Full Side Freight Car Graffiti in HO

If you’re interested in having one of these cars painted for you, please visit www.weatheringman.com  

This is definately a trademark of my weathering business, and one I’m very proud to work on. Real cars like this are surprisingly prevalent in the modern scene, and each is a real astounding study in color and detail. So, let’s take a look at some graffiti.

Each of these takes more than a dozen hours of really careful detail painting and variety of specialized materials and techniques to capture the graffiti in HO scale. Some people try to do these cars using decals, but I believe it’s more engaging to paint them yourself. As far as I know, I’m one of the very few who take this route in HO or N scale.

It all started a few years ago with this test car, the Atom(ic) Age boxcar (the “IC” obscured by a replaced door) and caught the interest of a couple of clients of mine, who over the next couple of years would comission me to build the rest of the cars you’ll see here.

After a few smaller graffiti pieces, I was comissioned to do the quartet of cars you see above, each stylistically different from each other. Each one was painted using really tiny brushes following prototype photographs, each an exact copy.

Some, like the three you see here, are based off caligraphy.

The one below was one of my favorite projects, it was my first comissioned full car graffiti, and its challenge is something I still relish today when I’m working on my latest car, perhaps to be featured soon.

Even if you don’t like the graffiti, the attention to detail is still fascinating, at least to me.

What do you think of these cars?

Let’s Build the Ashford Tower!

It’s about time for another structure article. Therefore, I’ll be building the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh’s “Ashford Tower” that’s offered by the great, but not well known manufacture known as Railway Design Associates. Their excellent structures are very similar in construction and molding quality to the popular DPM kits, and their kits have plenty of realistic character without looking like a characture. I bought my tower kit off of eBay directly from their online store for $20.00 and free shipping.

The kit itself is really quite nice and comes with plenty of extra details, obviously from other kits they offer. For any model railroader, this is a huge benefit to get so many neat detail parts in with your kit in addition to your building kit. It definately is an accurate kit with sharp details and some really beautiful windows, including the unique oval windows on the top of the first floor. They even captured the unusually thick 22″ concrete walls of the prototype!

Construction is pretty straight forward, like a DPM kit you must first file down the walls so that they’re square where necessary, then paint and glue it together. For paint I used Floquil “rattle-cans” in Tuscan Red for the base color for the roof (*we’ll weather and fade it out later.) and for the concrete I used rustoleum textured concrete paint for it’s excellent realistic color and somewhat rough finish.

For this kit, I wanted to really detail it since all the windows would probably be open and clean. I went about scratchbuilding a varnished wood floor and scratchbuilt the electro-mechanical interlocking machine found in many towers from the 1920’s.

The long wooden cabinet houses the electo-mechanical interlocking device, but that balsa-wood floor simply won’t do. I took thin basswood sheet and cut it into scale planks with kitchen scissors. I then varnished it with a mix of craft paint and acrylic gloss medium. I typically don’t gloss anything I model, but I felt the interior of this building would benefit from it once it’s illuminated with bulbs.

There’s the floor test fit into the building, I still need to paint the window detail on the inside of the kit.

The interior was then detailed after the varnish dried with a variety of detail parts I had on hand. The guy in green is a Micro Machines figure, perfect HO scale by the way.

The Interior was then test fit..

Stay tuned for part 2 which includes the final details and weathering.

Let’s Superdetail a Trio of Cab Units (F3’s)

It’s a lot easier than you think, and it’s definatley one of those “modeling thresholds” that many modelers are unreasonably scared to begin. In most cases, you won’t ruin your model one bit when superdetailing.

Although it is easy to perform the operation itself, 70% of the effort of superdetailing is being able to identify what you need to purchase. If you’re a new model railroader, you could be daunted by the thousands of detail parts in the Walther’s catalog. Most of the parts are pretty easy to spot, and some are even packaged together to make purchasing the necessary parts easier.

Grab Irons are typically the easiest thing to add to any model  to improve its looks. It’s a pretty simple operation. If there’s any molded on detail, take a #11 Chisel blade and carefully scrape the molding line that respresents the grab irons. If there’s just a little mounting dimple where a grab iron needs to go, get out your pin vise and a #80 or #72 drill bit and slowly drill into the dimple until you’re all the way through. These dimples are most often found on Walthers, Stewart and Later Athearn blue box offerings. (Their SW1500 being an example)

Anyways, let’s tackle this A-B-A set of F3’s.

Here’s what the paint scheme will look like for the fictional “Baltimore & Potomac” railroad, presumably an eastern road:
The Paint scheme is definately a simplified paintscheme common in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.

