters that pass by locally in the St.Clair River. Here's the first lake freighter photo I've taken this year, the 826 foot Lee A. Tregurtha as it was passing under the very busy Blue Water Bridges on May 13/26 on it's way to Marquette, Mich.  This one was built in 1942, which according to my math makes it 84 years old.

Notice the lineup of cars and trucks stopped on the bridge to the USA.  They'd be getting a nice view of the boat from up there.  I used to cross here 5 days a week in both directions and every once in a while, I'd get that same view of a passing freighter from up there.

Have a good week out there everyone.

Dual Diameter Tank Car

A look this time at a whalebelly/dual diameter tank car (remember those) that I had for many years.  These tank cars are listed as being 67 feet 5 inches long, so kind of big.  A nifty looking car, I used to see these in the yard here at Sarnia fairly often, sometimes they'd be in short strings.  The prototype cars have all been taken out of service due to safety concerns.

To start, here are a couple of prototype photos that I found on the internet.  Photo credit goes to the photographers and railcarphotos.comSal Crisanti photo, 2007.

Peter Bieber photo, 2006

And so here are a few views of my Atlas model, which I weathered pretty heavily several years ago.  I used thinned Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber artist oils for the rusting.  I've always liked the way ACFX 17440 turned out.

I actually entered this model in a weathering contest on TWS-rustbucket.com after I had finished it.  I didn't win.

 

This tank car very rarely gets out on the layout because I simply don't have anywhere for it to go.  It's better suited to be spotted at a really large industry or refinery and my layout really isn't big enough to have that.

So, I decided last week that I'd see if I maybe could sell this one, thinking that then I could use the proceeds to get something else some other time.

I gave my dual diameter tank car a final ride around the layout as part of a train before I advertised it for sale.

And here are a couple of portrait type photos of ACFX 17440 that I used in the ad I placed in a facebook group.  I generally use these type of views when I want to post something for sale. 

I quickly and easily set these up these photos by laying a sheet of black construction paper on the workbench.

I was kind of sorry to see it go, but ACFX 17440 was sold in a day, and now has a new home in eastern Ontario.

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

Switching at MidWest Plastics.

Spent very little time at the layout this week, but I did take about 20 minutes or so to do some switching at the Midwest Plastics plant.  Here's a few looks at what went on there...

The Midwest Plastics spur is there on the left, with a tank car of resin and a pair of plastic pellet covered hoppers waiting to be lifted out.

And here comes the GTW train (SD40 5931 leading) that's going to switch cars in and out.

The engines beginning their run-around move to get into position to pull the cars out of the industry's spur.

The plant does have one boxcar loading door at the far end. A view from beneath the overpass shows this ex-MTW car as it's being shoved into place.

Here's that same boxcar tucked in behind the fence and quite a bit of overgrowth.

The local railfans (that's me) are happy to see this former DuPont 3-bay covered hopper making an appearance on the line. Plus one, or maybe even two, loaded airslide hoppers as well.

Another look at the covered hoppers as they're entering the industry property.

I failed to get a picture of it in the train, but the GTW also dropped this tank car of resin at the molding plant.  (The tank car was originally labelled as for chlorine service, but I removed that lettering and use these as liquid resin cars - I'm thinking of it as modelers' license.)

And this last shot will be of the engines getting ready to head back the way they came from.  Or maybe they've got some more switching to do at the paper recycler next door to the plastics plant.

That'll be it for now.  Have a nice long weekend everybody.

This and That for May

About all I actually got done on the layout this week was getting just a little bit of scenery materials put down, basically in around the gate area at the end of the scrap yard.  A bit of gravel, some sifted sand and a couple of colours of ground foam all glued in place.This came out looking pretty good.  I had lifted that "sheet metal" fence out to glue down the scenery.  It's really just made of printed paper, and if it gets wet at all the colours will run. I gave the fresh scenery a full 24 hours to dry before putting the fencing back in place.

While I waited for that glue to dry, I stood for a while and stared at the area that I've been thinking of as a trans-loading facility.  But what it really has become is a kind of catch-all where several different kinds of freight cars have been being spotted.  I'm trying to figure out how I might be able to make it look and work a little better.

There's a ramp here for boxcar loading, a loading conveyor for a covered hopper, and 3 large oil tanks for tank car spotting.  I think I want to kind of refine this area next.  That shadowy area at the bottom of the photo is from the highway overpass above.

