Freight Car Redo- 1

 For the past six months or so, Bob Fallowfield has been going back over his fleet of cars with an eye toward updating and/or redoing the weathering on them. I've been following his progress on his Galt Sub of the CP Facebook page. Bob models the late 1970's- early 1980's so a lot of his freight cars are of interest to me. He does some really beautiful work, and I've learned a few new tricks from him. But what I've really taken away from watching his progress is the desire to go back and do the same thing with my fleet. The first to go through the program is C&O 619112.

This is one of the Walthers RTR cars that came out in the mid-1980's. I removed all of the cast on grab irons and replaced them with Details Associates wire grabs, replaced the stirrup steps with A-Line parts, and replaced the roofwalk with an etched metal one. It was a lot of work. Once the new parts were on, I masked off the rest of the car and sprayed over the ends and the ends of the sides with Scalecoat II (I think- it was a long time ago!). I painted the trucks a rust brown color and then weathered the car with a light dusting of Floquil Grime. The weathering was based upon a color photo that appeared in Rail Model Journal back in the day. Satisfied with the results, it went on the railroad.

At some point in the not-too-distant past, I came across a photo of one of these cars and noticed that the bottom was blue. Sigh. A quick check of other cars in this series showed that all of the bottoms were painted Chessie Dark Blue, as were almost all of the covered hoppers painted in the Chessie scheme. So I grabbed the old car, looked at the bottom, and realized it would be a chore to mask it off and repaint it. So it sat a while longer.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I could brush paint the bottom. It certainly didn't have to be perfect. I could just mix up a blue that closely resembled the Chessie paint and have at it. I could also redo the weathering which I had never really been satisfied with. The photo below shows the results of the paint job.

When new, the trucks on these cars were painted the same blue color as the bottom. I thought I could capture this look with some artist's oil dabbed on with a cosmetic sponge. It wasn't a one shot fix as I had hoped. I ended up going back over the trucks with a wash of artist's acrylic burnt umber and then finished it off with Pan Pastel highlight.

The final step was to add some wheel splatter to the ends and touch up the coupler pockets. The results can be seen below.

It's nice to finally have this car looking more like the prototype. Given all the time and effort I had put into it back in the day, I really didn't want to abandon it. Will the crews notice the improvement? Unlikely. But at least I won't be inclined to turn my head away every time I see it!

LV 640

Along with finishing up a number of freight car projects and some miscellaneous items, I've also been working on some new power for the railroad. Lehigh Valley C628 640 has been weathered and placed in service. This unit has been leased from Conrail in order to alleviate the power shortage that has resulted from the tremendous increase in demand for coal.

I purchased this unit on sale a number of years ago with the intent of repainting it for the home road. But as I was getting rid of a number of old magazines recently, I came across the two-page color photo of 633 and 628 followed by two snowbirds in the June 2002 issue of Trains magazine which is shown below. The photo was taken in March of 1976- just five months before my time period. So not only did I have a period photo for weathering, but I also had both sides of the C628's. A little additional researched showed that 640 was an ex-Monon unit that was repainted into the Cornell Red scheme in 1974. And other than the end handrails, all of the details were correct. So the back story of leasing this unit was quickly developed and I went searching for additional photos.

About this time I remembered that Mike Confalone had done a Cornell Red LV unit in one of his weathering videos. Once I found that in my library, it was off the races. I used a number of the techniques that he covered in the video and also added a few of my own.

The unit was weathered with a combination of Pan Pastels, oils, acrylics and even a lead pencil. The weathering is the combination of the various effects I found on five different photos of LV C628's.

The weathering process involved a number of different applications of Pan Pastels followed by Dullcote followed by more Pan Pastels followed by... well, you get the point.

The last step was to scrape a #2 pencil along a small section of the upper front and rear handrails. In studying the photo, you could see where the crews had worn the paint off and what was showing was bare metal. From somewhere out of the blue, it occurred to me that I could represent this with pencil lead.

This unit will be teamed up with a home road C628 and SD45 in the not too distant future.

So What's On the Workbench- 1

Now that the summer is over, I'm knee deep in a number of different projects. It feels great to be making progress on the layout again.

First up is the roundhouse at North Pierce. Little has been done in this area since I built the diesel fuel tank back in March of 2012. It appeared in an article in MRH and here's a link to it: http://issuu.com/mr-hobbyist/docs/mrh12-05-may2012-ol?viewMode=presentation&mode=embed. Over the last month or so, I've toyed with the idea of replacing the roundhouse with a two stall board and batten engine house similar to the one at Cane Fork Yard on the C&O. The existing turntable is too short to turn a set of 4-axle diesels coupled together, so to get two locomotives into a single stall, they would have to be removed from a consist. This just isn't something that's going to happen during a operating session so the two stall engine house seemed to be a good solution. However, after reviewing the plans of the Cane Fork facility that Bill Ford sent me, it became apparent that it was just too big. Even a scaled down version would have required a new turnout and the removal of the turntable. But then it struck me- the radial track aligned with the track leading to the turntable is long enough for two 4-axle diesels. And the turntable and lead track could hold another two 4-axle units. So the turntable and roundhouse stay and I've now started working on the radial tracks and roundhouse. The photo below shows progress so far.