The light moss green was actually a color I discovered on accident and quite like it. It’s a spray-can color from Rustoleum in their “American Accents” collection. The pigment is quite fine, comperable to the Floquil rattle cans that are one quarter the size. I’m using custom decals from Rail Graphics, they lay on nicely, are opaque and form-fitting.

I’m modeling a somewhat generic looking F3, but even then it needs a lot of detail. Fortunatley the excellent locomotives available from Stewart allow a blank slate for superdetailing.

Here’s a list of what you’ll need to detail a basic F3. The part numbers are identical for F2s, F3s, F5’s, F7s and F9’s.

Parts List:
American Limited Operating Diaphragms (set of 3) #9903

Detail Associates:
229-1102 F-unit Nose lift rings
229-702 F3/7/9 Detail kit
229-1202 Underframe Mounted Bell
229-1508 MU hoses
229-2711** “chicken Wire” etched stainless steel grilles.
Custom Finishing
247-215** Single Chime Air Horn (EMD)
247-196** Speed Recoder
Details West
235-157 “Firecracker” Antennas
235-316 Coupler Cut Levers for F units
235-118** Steam Generator Parts

**= Optional Parts that you might need, but I didn’t use on these models.

Part 3: Atlas Wooden Turntable Goes Steel

To follow this project from the beginning, check out part one and look at part 2 with interest and make sure you’re all up to speed, because here’s where it gets complicated.

Okay, since the design of this turntable is essentially a pin-connected steel truss bridge lying in a concrete pit. So now it’s time to break out a package or two of Central Valley’s bridge parts. To make the bridge, you need to assemble 4 identical truss bridge pieces. A smart idea would be to make a wooden jig and assemble the pieces accordingly. I need to draw up some scale plans for the truss spans, I’ll post them in a while. It isn’t too difficult to take the photographs found in the first article and modify or compress them to fit on our atlas turntable.

the photos above shows how the Central Valley bridge pieces connect to the I beams attached to the main frame in the last article.

Basically, each truss piece should attach to the I beams, then you connect each truss span together with bar-and-pin fittings from the top of each truss span. The first truss span seen in the photo below was a prototype. Each girder was cut with a razor saw, and fitted together with Walther’s goo. The rivet plates were made from 0.003″ brass, the rivets made from gently tapping the point of a screw into the brass in the correct rivet pattern, pretty tedious work that doesn’t make that great of an effect. I might go with styrene in the next version with archer rivet decals handling the rivet details.

Next, we’ll tackle how to distribute weight on the turntable, work on the pit rails and give it a rotation test.

SP Common Standard Turntable from an Atlas Model PART 2

Now that the concept proved successful, it was time to dive into actual construction. Luckily, I had a turntable lying around from a display I took to shows last year, and although it was nicely weathered and a nice model in it’s own right, it was cheaper than buying a new one.

I began construction by salvaging an Atlas turntable motor from another damaged model I was given. The motor and gears worked fine, and recycling is paramount to any model railroader. So I installed the motor onto the turntable and then soldered wires to each rail in the center, so I could run the electricity up onto the future bridge.

I also purchased a 12″ by 12″ plexiglass sheet to use for the new (non-rotating) turntable pit. I traced the circumfrence of the atlas model with a pencil onto the plexiglass and lightly scored the plexiglass. I then used the “scribe n’ snap” method for making a remarkably perfect circle. If you look closely in the above photo, you can just make out the plexiglass disc.

Next, I had to build the open steel underframe for the bridge that would span the turntable pit. Most turntable scratchbuild tutorials go for the classic plate-girder look, but I decided to go for something more interesting, as you know. I built it almost entirely out of styrene “I” beam structural shapes I had laying aound. The main I beam is a scale 4 feet tall, laying on its side making the strong center beam.

This really took alot of patience and a couple failed attempts, which I suppose will make good shop clutter or scrap loads. I had to not only cut all these I beams identical widths, they had to be notched to interlock with the large “I” beam.
If someone knows a really great, smooth and clean way to cut structural shapes like these to identical lengths please post a comment, I’d love to hear it. Eventually I got the necessary amount ot structural shapes cut and began putting it together.

Now that the underframe is complete, it’s time to build the pit rail and outrigger wheels to support the ends of the turntable. In our next two installments, we’ll build some truss structures and the outrigger wheels.

Atlas Turntable Kitbash- From Wooden Wonder to SP Common Standard.

