I haven’t had much time recently to work on the new layout, so I contented myself with detailling and weathering a few freight cars.
The first batch were some Walthers centrebeam flat cars I’ve picked up over the years. I removed all the steel screws and replaced with brass, added some underframe detail, and drilled holes for the tie-downs. I decided to model 2 cars loaded and 2 empty.
I used a different wood load on each side of the loaded cars, so I can have 2 Louisiana Pacific loads if needed, etc, and modelled one of the cars with a less-than-full load, for variety.
After the centrebeams, I set to work on a few gondolas and my solitary flat car.
The 2 Atlas gons are in the process of having removable scrap loads fitted and the only things I did to these cars was to add Kadees and brass truck screws,
The Walthers mill gon was modelled with fixed ends and I have put it into stone traffic (WS talus on a removable foam-core base). this has had Kadee wheels and couplers fitted, stirrup steps, brass truck screws and lead weight replacing the steel bar. I will add brake detail once I find suitable reference material.
The BN flat car is one of the excellent Intermountain cars with a Preiser cable drum load - all I added was brass truck screws and a bit of lead weight.
Not content with that I set about a few covered hopper cars.
The excellent Intermountain 100T hopper only required brass truck screws to bring it up to running order.
The Walthers 100T hopper required rather more work, and I had to remove all the moulded on grab irons, replacing with brass wire. I also added Kadee wheels, brass truck screws and lead weight to replace the steel bar. I retained the plastic steps for now but blackened the sides and back to make them appear thinner.
Looking at the second photo, I still need to add some roofwalk supports.
The last batch of cars for this session were a few more covered hoppers.
I think the Cargill hopper is an Intermountain model - I bought it loose at a swapmeet - but the detailling is really nice, despite one of the steps being missing - I only paid the equivalent of $4 for it so I cant complain. Brass truck screws were the only modification. I managed to find a photo of the same car# on Railroad Picture Archives, when I did the weathering.
The cylindrical hopper is an early Atlas model with the solid roofwalk and was also bought cheap at a swapmeet.
The last hopper was ‘extremely’ weathered when I bought it (same swapmeet I think). Someone had airbrushed a heavy rust wash, as if the car had been dragged behind a tunnel motor for 6 months.
I cleaned off the muck with a scratch pen (fibreglass strands) and accidentally removed some of the ‘Southern Pacific’ lettering in the process. I quite like the effect it produced.
BTW, all the weathering on the cars in this topic was done by acrylic washes applied with a brush. Any excess was rubbed off with a thumb.
I thought I’d just mention my source of photos for weathering the cars.
I try to weather from photos on Railroad Picture Archive, so the model looks at least a bit like the weathering on a real one.
For instance-
model
Rail Picture Archive
It’s an excellent resource for modellers, especially those of us who don’t live in the US, and you can generally find a photo of a similar car, if not the exact car number.
As always your work is nothing short of spectacular, very inspirational amazing working coming from someone who drives on the wrong side of the road, just kidding very nicely done our an artist.
Jon, excellent work on your models. I’m wondering why you replace the metal screws with brass ones. Does it have anything to do with uncoupling magnets or is it another reason? Thanks.
Wow, very nice work. With my down sized layout I am working on, I have thought about putting in more energy into my rolling stock. Those pictures are amazing. Love the lumber cars!
I used black cotton thread for the loaded cars and nylon ‘invisible’ thread for the empties, touched up with a black acrylic wash so you could see them. The cotton thread didn’t look right on the empty cars and the nylon thread didn’t look thick enough on the fulls. Wierd.
Thanks for the info. I assume that you used some sort of product to de-fuzz the cotton thread? Or do they have better thread over there than what my wife uses for her sewing?
Walthers do plastic snap-together loads for the centrebeam cars
Over the last couple of evenings, I have been messing about with a couple of Proto 2000 Covered hopper kits for Frisco.
I fitted Kadee uncouplers, brass truck screws, oil/lube data panels and patched numbers to hide the Roman Gothic originals. I couldn’t find any photos of any originals in service, so these may be out of period for the mid-late 1990s.
Yeah, I had the same question about the screws, I have KD mags (under the roadbed) and have never had an issue, are you using something other than KD magnets?
Some of the uncouplers will be Bachmann Easy Mate but still with the stengthener plate. I mount the uncoupler directly below the rail ties rather than under the roadbed
Last night I did a bit of work on a couple of Athearn boxcars.
The first was a Genesis hi-cube - I’m still not quite sure on the wheel sizes on this one (I currently have 33" wheelsets in). I gave the whole thing a brick red wash (Humbrol #70 acrylic) then scraped off the paint over the numerals and lettering. I then gave it a black wash and drybrushed it beige, before adding some graffiti with a gel pen.
The other Athearn car was the ubiquitous Blue Box boxcar.
I removed all the cast-on grabirons, replacing them with bent wire. I also removed the sliding door runners and added Kadee wheels and couplers and coupler boxes, as well as simulating some underframe detail.
The lettering was a bit dull so I removed it all, repainted the car CSX blue and re-decaled the whole thing (all done before last night). I weathered the car and added 1 set of graffiti with a decal and the rest with gel pen, before dullcoating it tonight.
I know graffiti isn’t to everyone’s taste but I am aiming to run the cars in a run-down country setting, where everything else is grotty too.
While I was in photography mode, I decided to reshoot a few boxcars I’d weathered a couple of months ago, but the original photos didn’t come out very clearly due to poor lighting.
I think this one is Intermountain
Athearn Genesis - again I’m not 100% about the 36" wheels in this one
Another Athearn Genesis, this time with 33" wheels
