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?

Visit a Prototype Modeler’s Meet.

There’s one facet of the hobby that’s surprisingly fun and definately informative and impressive. It’s your local prototype modeler’s meet. Here you’ll find beautifully detailed models in a casual, friendly atomsphere where you can really appreciate and enjoy them. You’ll often find the true “master modelers” at these conventions, often people you might be familar with through the Model Railroad press.

To check one of these out for Interacting with Miniature Railroading, I brought some of my weathered and kitbashed models to the event to see what reaction I’d get and also to see how easy or difficult it is to fit into these events.

I visited the Bay Area Prototype Modeler’s Meet in Richmond, Calif. (BAPM for short) last saturday and was extremely impressed. Tucked away in the cafeteria of a Catholic School in Richmond Heights, the well lit room lent itself to really being able to see the models in natural light.

FOR A FULL GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHS COVERING EVERY MODEL IN THE EVENT, CLICK ON THIS PBASE GALLERY BY HARRY WONG.

When I arrived at 11:45 a DCC clinic featuring the new SPROG II computer-to-track programmer (which runs on JMRI) was just wrapping up. I paid $10 to get in the door, which wasn’t any problem for me, considering what and who I’d find inside. I also bought 2 Raffle tickets.

The room was mostly filled up, three rows of tables down a 75X30 foot cafeteria, with more than 100 models on display. About 90% of the models were HO, the rest were various narrow gauge scales, including my On30 2-6-0. It is no wonder why HO was represented so heavily as the sheer amount of aftermarket detail parts available is staggering. I asked where to set up, and a friendly member just told me to set up on any empty table, which I found quite refreshing in comparison to handling the insanity of getting a table at a train show.

I was met with pleasant remarks after setting up, and it felt good to finally have a group of modelers that are supportive instead of arrogant, close minded, overly eccentric individuals I often see at train shows. The prototype modeler group is not only nice, but extremely intelligent and informed on their particular area of intrest.

It was time to explore the rest of the tables during the lunch hour. I wasn’t disappointed.

The really neat thing about these prototype modeler’s meets is not only do you see the ‘finished’ models but you also get to enjoy the models in progress as well. Elizabeth Allen’s impressive model of a Southern Pacific SDP45 has been impressing people for the couple of years she’s been constructing it, and just look at the attention to detail!

All the gray parts on the locomotive are from the well-known modeling detail parts supplier Cannon & Company. The current owner was out to display his equally spectacular freight car models and talk with the prototype modelers to get ideas for his next products.

Next to the “in-progress” models all the tables were of course the fleet of beautifully painted and detailed complete models. This Southern Pacific “torpedo boat” GP9 is an excellent example. (The nickname torpedo boat comes from the airtanks on the roof, which are usually behind the fuel tank under the frame, but the fuel tank was enlarged to extend the locomotive’s range, and they had to go somewhere.)

Not only were there plenty of Western US power, there was an excellent display of Brazilian meter and standard gauge equipment by Edson Yamazaki. All of these models were heavily kitbashed and superdetailed.

The most impressive model I saw was a Brazilian DDM45 which is an SD45 built to run on Meter (3′6″ gauge) rails and has 8 axles featuring the classic DD40AX sideframes.

In addition to the Freight Cars& Diesels, there was a good turnout of steam era equipment and passenger cars, all nicely detailed.

You should find and attend the next prototype modeler’s meet in your area, there should be at least one annual event in your NMRA region (although it’s not affiliated with the NMRA in any way) check with other local modelers to find out about these exquisite events! For those willing to travel the Western Prototype Modeler’s meet is in San Bernardino’s beautiful mission-revival style AT&SF depot in Septemer.

Modeling Gaffe 6- Poorly Modeled Derailments

For many modelers there is a morbid interest in modeling a derailment. Twisted metal, splintered wood, trucks, wheels and couplers strewn about makes for an engaging and attention getting scene on a model railroad. However so few modelers actually attempt to make it look realistic…why?

At best, you’ll have a rusty boxcar down an embankment, too inaccessible for scrappers to recover it economically. This is acceptable as there are a couple places in Canada, Alaska, Washington State, and other places where this has occured.