After playing around with the concrete color for the base of the roundhouse, it finally occurred to me that nothing inside the building will ever be seen by anyone. All of the neat little touches that I had planned, like painting the interior walls as though they had been whitewashed and painting the lower portion of the roof support beams in safety yellow, would be a big waste of time. I have no interest in making a removable roof so none of this stuff would be visible. I'll spend some extra time making sure the exterior looks good, but for now I plan to skip the interior detail.

In addition to the Kadee covered hopper car that I weathered in a previous post, I also painted and letter an Atlas covered hopper for the home road. This is another one of the kits I picked up used at Tim's Trains and Hobbies in Covington, KY. The detail on this car is really impressive.

I used the same techniques on this car that I used on the Kadee car but I went a little bit lighter on the overall weathering.

Along with the two covered hopper cars, I also painted and lettered two tank cars. The UTLX car will be in diesel fuel service in much the same fashion as a large number of similar UTLX cars on the L&N. These two cars are now in the paint shop awaiting weathering.

In addition to the two tank cars, I've been kit-bashing a couple of Gunderson double door boxcars as outlined in Bob Rivard's article in the July 2014 edition of MRH. Here's a link to the article: http://mrhpub.com/2014-07-jul/land/#94. The side ladders w were removed and new ones made from Details Associated ladders. The doors on the SP&S car were cut off and new ones were scratch-built. This seemed easier than trying to remove the tack boards that were on the Superior doors I had in the scrap box. The photo below shows the BN car in the decal shop along with a couple more coal cars.

The next photo shows the progress on the SP&S car. I'm waiting for the door hardware to arrive and the cut levers still have to be added.

It's been a long time since I kit-bashed a car like this and it has been a blast. I'd forgotten how much fun and how rewarding projects like this can be.

And last up, I'm finally getting around to finishing the caboose service tracks at North Pierce. The shot below shows what I believe will be the final placement of the old coal storage shed, the trailer and the fuel oil tank. Other details such as line poles, lights, ladders, etc. are currently under construction. I plan to finish the scenery in this area of the yard as well.

And the last shot shows the coal shed after its trip through the paint shop this morning. It was scratch-built according to standard C&O plans. I had one here previously but it ended up next to BA Cabin at the west end of the yard at Nelsonville.

As long as the Evergreen board and batten siding is out, I may as well build the tool shed that will be located at Nelsonville. But that's a topic for another post.

Back at it- Part 2

The first part of this post dealt with weathering the sides of CWE 62827 and can be found here: http://cwerailroad.blogspot.com/2015/08/back-at-it.html. Now it's time to weather the top and apply some more weathering to the ends, bottom and trucks.

I used the same brushes and paint for these next steps as I did to weather the sides. Below is a picture of the brushes and the paint.

For the top, I mixed the same Liquitex Ivory Black and Titanium-zinc Everwhite oils with a little bit of Winsor & Newton burnt sienna. I thinned this into a wash with odorless turpenoid and the applied it to half of the roof with the brush on the left above. I made sure to get the wash under the running board and around the sides of the hatches. Next, I took the brush on the right above and began stippling the wash. As the brush accumulated paint, I would wipe it on a paper tower. Every so often, I would dip the brush into turpenoid and then wipe it almost dry on the paper towel. The photos below show the results.

The most important part of this step is to soften any sharp edges by continuing to stipple the wash very gently. It takes a bit of time but the results are worth it. Adding a very little bit of turpenoid to the brush can help loosen any of the wash that has begun to set up. Also, be sure to stipple the areas around the base of the hatches. The wash tends to accumulate here and needs to be softened up.

To add some additional color to the roof, I mixed some more of the burnt sienna into the wash and then gently stippled this on around the roof hatches to represent additional grime and rust. This wash was also applied to the running board at this time. The photo below shows the results.

At this point, I sealed the weathering on the roof with a light coating of Dullcote. Once this had time to dry, I started on the ends and outlets.

The first step on the ends was to make up a wash similar in color to the one used in the second step on the roof. I stippled this very lightly on each to represent the grime that gets thrown up from the wheels. Next, I stippled the same wash on the bottom of the hopper bays on each end where the wheels would throw up grime. Lastly, I stippled this wash randomly to the sides of the outlets. The photo below shows the results.