A different view of the "trans-load".  I'm thinking maybe I'll narrow it down to just tank car and pellet car unloading.  There's already plenty of other docks on the layout for boxcars to go.

In the meantime, I've found a few really little projects to catch up on.  In the photo below there's a weathered whale belly (remember those) tank car that I never use, so I think maybe I'll try to sell that one.  Those two gondolas need one coupler each painted so I'll get to that, and the Ferrous Metals scrap yard sign somehow had one post broken off and needing painted.  The yellow thing in the middle is a piece of painted rail that Iwill be a few feet of safety fence once I get it repaired, 

Also, a gondola scrap load that has had a couple of pieces come loose, a wooden crate that I quickly weathered, and a piece of copper pipe that I painted to perhaps use as a stack on a building somewhere.  That tacky glue is great stuff, as it dries clear.

That's what I've got going on for now.  More about these things another time.

Scrap Yard Part 2

Progress on the extension of the scrap yard.  It's not totally done yet, but getting there.  Here's a few looks at the progress in the area so far:

Here, that pile of scrap metal is set loosely in place and a thin layer of really fine sifted dirt has begun to be spread on the ground.  Where the lighter coloured dirt begins (kind of over near the right-hand corner of the picture) is where the spur track extension begins. I had soldered power leads to the bottom of the rail joiners, so there should be no problems if or when an engine happens to need to run down that far.

The rest of the area has been covered with the sifted dirt, and then I sprinkled the metal "busheling" pieces along the ground and between the rails as well to give the spur a real messy look.  The track ties are pretty well buried in dirt.  Lots of diluted white glue was used all along here to keep all those little bits in place.

More of a close-up view of the area.

A look from the far end shows four gondolas and a GP40 fitting nicely within the scrap yard.  Still work to do on the outside of the fenceline and that roadway.

Now sometimes the engine will actually be able to run deeper into the spur to pick up or to drop off gondolas than before.  I like the look of that.

Same location as above, but this lower angle looks a bit more prototypical.

I'll be trying to get a bit more accomplished on the area in and around the scrap yard soon.

In other news, it was a bit of a whim, but I bought myself a one year subscription to Railroad Model Craftsman this week.  $79 USD worked out to $108 CDN after the currency exchange.  My subscription is scheduled to start with the June issue, which went to press this past Monday, and they expect will be mailed out to me in 2 - 3 weeks, so I'm looking forward to receiving that in the mail.

Have a good week.

Beginning My Scrap Yard Upgrade

Started in on a bit of an improvement at the Ferrous Processing scrap metal yard on the layout recently.  I could spot in at most three gondolas alongside the scrap piles, but two gondolas spotted always seemed to look better.  Along the main line on the left side in this picture we can also see most of my collection of gondolas.  I've been wanting to be able to get another of those gondolas, maybe two, spotted into the scrap yard.  That would be between two and five at a time in there so I've started in on expansion.  This first picture shows the scrap metals recycler as it has been up 'til now.

And so I've just begun a project to expand, or actually extend this industry and the spur that runs inside of it.

The perimeter of the scrap yard is now lengthened by about 6 inches, but the rail spur inside will be about 19 inches longer.  That works out to somewhere around 135 feet or so of added length to the spur, which means that if I want to, I'll able to very nicely spot in two more gondolas than I could until now.

Here's some pictures to show what's happened so far:My first step was to re-set the fencing so that I'd know just how much area I really had to work with.  Following that, the longer spur track is in place as well.  To re-position the fence, I tore up a bit of that roadway which really didn't lead to anywhere before anyway.

A piece of 2 inch pink foam insulation is rough trimmed to the approximate shape to make a new pile of scrap metal.

Here's that same pink foam after I've painted it with brown craft paint and set in place at the scrap yard.  A pair of gondolas are set in place just to get a rough idea of how things are shaping up.

Took the carved foam back over to the bench, and have started adding metal busheling that I have been given by Brian Smith to create the scrap pile.  White glue (and plenty of it) will hold the bits of metal to the painted foam.

With more to come, that's as far along as I've gotten with this project so far.

Changing gears now, here's a single look at a covered plastics pellet hopper that was I saw when down at the Sarnia train station earlier this week.

NCLX 4219 caught my eye because of the light rust streaking and a couple of painted patches.  But no graffiti is visible...at least on this side of the freight car.

That's it for now. Have a nice week.