The Atlas turntable has been a staple of model railroading for more than 40 years, and still sells well today. However despite it being one of the most mechanically well-designed turntables in existance, it is a model of a very unusual prototype. Wooden plank turntables did and still do exist today. The wooden plank turntabe was used in the late 1800’s for street railways, cable car operations and small industrial railroads to not only provide a means to rotate motive power but also to serve as an accessible pedestrian or vehicular thoroughfare when not in use. It also would have been installed in areas where a turntable pit would have been dangerous or not feasibly built. Despite these advantages, they were expensive to maintain and all but a very select few survive today. Most, if not all of them were “armstrong” turntables in which an operator had to push on the piece of equipment to get it to rotate. Other examples of armstrong turntables include “gallows” style turntables and very early cast-iron turntables, all dating from the beginning of railroading forward.

Due to the fact that the wooden plank turntable is an extremely rare type of turntable, it shouldn’t be on as many layouts as you see them on. The benefit of the Atlas model is that you don’t have to modify your benchwork in any way to use the turntable, which is a major plus compared to nearly any other model on the market.

In this next series of articles I aim to get a solid, non-rotating turntable while achieving the detail of a Southern Pacific Common Standard 100′ turntable, albeit selectively compressed. It won’t be an easy project, but it’ll reward you with an excellent looking and operating piece of equipment that’ll always work well.

The Concept

The Idea is to cover the rotating top of the turntable, to legnthen it to the outer edges of the device and create a highly detailed steel turntable structure to be visually appealing and eyecatching.

From a mechanical standpoint, It’ll have wires soldered to the rails on the deck that’ll be fed up through a tube to the rails at track level. The whole turntable will swivel from this central tube which is glued to the former top of the turntable.

A new concrete pit will be scratchbuild out of acrylic sheet and painted. Pit rails will be installed to guide the outrigger wheels on either end of the bridge.

The extended edges will allow a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 (with Vandy Tender) to turn itself around, which was impossible before the modification. This opens up the turntable to medium sized motive power and it can also turn an SD-45T-2 with ease as well.

The first step was proving my concept before jumping head first into a complex project, so I cut a large doughnut shape from grocery bag paper electrical tape. Testing out the false bottom concept was a success, it turns fine as long as there’s clearance over the former wooden top of the turntable.

Follow along as we venture into the complex world of constructing a turntable from wood, brass, styrene and acrylic sheet.

Here’s a sneak peek…

Join the Fun! Micro Layouts are a Blast!

Micro Layouts are probably the most beneficial section of the hobby due to the fact that they, in the definition given by Micro Layout compiler and modeler Carl Arendt: “Micro layouts are small model railroads, usually less than three or four square feet in area, that nonetheless have a clear purpose and excellent operating capability. “

FOUR MAIN TYPES OF LAYOUTS

There are four main types of micro layouts, and about 80% of micro layouts are based on these concepts:

 

1. The Pizza Layout is a classic. Originally devised for HO or N scale, the pizza layout is a circle of track, usually scenicked. Rarely are these layouts build with any other trackwork like spurs, but there are notable exceptions. The term originated from either the pizza like look of the loop of track or the fact that some Pizza layouts were built in pizza boxes!

2. The Ingelnook Switching Puzzle dates back to 1978 and is the brainchild of Allen Wright, according to this source. The ingenious 5/3/3 ratio of 5 cars on the main and capacities for 3 cars on both sidings has been lauded as the “perfect” switching ratio. This type of layout is very portable and mentally challenging to shunt or switch cars around with. The Inglenook puzzle exists in real life on some railroads all around the world, like Italy and the US.

3. The Traverser is another very popular method of switching in even less space then the Inglenook. The problem is that a transfer table, a rather unusual piece of railroad equipment that is rarely found outside of railroad backshops, is the hallmark of this plan. This eliminates the need for switches, but realistically limits the modeling subject to a handful of prototype locations. Some variations on this layout can be found on Carl’s site.

4. Ridiculously small micro layouts like the curious “dime layout” that uses a US 10 cent piece as the inner portion of track in what one could term a “bite sized doughnut” layout. (In keeping with the food theme presented by the pizza layout. ) The coin conducts electricity and the outer rail is bent to an improbable radius. Here’s photos of one in action!

5. (Not Illustrated) would have to be the sector plate layouts. I really don’t like sector plates, because they’re not very realistic, and none exist in real life unlike turntables and transfer tables. They do add flexibility through the ability to move an entire train from one track to another, which is interesting.

These are certainly not all of the types of micro layouts out there. Some base their switching maneuvers around a turntable, some are actually small “traditional” loop layouts that feature sidings and the like, somewhat similar to MR 4X8 foot project layouts, but squeezed down to less than 4 square feet. Others offer unorthodox track-work or very complex track age with tight curves and clearances and lots of #4 switches.