After another application of Dullcote, I started on the trucks. I mixed up the same wash used on the sides and applied it to the side frames using the brush on the right in the first picture above. I wiped the brush almost dry on a paper towel and then stippled the side frames. Once this had dried, I added some AIM weathered black powder around the journal boxes. Next, I mixed up some artist's acrylic ivory black and Windex and added some AIM weathered black powder. This was applied to the wheel faces and the coupler trip pin.

The last step will be to add some more rust/grime around the coupler boxes and inner wheel faces and axles. I'll also hit the coupler with some weathering. Stay tuned. 

Back at it

Well, it's the middle of August and the summer is winding down. The trips to Michigan are over. Now it's time to get back at it. 

There are a number of projects currently in the works, many of which were put on hold when the summer first began. One of these is a Kadee covered hopper car that I painted for the home road this past spring. It's been sitting in the paint shop awaiting weathering ever since. I've been studying two photos of C&O 1327 taken by Carl Geffchen in 1973. Here's a link to the photos on George Elwood's Fallen Flags website: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/co/co-l1327akg.jpg and http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/co/co-l1327bkg.jpg. Notice the darker streaks on the sides that have been created by the rain as it washes dirt and grime down the sides. This was the look I wanted to capture on the first coat of weathering and it finally struck me as to how to go about it.

First, I mixed up a light grey color using Liquitex Ivory Black and Titanium-zinc Everwhite artist's oils with a little bit of Winsor & Newton Burnt Sienna added. I thinned this into a wash with odorless turpenoid. The photo below shows the grey color along with the three brushes I used.

Next, I took the brush on the left above and applied the wash to several panels on the side of the car. Once the wash had begun to set, I took the brush in the middle and started pulling it down the side from top to bottom. The middle brush has an extremely rough edge and this helped produce the individual streaks. I also used a block of wood held against the car side as a guide in order to get straight vertical lines. As the brush with the rough edge accumulated some of the wash, I wiped it clean on a paper towel. I was careful to keep this brush as dry as possible in order to avoid smearing the streaks. The photos below show the results.

After completing several panels, I went back and took a cosmetic sponge wet slightly with turpenoid and removed the wash from the ribs.

Next, I applied the same wash to the ends and bottom of the car using the third brush from the left in the picture above. Once the wash was on, I cleaned the brush and then went back and stippled the wash in order to remove some of color and soften the edges. The shot below shows the effect.

The photo above shows several areas where the wash could be softened up a bit more. I'll address that with the next coat of weathering. But for now, I'll spray the car with Dullcote in order to seal this layer of weathering. Once the Dullcote has dried, I'll start on the roof. More to follow on this project.

Making a New Freight Car Look...New

Over the last year or so, I've picked up a number of used freight cars at Tim Trains and Hobbies in Northern Kentucky (http://www.timstrainsandhobbies.com/). Most of these cars are either Atlas or Athearn Genesis and the detail and craftsmanship is remarkable. Several of the cars are new for my era with build dates of 1975 or so. I want to keep a balance between the older, more weathered cars in the fleet and some recently built cars and these certainly fit the bill. The trick is to make them look like they've been in service for a brief period of time by removing the glossy "model" look.

The first step is to tone down the glossy finish and I gave each of these cars a coat of Testor's Dullcote first. Once that dried, I came back and slightly faded the paint with a very thin coat of Vallejo Model Air Aged Concrete. This color has become my new "go to" color for fading now that Floquil Grime is no longer available. Once the fade is dry, I gave them one last coat of Dullcote.

For the BN car, I added an ACI label based upon the prototype photo below that's on the Fallen Flags website (http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/).

The trucks and wheels were weathered using artist's acrylics and powders and the ends were given a light coat of a mixture of artist's acrylic ivory black and burnt umber.

The roof was given a little more of the Aged Concrete than the sides to show the reflection of sunlight. 

CWE 56827 was faded in the same manner as the BN covered hopper and the wheels and trucks were also weathered with artist's acrylics and powders.

This car has a build date of 9-75 so it wouldn't even be a year old in August of 1976. However, given that it's in pulpwood service, it's likely that the deck would have begun to show the effects repeated loading and unloading. I added rust spots using a cosmetic sponge and artist's acrylics. 

Last up is Raritan River 458. This car is an Athearn Genesis model and is spot on for the prototype. The Raritan River took delivery of 100 of these cars in 1975 and the build date on this one is 2-75. In addition to the paint fade, I weathered the wheels and trucks a little more heavily than the previous cars using only artist's acrylics.

For the roof, I applied a very thin wash of artist's acrylic ivory black with a tiny bit of burnt umber added. This wash helps highlight some of the detail and adds just a little bit of grime to the surface.

These cars were a quick and easy way to add a few more cars to the fleet. Now that all of John Miller's cars are in boxes, I'm going to have to go back to expanding the freight car roster the old fashioned way... by actually building them myself.