The Sweep Returns Onto the Layout

Spent a few minutes out railfanning around the layout this week, and caught the old CN Sweep on a little switching run.

I kitbashed this engine several years ago.  It's an old Athearn blue box switcher frame, motor and cab, with an Athearn blue box GP9 long hood.  Not absolutely perfect, but I put new wheels on it a couple of years ago and it runs really well.  The lights are led's that I had installed at Pete's Trains in London, Ontario.

Here's just a few looks at my SWeep 7104 at work:Running light as it passes behind the transload area on the JSSX

Side view of 7104 at the same location as the first photo

I like this view beneath the Gratiot overpass, with an auto parts train passing by in the background

7104 as it has just picked up Railbox car at the Grey Warehouse

This is actually an older picture, taken beneath the Gratiot overpass

Have a nice week out there.

Undecorated SD7 Project

Something that I'm intending to be chipping away at for a while is this Proto 2000 undecorated SD7 model that I dug out of the storage cupboard a couple of days ago.  The intention will be to letter it for the JSSX.

There's the shell, the chassis and motor, and a sealed baggie that's full with a lot of detail parts that came with the Proto kit.  Quite a set of instructions came with it too.

I bought these items from Otter Valley a couple of months ago with this engine in mind.  I thought I'd get two of the ESU basic style decoders because I figured it cant hurt to keep a spare around, right?

I plugged one of the decoders into the engine, and set it on the programming track beside the JSSX maintenance shed. 

Once programmed, I ran the SD7 around that layout looking just like this for about 20 minutes or so.  It ran really nicely in that trial run.

Here's a look at the inspiration for what I've got in mind for my model.

I'm hoping that the model turns out to look something like this.  I won't be including the orange P&W logo, that's for sure, and the bright white band below the dynamic brake blister won't have the Willamette & Pacific printed on it either.  And I'm also unsure about that light package.

I've got what's left of some old Microscale decals that I think I can use  for the SP "wings" on the front of the short hood.

I'll try to post progress as I go along, but I expect that this is going to take me a while.  Wish me luck.

Have a good week.  Do some modeling.

Upgrade to an Industrial Building

When I put together this industrial building a few years ago, my idea at that time was for it to represent some random industry that had closed down and been left abandoned.  To try to make it look that way, I broke all the window panes out of it (something like 2200 individual panes in total).

It's made up of parts from three of the Walther's "Roberts Printing" kits

Anyway, it didn't take long for me to start thinking back then that it was kind of a waste to not use a spur that could be used to create boxcar traffic in and out.  And so, I began telling myself that maybe just the main floor could be somebody's warehouse and then I'd be able to rotate box cars in and out. So then I covered over the first floor window sections with "steel" siding.

That was a few years ago, and I've decided recently to somewhat change up the appearance of the building by covering over all of the windows with siding that I cut from Evergreen styrene.  I test fit each piece as I went along.  There were a few that I had to file a bit to get them to fit into the window recesses. I honestly don't know what the Evergreen part number is that I used. I painted the "steel panels" with Krylon Camo Brown spray paint and simply press fitted  each one into place.

So here's a few looks at what kept me occupied this week...

The building as it was until this week.

And as it now stands with all of the windows covered over.

A 3/4 view showing the siding panels now installed in the building.  I'm happy with how it's turned out, and the siding panels can be easily removed if or when I ever decide to go back to the broken window look.

That's it for now.  Have a good weekend.

E & C Shops Boxcar

Here's an old E&C Shops boxcar that I picked up at a train show 2 years ago or so, and I've finally gotten around to doing some weathering on it.  Or, I should say that I got around to putting it together and weathering it.  This one is from back when having a model meant doing some assembly after purchase.A view of the pre-assembled pieces.  A few things about this one are that the metal weight was too long to fit on the bottom floor inside the boxcar so I cut it and installed it in 2 pieces and the wheels that came with it are plastic.  When I clipped the brake from the sprue, it went flying off somewhere, and I've never seen it since. Oh, and the plastic body had curved or warped itself inward so the roof that was supposed to be simply press-fitted continually popped off.

So, I cut the metal weight and centered it on the floor of the car, ordered replacement wheels because I didn't have any, found a brake piece that was close enough in my random parts box, and glued the roof in place.  Other than that, things went rather smoothly.

The picture's a little dark, but here's the assembled boxcar as it looked to begin with.  Not much in the way of details on the doors.

The Ashley, Drew and Northern operated over 40-some miles in Arkansas, was acquired by Georgia-Pacific, so I'm assuming they hauled lumber.  The pine tree logo on the sides would also be a clue to that

I had this photo filed away of a similar model done by Norm Madore to use as influence over what mine might become.

Norm Madore photo

I liked that Norm's model had faded to a blue tone, so I tried to do that to mine as well. Green is made up of blue and yellow, and the yellow would fade away first leaving the bluish colour. That's how I think it would work.  I don't think I quite got there, but pressed forward anyway.I masked over the white doors.

So here's the one side after it's been beaten up a bit.  Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber for the rust.  It turned out darker than I think I wanted it to.

And skipping ahead now, my ADN boxcar has made it out onto the rails...

I'd kind of like to patch the reporting marks, but not sure yet which reporting marks might be appropriate for this boxcar.

Sure is one beaten-up looking boxcar as it rolls by in a train.

A look at the B-end.  If I ever find the brake wheel that flew off (slim chance at best) I'll take this one off and put the right one on.  I also have added the brake line to the model.

Looks like it should be in the scrap yard where the gondola in the foreground is.  The car really did go from the original green to blue though.  I had faded it first with the beige coloured concrete gray that I like to use, and then just a really light layer of very thin light Craftsmart blue which made all the difference.

Spotted at Door #1 at Tri-State Paper.

That's all for now.  Stay warm out there.