THEMES

There are infinite stories a model railroad can tell, and micro layouts push the boundaries of the traditional railroad themes. Some of the more traditional layout themes, like Anthracite coal mining, or modern intermodal terminals would be an impractical. The interesting part of micro layouts is that you can create small portions of large industries and use the micro layout as a small vignette to portray that specific industry.

Some of the more popular themes include:

1. Railroad back shops. Rebuilding cars and locomotives required a lot of specialized switching maneuvers and is one of the few prototypical places for turntables and transfer tables.

2. Wharves and seaside scenes are always popular. From the dock to a point of interchange, or from a mine to the dock. Some layouts even incorporate ”live loads” of coal, ore or soil that dump from the railroad cars into the awaiting vessel. Car float operations are also another interesting facet of this theme. A good number of micro layouts feature lighthouses.

3. Urban Traction is a great space saving theme to explore. It’s one of the few places in which railroading can be accomplished with ultra-sharp curves and overhead wire. The scratch-built trolley cars, street cars and MOW motor flats whizzing around a small layout make for great fun.

4. Mining and Logging operations are popular subjects for micro layouts, although It seems silly to have a lumber mill 5 inches from the stand of trees being harvested..the same goes for most mining layouts.

5.  Using unusual gauges narrow gauge railroads are popular. Examples like Gn15, (1:29 scale using 1:87 HO gauge track, which scales to 15″ industrial gauge in G.) or On3 (1:48 O scale using scale 36″ gauge track) On30 (O scale on HO gauge track representing 30″ narrow gauge) Sn3 (1:64 S scale on their 36″ gauge track, which is almost HO gauge track)   HOn3 (HO 36″ narrow gauge) or HOn30 (HO scale on N 1:160 gauge track)  some crazy modelers even use Nn3 (N scale on Z gauge track)  are the backbone of the Narrow Gauge Movement.

6. Food related industries are popular. Winery layouts, Brewery operations, pickle factories and even a maple syrup factory are all represented among the  cadre of micro layouts.  

7. Brick works, Lime kilns, Railroad Tie creosoting plants and other realistic narrow gauge industrial railroads are very popular modeling subjects, this is another portion of micro layouts in which you can make a realistic layout in a small space.

8. The last main theme is dictated by the package it comes in. I’m building a shoebox layout, which when completed will be a small mining operation in HOn3 (The photo shows the plan in full HO gauge.) The packages can range from an orange crate, to a wine box to a shoe box, or even smaller, like a CD case. The business card layout is by far some of the most entertaining modeling I’ve seen. These unusual puzzle layouts can be excellently designed.

 

 

 

A small mining operation in HO scale is the theme, still a lot to be decided upon. Here are some photos utilizing my shoebox.

The Hopper will go from the mine (above track) out onto the Ore Trestle, where it will be dumped into a barge or equivalent.

For More inspiration, please visit his site, which features HUNDREDS of fantastic layouts that can be built on a shelf, in a briefcase, inside a pizza box or a shoebox, as a traditional diorama, or even as small as a CD case.

http://carendt.com/

Building a Realistic Freight Car Fleet

Not many modelers have realistic collection of rolling stock, which is a shame, because it’s really quite easy to build a realistic fleet of freight cars. First of all you need a theme for your layout, we’re going to use the United States as an example here:

Ask yourself these questions for starters:

-Where is your railroad located?
-What year are you modeling?
-Are there dimensional restrictions on your railroad (Many smaller eastern RR’s had small tunnels and light bridges, both of which circumstances, in their most extreme forms had to have other RR’s freight reloaded into smaller boxcars to squeeze through these restrictions. (Yankee Clipper boxcars are an example)
-Are you a standard or narrow gauge operation?
-Does your railroad interchange with any other railroad? (Most important!)
-What car construction materials were popular in the era you model? (wooden w/ trussrods, composite steel/wood or heavy steel?)
-What colors were most popular on the freight cars of the era? (Boxcar Red, Black, Oxide Red and Yellow were most popular before 1960)

Steps toward refining your fleet to fit your modeled year:

-You really should choose a “cut off” year for your modeling, one that you would unconditionally NOT buy anything built later than that particular date. (Mine is 11-54)
-If you look on the side of any car built before 1990, it usually has a date in which that particular car was BuiLT (BLT 6-42 or BLT 9-71 for example) Those would obviously be for June 1942 and September 1971 in those cases. This is your first clue to pruning down your fleet of cars.
-Be CAREFUL! there may be another date on the car, usually a later date with a three letter shop code like “SAC” or “RPKD” or even a “NEW”. “SAC 11-42″ would indicate a rebuilding took place in November of 1942 at the Sacramento shops for instance. “RPKD 2-57″ means that the jounal bearings on a car with friction bearing trucks were “repacked” with oil-soaked cotton waste to reduce friction in febuary 1957. A NEW date is like a built date.
- Take note that the cars you buy ride on different types of trucks, the most popular with the model manufacturers are shown in the photo below with the year it was introduced to the time the AAR outlawed that type of truck if applicable. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about the dates)

Below is a cross-section of my fleet of cars that are found on my California layout set in 1954.
(This Photo might take a while to load, be patient, it’s worth it.)