At worst, you’ll find some cliche, cheap tyco car in dayglo-red lying on it’s side with a few figures around it, if that.

Accurately modeling a derailment will undoubtedly take a lot of effort and time, but the results will be worth it. Even suggesting a that a derailment once occured somewhere adds interest too. You could have a broken coupler, perhaps a few bit of handrails, roofwalks, or brake rigging lying in the weeds. Sculpting the slide marks in the earth where the cars and locomotives slid into the dirt would be interesting. Perhaps a severed telephone pole or a damaged signal bridge lying trackside for a stronger suggestion of what might have happened.  

 

A couple of things to realize when planning to model a derailment would include:

-In real life, the trucks support the cars only by their bolsters and gravity. There isn’t a giant 2-56 screw holding the trucks on, so they’d rarely be attached to the car if the car tipped over.

-Metal has a tendency to bend when put under stress. While this would be somewhat hard to model, modeling dented metal would pay dividends in realism when modeling a derailment.

-Wood loves to bend, then splinter. Wood freight cars aren’t too durable in a derailment and are prone to telescoping in on each other or just ripping apart. cutting away a portion of a wooden car and replacing the damaged area with damaged scale lumber would enhance realism.

-Weathering is a MUST when dealing with derailments. From mud to scratch/gouge marks and dents to missing handrails or ladders. Chipped and rusty paint, sooty and rusty roofs and other details bring it to life.

-Wrecked Locomotives almost always show signs of damage in even the most minor derailments. It’ll take some serious modeling skill to accurately model a wrecked locomotive. Although it has been done quite nicely by Jerome. Here’s an example of a Wrecked SD40-2   in HO scale. 

This Selection from Railpictures.net is a good break down of different types of derailments.

Cornfield Meet (Head-On collision)

Rear-End Collision

Spectacularly destroyed Conrail SD40-2

NS Sd70 bashes coal gondolas aside

High Speed Derailment

Ever wonder why there’s a cross at the tehachapi loop? This is why.

Conrail Pile-Up, spectacular results!

Twisted mess of hoppers and coal

Deadly PRR passenger train wreck in 1951

PRR Steam tender ripped apart in derailment

LMX GE in dug itself a grave

Washout

Fishing covered hoppers out of the Mississippi!

Jackknifed coal hoppers create a twisty mess

L&N SD40’s in the mud

Completely Decimated CV Geeps with punctured grain hopper

Sideswipe

UP AC4400 loses half of its cab enroute

Down an embankment

UP frieght turned into crumpled mess after rolling down embankment.

Into a River

What happens when a wooden trestle decides to give way?

DME Sd40 slides into the Mississippi River

Big derailment with modern cars in a photogenic location.

CSX SD70 slides into a river for a drink

Trucks vs. Trains

What happens when a locomotive and an inflammable tanker truck meet.

MP-UP Caboose poking a hole in a woodchip truck trailer

BNSF freight hits frozen pizza truck, local teenagers flock to help cleanup.

Conrail freight hits gravel truck

Switching Accident

Splitting a switch with an SW 1500

Shoving Empty Cars is a no-no.

More Hopper Carnage

Tank Car shoved off the end of a switchback

Bad Track

NS hopper with spread rails in a yard

Tank cars on the Ground in a siding

UP Coal Hoppers derail, almost undamaged

Spilling Woodchips

Jacknifed Ethanol Cars burn.

Coal Gondolas flop on their side and take out a building!

Finally, a really modelgenic scene:

N&W Caboose shoved off the end of a spur, then just abandoned, with the siding repaired.

Modeling Gaffe 4 – Vehicular Anachronisms

Ok, for those who don’t have a precise knoweledge of what an anachronism is, think of it this way: If you were a citizen of the 1870’s, which method of communication would be appropriate for you to contact your family In New York if you’re stuck in an Odgen, UT train depot and won’t be there in time for Christmas?
a) Whip out your Cell Phone and make a call.
b) Walk over to a phone booth and make a call.
c) Go to the local Western Union office and send a Telegram.

