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.