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.

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.