Answering “C” would be the appropriate answer, but wouldn’t you know how many people, model railroaders included, would have chosen “B”?

Modelers frequently screw this up with their choice of automobiles and trucks for their layouts, and there’s no excuse, really. So this brings us to the tale of:

You see it even on some of the finest layouts around the country, and this saddens me.
Why, when:
-The Meticulous Prototype modeler re-details their rolling stock fleet to perfectly fit the era (either by “modernizing” or “backdating” such things as Brake equipment, trucks, couplers, trussrods/steel underframe)
-They don’t purchase any diesel or steam locomotive that doesn’t strictly fit their modeled era
-They invest time, money and research into detailing their structures with period details, getting the right advertisements, window displays and prices written on signs in the windows.

Do the same modelers NOT take the same care with their choice of automobiles and plop a ‘58 Corvette in a 1946 scene and dub it “ok” when that corvette probably never would have met a revenue steam locomotive at a railroad crossing in it’s entire life?

The worst offender in the vehicle catagory is definately the cliche1956 Ford F-100, which has been produced in almost every scale. It’s usually found in some junkyard on the layout, a total rust-bucket like it’s been there for 45 years of harsh canadian winters with spring floods….and the modeled year is 1951!!

Delibrately posed to prove a point this Athearn Ford-C cabover truck is weathered only like you’d find one in 2009, with completely faded paint, heavy rust and grime, flat tires, etc. The Ford C was made from 1958-1991 so, like the corvette I mentioned earlier, it would have never seen mainline steam, nor would it fit into my 1954 layout, but SO MANY modelers make this mistake it’s getting old and unacceptable.

There is no excuse for this behavior as the Auto/Truck’s model year is printed on the packaging 95% to the time! Picking an era and sticking to it is a major step towards realism and automobiles can provide the most vivid clue.

Cars change every model year, and trucks usually change designs every 5-10 years. There are periods in which the change was quite rapid though, and most of those fall within “popular” modeled periods.

Visit this car show gallery and follow along with the commentary below:

1922 saw the genesis of the car beyond the wooden-framed, doped cloth covered flivvers.

1935 was the first major jump from “running boards and long noses” to the beginning of the full-bodied cars. Fenders became part of the body.

1939 saw the best of the streamlined cars, they were sleek, chromed, fast and were getting “fuller” in shape, running boards began to disappear on Automobiles.

1949 saw the dawn of the “upside-down bathtub” designs that were WIDE, fat and round.

1955 began the transition into the “fins” era, the designs were still subtle, but a hint of what was to come. The Profile becomes somewhat more square.

1957-9 had perhaps the most outrageously overdone “production” cars with HUGE fins and ungainly shapes. Running boards diappeared on pickup trucks and “highlight lines” (creases in the side of the body, usually horizontally across where the door handle is) were all the rage.

1961 saw the beginning of the slab-sided boxes. Minimalist detail until the mid 1960’s when such cars as the galaxy redefined the GIGANTIC size of the automobile. (these cars were so large, you paint it battleship gray, letter CV-60 on it’s hood and christen it as our next aircraft carrier.)

mid 1970’s, when the hideous “retro” attemps at vinyl tops, bad grilles, and awkward looking bodies were the mainstay of american roads

The 1980’s saw the rise of Computer-aided (er in these cases, hindered) design. Most cars were built as if the designers only knew straight lines at odd angles.

The 1990’s saw the rise of the “bar of soap” designs for aerodynamic reasons. The Ford Taurus was perhaps the worst offender. Trucks became aerodynamic with rounded edges for the first time since the 1940’s.

…you probably can deduce the current collection of cars on the road today, I’ll leave you with that.

Open the Floodgates! Pouring the “Water” for your model scenes.

This is one of the intangible “thresholds” of modeling that modelers have to work up the courage to do, because it’s a one-shot-waste scenario. It’s a tense operation pouring what can be awfully expensive water materials on your nicely painted riverbed.

In the two previous articles, we discussed a new way to research the color of a river, and how to prepare the riverbeds for the coming torrent of “water”. And appropriate landforms to compliment your riverbanks.