Notice that not all the cars are SUPER UNIQUE. They’re all interesting, and some have much more detial than others, but I have chosen cars that strongly reflect the early 1950’s. It was a diverse mix of wooden and all steel cars, with MOW cars still rolling on archbar trucks wit trussrod frames. Most of the cars were boxcar red or oxide red, with black coming in a close third. Most of the western roads had orange reefer cars, while the eastern/midwestern roads preferred white and yellow. The MKT 50′ boxcar and WP 40′er stand out from the rest of the boxcars with bright colors while most roads had intricae hearlds, slogans and logos on the side of their cars. All car still had high mounted brake wheels and friction bearing trucks. Other cars stand out for their loads, like the UP gon with the lumber load or the NKP flatcar with the motor grader. These catch your eyes and provide interesting cars to focus your eyes on while the other brown cars provide a “sea” in which to observe the different ones without confusing your eye and competing for your attention in large yards.

I personally should branch out into the world of resin cars with manufacturers like speedwitch and sunshine (I have one sunshine car, the PFE 50′er.) so that even my “run of the mill” brown cars are more unique too.

Lastly, always purchase cars you like, and buy plenty for your home road too, that will give a stronger sense of place. The typical ratio of home road/ other RR cars is (as hotly debated on the Steam Era Freight Car Group) about 50% home road, 25% regional railroads (direct interchange partners) and 20% opposite coast cars and 5% “exotic” cars (like my silver SBIX vinegar tank car above)

I hope this will help. I plan to do another more in-depth installment in the future. I need your suggestions to improve this article, send me a comment to add to this article!

On30 Kitbash: Mantua 2-6-6-2 + Bachmann 2-6-0= This.

A very interesting kitbash of a manuta HO 2-6-6-2 and On30 Bachmann Rodgers 2-6-0. The two locomotives fit together surprisingly well. First, you strip the manuta locomotive down to the frame, then take the weight off the boiler of the 2-6-6-2 and set it aside.

Next, you disassemble the 2-6-0 keeeping the boiler, pilot, cab and cosmetic fittings. Then to that you legthen the boiler with 3/4″ (I’m not 100% sure though) and go in and add the details to the new longer boiler.

Next, you slip the Mantua 2-6-6-2’s weight inside the boiler, and attach the boiler to the frame, which is as easy as just using the original frame screws from the 2-6-6-2 in the same 4 locations. After the boiler is firmly attached to the frame, modify the On30 cab to fit and add your brass details, paint, and take it for a test drive! Make sure to use the On30 2-6-0’s tender behind your new mallet for the most realistic look.

There’s the disassembled frame.

Here’s what the boiler looks like when legnthened with the PVC pipe.

Note the detached and re-attached boiler backhead from the On30 2-6-0.

Here’s the mantua weight (black) inside the On30 boiler, it’s a tight, but ideal fit.

2008 Western Prototype Moders WPM convention Photos

Although I didn’t attend the WPM, I always keep close watch on what’s going on at the WPM each year by looking through photos that were taken by other individuals. Feel free to look through all of these photos, and remember that everybody takes photos of different things, so no two albums of the same convention are the same.

David Hussey’s Photo Album of WPM 2008

Robert Forsstrom’s Photo Album of WPM 2008

 

The Real Shock was to see one of My Models there..even though I wasn’t in attendance.

http://www.pbase.com/dh30973/image/102886287

 

 

One of the Tangent Scale Model’s Burlington Northern PS2 covered hoppers I did for a client couple of months ago was proudly displayed at the WPM. I was clicking through photos and I saw a nicely weathered BN hopper, and I thought, “Hmm, that’s a really nice covered hopper, I wonder who did that….wait a minute!” A quick check through my own photo archives confirmed that in fact, it WAS my BN covered hopper. Glad to see one of my models proudly displayed amongst the crowd of ultimate rivet counters and an avalanche of beautiful models, all strictly based on actual prototypes.  The BN hopper is no exception.