Freight Car Friday

 Well folks here it is October all ready - what happened to the summer! Seems like I blinked and it was gone. The first half of summer was carefree and my wife and I spent many lazy days enjoying the great summer weather on our back deck ( with the occasional adult beverage), but the second half was kind of full with family commitments and such. I have however managed to get some modeling time in when we had the occasional rainy day - updates on layout changes coming soon. Todays freight car Friday has the spotlight on paper cars. Back in the early 2000's, Life Like ( now taken over by Walthers) had a line called Proto 1000 - it was suppose to be an economy line of locomotives and freight cars with less detailing and such. Included in that line were NSC 50 foot boxcars that were models of the cars produced in the 1960's that were used to handle large rolls of newsprint that papermills shipped to their customers. The proto 1000 line were actually very good considering they were suppose to be an "economy model" - in fact the price stickers are still on some of the boxes of mine from my local hobby shop and it reads $8.99. When I insect the cars and see that price, all I can think is that in todays world what a bargain!! I have 9 of these cars in various paint schemes that would have been seen in the area that I model. All the modeler had to do was add on the ladders and door locking bars and the model was ready to go. One of cons of this model however is that once the door bars are added to these models, the modeler has to be very careful when sliding the models back into the box (once they are in there protective trays). The door bar roller assembly at the bottom of the door is very (and I mean VERY) fragile and if it even rubs on the flap of the box as you slide it in , it will break it off. Other than that , these models were ( and still are ) a very nice model for the price - however like most model railroad equipment I see them for sale on the internet with the asking price several times what the original owner would have paid for them. Atlas has recently announced that they will be producing this same model of boxcar -they bought the tooling from the now defunct True Line Trains, before True Line had a chance to produce this model for release. I ordered a CN version (yellow door) and a Canadian Pacific Pine Tree loco one. It will be interesting to do a side by side comparison of todays new release with the older Proto 1000 release from ~ 20 years ago. I have a feeling that the old boy on the block will still hold up well in comparison especially given the price I paid for them. Till next time....

Proto 1000 Newsprint Cars

Central Vermont #402706

Track Weathering

 Its now mid August and the process to get all the newly installed track weathered has been completed. I found it a bit tedious as the track was installed back in June and its seems like it has taken me a long time to get this done. I guess due to the fact that I only spent a couple of hours per week on it for the last month and a half is the reason. Summer is definitely not model railroad season for me! I used the same techniques for weathering the track as I used back when I built the layout and it had On30 track initially - after the track was painted and installed, (and here's the scary part) I used suede colored craft paint to paint every tie. Next comes "painting" the rail (again) with a color made as a slurry of Rust colored weathering power and 70% rubbing alcohol. This was applied to both sides of the rail and to the tie plates as well - at this point ( see picture below) you will look at the track and think to yourself  "What the hell have I done!!!" but bear with me. After that, go back with the suede craft paint and a square tipped brush and touch up the ties, especially around the tie plates. Let this dry for a day or 2 before proceeding.

Once the paint dries and the track looks terrible, the next step happens which really is the transforming piece of the weathering process. Take a soft brush ( use one that you don't mind destroying - as after this you probably wont use it again) and apply a liberal dusting of soot black weathering powder over the entire track. Then you want to use a sprayer that can produce a very fine mist and mist down the track with 70% alcohol and watch what happens!!!.  The weathering aspect is then complete.

Next the track can be ballasted using a normal method that I described on my blog entry back on 22 Jan titled "Sharing". As a final touch, I spray the track and ballast with a India Ink/ alcohol mix. Be sure and give your track rail heads a good cleaning afterwards to get anything off the railheads to ensure good electrical conductivity for your locos. As mentioned all these steps add up to a time consuming process, but I am happy with the way my track looks afterwards. Our track is a model too and it deserves to not have a toy like shiny appearance that distracts viewers of our model railroads. Till next time...

Track after seude painted ties and rust colored rails

Track after dusted with black weathering powder and misted with alcohol

Final appearance of ballasted track