Options for Water

For water, Woodland Scenic has been selling a horrendously overpriced product called “Realistic Water”which is actually just Acrylic Glazing Liquid used for painting light layers of paint on a painting. Learn more about Acrylic glazing liquid here. You can get this stuff by the GALLON for half the price of the bottle of WS product at Blick Art Supply.

Acryllic Glazing Liquid
Pros:
-Least Expensive! (Less than $10/Gallon!)
-Easy to Pour
-Non-Toxic, Smelly but not noxious
-Water-Soluble
-Dries CLEAR and looks “wet” and like flowing water (more so than other fake water products)
Cons:
-Smelly for 12 hours after poured.
-Takes 24 hours to dry
-Needs containment if riverbed extends off layout
-If you want to pour it deep, it will take many layers due to the fact that it won’t dry at all fast if you pour it deeper than 1/8″ layers.
-Cannot be colored or dyed (It doesn’t matter if you’re pouring your water shallow)
-It flows through the tiniest gaps in the scenery and like water takes the path of least resistance when poured. Make sure you’ve painted your riverbed properly before pouring.

Woodland Scenics Realistic Water is IDENTICAL to Acrylic glazing liquid, Except 4 times more expensive. (approaches $16.00/bottle)

Envirotex
Pros:
-Dries Clear
-can be poured deep (thick layers) forming bodies of water
-Can be colored with dyes
-Looks nice, but dries dead flat and needs waves added in additional layers.
Cons
-PRECISE mixing may be difficult
-Excessive care to deal with bubbles is time-consuming and boring
-Produces a lot of heat from chemical reaction
-Expensive
-Yellows with age (big problem)
-Creates “fillets” (concave meniscus) and creeps up pier pilings, water weeds, Stone abutments and anything sticking above the water. Looks weird and hard to fix. (Joe Fugate remedies this problem in his DVD’s.)

“Magic Water”

With thanks to Mr. Williams of “Magic Water,” we’ve expanded our coverage of the pros and cons of his product.

Pros:

-Looks realistic
-Can be poured to ANY depth without a need to “layer” pours
-Doesn’t melt plastic or foam
-Can be tinted and colored
-Has a much gentler meniscus around objects and the shore.
-No bubbles
-No Yellowing
-No Cracking
-No Shrinkage over time
-Comes with instruction booklet that shows how to model everything from mud puddles to high waterfalls.

Cons

-Toxic
-Resin-Based
-12-24 hour drying time (Not as bad as envirotex!)
-Needs additional layer to create realistic waves
-Will seep into porous plaster scenery and needs to be sealed.

E-Z Water

E-Z Water (Bag of yellow/clear plastic granules)
-Looks enticing for beginner modelers…DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PURCHASE E-Z WATER!!! It’s a terrible, noxious, yucky, sticky product that ruins cookware, your riverbed and your modeling confidence because every pour will end in failure.
Did I mention that it’s never actually clear? It’s always yellow.

Preparing the River

If not contained on both ends of the riverbed or water feature it can leak in all the nooks and crannys, this is the same for all other water products.

Building a Dam:

To hold back the heavier products like Envirotex, Acrylic Glazing liquid, and Magic Water, you need a dam. I made mine out of metal plates you use for workshop pegboard. These galvanized steel plates are less than $0.50 apiece at any well-stocked hardware store. I drove drywall screws through the holes to hold them in place.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART TO MAKING THE DAM IS THIS:

You have to take Wax paper or Plastic wrap and seal the side in which the water product is going to sit against to prevent the liquid or resin from spilling all over your floor. THIS HAS TO BE NEARLY WATERTIGHT, as all these products seem to find every nook and cranny just like actual water.

Here’s a photo of the dam in place:

Make sure you have at least a 1/4 to 1/2 an inch over the top of your water surface for safety.

Laying a Riverbed, Step by Step

One of the luxuries you’ll probably have as you build your future riverbed is that you won’t have previous scenery attempts lying in the middle of your project. I had to level out an entire canyon before even starting my river.

