Looking for 2 things for this railway.
- Orange, yellow and grey colours that are available commercially (Humbrol, Testors, etc.).
- Iron ore cars – anything RTR available in HO scale? Anything that is commercially close?
Thanks.
The CN Special Interest Group may be able to help you. The QNS&L is a very interesting short line. I can’t help you with the iron ore cars, I don’t think anyone has produced them in QNS&L colours. Proto 2000 made a few GP9’s and GP7’s and I believe Overland made some SD70’s but other then that I can’t think of anything else.
Hi,
Model Railroading published an article about QNS&L’s SD-40-2. The parts list and the paint available are available at that link http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/84/6046/april-2006-page-48.
I’m not aware of any accurate QNS&L ore car, but I think an Athearn 26 ore car could be a reasonnable standing.
Regards,
Tux
As with anyone who likes or wants to model a little known short line (as compared with BNSF, CN, UP, etc), you should be prepared to look for undecorated kits or strip paint from factory painted models; do you own custom painting, and maybe even making your own decals or getting a company like Rail Graphics to print them for you.
I am not trying to scare you off, but it is more work than modeling a large RR. The reward for your hard work is to model something unique that you can be proud of!!
Welcome in the universe of Do-It-Yourself! Hopefully, your prototype paint scheme is spartan (at least for the cars).
Honestly, you choose a very interesting prototype. The paint scheme isn’t that complicated and if you can make or order decal, you’re in business.
If you want to go Humbrol (one of my favorite enamel paint), their standard #82 orange seems to fit the bill (maybe a little bit on the weatered side, but close enough).
The orange on their old caboose seems to be a little bit darker. You could mix it with a little bit of Humbrol #100 and maybe with a very little touch of black.
They have different styles of hopper, from what I can see they run what seems to be regular 40ft offset hopper (Hard to see the number of bay, maybe four, maybe 3). These models are classics that you can find from many manufacturers. You can pick what will cost you less and assemble a credible large fleet depending the level of detail you want. On the picture, I see they use them for crushed stone.
They also have large ribbed hoppers which sports 4 bays. Similar to Greenville hopper but larger. Sorry if I can’t help you more than this, I’m not very knowledgeable about the 1990’s-2000’s…
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=
I’m my humble opinion, first you should see if getting or making decals for this roadname is a feasible enterprise. If yes, you’re half-way done.
Good luck with your project, it’s always nice to see some folk modelling prototypes from “La Belle Province”. I’m actually building my layout expansion to include the Murray Bay Subdivision in Charlevoix in 1957. It’s striking to see how the landscape is often similar to some part of the QSN&L… Hopefully, in 1957, there was a iron-titanium mine that was rail-served so I’ll be able to run long strings of ore hoppers!
Matt
I decorated a Walthers 250 ton crane in the QNS&L colors a while ago, using only a photo supplied by a friend who visited the area. I don’t recall what colors I used, just picked something out of my accumulation:
The TrainLife’s Diesel Detail Close-Up is a great. I will use the suggested colours.
Fortunately I have the colour scheme for the QNS&L GP7 and the Rail Canada vol.II provides a painting and lettering guide for the GP7, GP9, SD40 and SD40-2 (the Transport Canada library in Ottawa, ON may still have a copy).
The ore cars were cutom built gondola type cars with a heavy solid steel bottom, two 4-wheel trucks equipped with roller bearings, extra-heavy side bolsters and a top flange which could withstand the stresses involved in turning the loaded car completely upside-down in a rotary dumper to discharge its load! Early capacity was 1283 cu. ft. and a load limit of 98 short tons. Later capacities (1975) included 118 ton (1770 cu. ft.) with an approximate length of 29 ft. These were built by Marine Industries Limited.
Bachmann and Bowser also make a similar model (70 ton) to the Athearn so I will be looking to obtain some undecorated models.
The crane picture was one of the first pictures I found and bookmarked!
Thanks to all.
A VERY long time ago, there was an article on scratchbuilding one of the QNSL ore gons in MR–maybe as far back as the '50’s. The cars obviously impressed me to have the article stay in my pointy head for so long. I recall that the biggest difficulty in building it was getting the right trucks. I think these are now available from Athearn.
My recollection is that it was a welded car and could be made up from styrene. This model MIGHT be a good candidate for batch production. Of course, it’s awful easy to volunteer someone else to do the work.
Ed
I did a search on MR and did find the article you mention. It was in the January 1954 issue and was quoted as being a “dollar car”. I got a photocopy of the article and will use it as a starting point. I also managed to pick up a couple of P2K GP7’s in the QNS&L colours. Thanks to everyone for their comments.
Judging from cv _acr’s link, I think Bowser makes similar cars decorated for Penn Central and PRR.
The Lone Geep
I know this is a little late, but check out this website. All you have to do is copy and paste the web address of a good photo of a QNS&L locomotive, and the palette generator will kick out the colors. I plan on doing a couple of QNS&L SD70ACes for fun. The yellow and black stripes can be applied using decals. The traction orange and light gray I will need to paint.
Here’s the website.
ttp://www.colorhunter.com/browse.php?h=y&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.railpictures.net%2Fimages%2Fd1%2F6%2F9%2F6%2F9696.1265347559.jpg