Here’s what it looked like BEFORE:

I use a lightweight way to build my hillsides, as covered in Woodland Scenic’s “Scenery Manual” which is basically old newspapers, junk mail etc crumpled up into little balls, taped to the board with 2 layers of plaster cloth and a thick layer of sculptamold atop the plaster cloth. They came down without a fight using a small hacksaw to cut through the plaster cloth.

A great tip I learned to recycle sculptamold is to heat up a large pot of water on the stove, then bring it out to the train room an ladle the hot water atop the sculptamold. The sculptamold turns back to the watery mush it was when you first mixed it, and can be recycled over and over. It even absorbs some of your scenery material like the ground foam and dirt, which adds to texture when you use it for scenery next.

The first part when planning a river that will include any rail or road bridge is to build the right-of-way and get it to a point in which it runs reliably, then begin scenery.

Once the track is laid down, shape your banks surrounding the tracks with care to observe how real rivers create banks. Erosion is typically a large part of the character of a riverbank, and trees are the only barrier to preventing the entire banks from being swept away in a flood. Hard stone outcroppings are also elements that add character to a river.

Looking at the above diagram, one can observe some of the neat features you can add to your river scene to add some more detail.

Other riverbed types would include small stones (don’t use ballast for this) and clay riverbeds.

As you can see in the diagram above, I cover the ENTIRE riverbed in an uneven, but somewhat smooth and thin layer of sculptamold. This makes you river look 100% more natural and gives that neat fast-flowing ripple effect that makes your eye think that the water is actually moving.

This is what the dry riverbed looks like with the layer of sculptamold down and the silty riverbed of decomposed granite in place. Any dirt you apply atop the sculptmold MUST be applied over a layer of FULL-strength white glue to prevent us from having problems when we paint the riverbed next. (It will also create a nice layer between the sculptamold and the acrylic glaze.)

Here’s a closeup of the bridge abutment in place, with low wooden retaining walls on either side to prevent eroding the mainline behind the stone pier.

Using techniques in the PREVIOUS ARTICLE on how to correctly paint your riverbed, we take our paints and paint DIRECTLY on top of the dried dirt. (make sure to use a medium sized 1/2 inch wide disposable paint brush)

In the next article, we’ll cover how to pour the river, it’s easier (and in some ways harder) than you might think.

Interacting with Miniature Railroading has a NEW look!

I’m pleased to announce the new colorscheme for Interacting with Miniature Railroading! (No, it’s not based on a railroad’s color scheme for those curious minds)

Check out the new banner, a time-lapse photo I look on my model railroad, and you’ll find a few other improvements.

I’m beginning to re-write some of my articles that were a good idea in theory..but weren’t as helpful as you might have wished. The first article that has been throughroly re-vamped is “Micro Layouts are a Blast!”

Next will probably be updated tutorials on how to do stuff, and you’ll see them in the next few weeks among the other new material.

I have made many promises in the past for articles that I never got around to writing, the list is below, and will be a guide to what you’ll be reading on this site in the next few weeks as I tie up these loose ends.

 

If YOU have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

List of future articles:

-Building a Photo Diorama for you model Trains (re-write, new photos)

-Modeling 4 lane concrete roadways (re-write, new photos)

-We build a Pizza-Style Micro Layout (New)

-How to weather: Tank Cars. Livestock cars, Hoppers, Gondolas, Steel boxcars, trussrod boxcars, old passenger cars, streamlined passenger cars, flatcars, Covered hoppers (both grain and cement), cabeese, diesels, and electric locomotives.

-How to weather steam locomotives (a mulit-part series)

-How to model an orange grove using new techniques

-How to detail and scratchbuild a citrus packing house from photographs of the real thing

-More building and structure plans

- N scale structure articles

-A review of the new Bachmann HO GE-45 tonner (with siderods!)

-and more!

Weathered SD-45T-2

In the SPSF merger “Kodachrome” painscheme. It’s HO scale Athearn RTR and It’s up on eBay right NOW! Bid today. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=220289254366
The Bidding Ends on Oct 11th 2008 at 2:00 PST.

Starting with this…

And using this excellent photo by Brian Ambrose as reference,

http://www.locophotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=38388 

I transformed it into THIS!

If you’d like a locomotive weathered with such attention to detail, visit www.weatheringman.com and click on the banner at the top of the page to contact me.

Building A Photo Diorama for Your Model Trains.

 

THIS ARTICLE IS GOING TO BE RE-WRITTEN, CHECK BACK SOON.

NEW PHOTOS AND TEXT SOON. 

There are some essential elements to any photo dioramam that must be addressed:

-It must not exceed the size of the trunk of your vehicle
-It should be fairly light, so if you want to walk out into a field to take a photograph with it, you’re not lugging some bulky, heavy ungainly thing.
-Choose a Photogenic scene
-As an alternative, build a more generic photo diorama if you’re using it to sell a product.
-Make sure, sense you’ll be using it for photography, that the diorama is hyper-detailed. Every switch should have a grandt line switch stand, if you’re modeling jointed rail, buy some Details West joint bars (known as fish plates in te UK) and spend some extra money on Arizona Rock & Mineral Co. ballast.
-Any structure that you put in the scene should also have a LOT of detail.
-Paint your rails, you cannot believe what a difference this makes!
-weather the ties with various shades of grey-brown
-add weeds made from silflor (available from scenic express) Aviod the strange looking Woodland Scenics grass material. In an ideal situation, try to buy some static grass from WS or scenic express, AVOID GROUND FOAM AT ALL COSTS!
-Make sure your trackplan, whether it be a mainline and siding, a double or triple track mainline is realistic and representative of the region you’re modeling.
-You can make your module specific to an era or generic.
-If you can, try to add some interesting features, like detailed signal bridges or semaphores if that’s appropriate.
-Don’t attach your people permanently to the module, it’ll look funny to have the same person in the same spot in 100+ photos.

For starters, I took a piece of thin plywood, laid some cork down, then added some code 83 mainline track, then for the industrial siding and the switch, I used code 70, with the siding going lower than the mainline. I’m modeling a modern industrial district (which is in direct contrast to my 1950’s San Jacinto Layout) so I can take photos of my modern weathering projects without it looking unusual.

I painted the track using floquil “roof brown” from their series of spraypaints. I then went in with a normal bright boy track cleaner and carefully removed all the paint from the tops of the rails. I also polished the insides of the switchpoints, for I intend to operate this as a mini-layout as well.

Since I’m going to add joint bars to the sides of the rails, I wanted there to be no interference between the sides of the rails and a traditional model railroad rail joiner, So I cut a piece of nickel silver and soldered it to the bottoms of the rails, effectively hiding the joint completely.

<img src=”” alt=”first scenery” />

After laying, joining the track together and soldering wire leads to both the siding and the mainline, I went ahead and laid down a layer of my favorite scenery product: Sculptamold!

I pressed the siding into the colored sculptamold (regular cheap acryllic paint from the craft store) mixed into the sculptamold itself while mixing the sculptamold with water.) and then added a layer of decomposed granite “dirt”.

Although the warehouse doesn’t look great at this moment, wait until you see the final product, seen in PART TWO OF “HOW TO BUILD A PHOTO DIORAMA FOR YOUR MODEL TRAINS” coming soon.

The Bachmann 0-6-0T Weathered

This Bachmann locomotive, although produced from a one-off prototype for an eastern industrial company, is somewhat common looking in the world of industrial saddletank steam locomotives. Two unique features that I haven’t seen elsewhere, save for the Baldwin builder’s photo that accompanies the review in the April 2002 issue of Model Railroader. Thes featured include the HUGE cab (for the size of the locomotive) and the small coal bunker with the rounded edges. They’re attractive and realistic features, but I think perhaps they’re a touch too unique. (Of course what steam locomotive isn’t unique?)

It’s a somwhat gutless performer, able to haul 6-8 cars on level track, which I suppose for an industrial switcher, isn’t all that bad. It runs smoothly and negotiates tight radius curves and sharp switches just like it’s supposed to. It’s well detailed, although it wouldn’t hurt to add some glass to the cab and add some cosmetic touches like the name of the company on the tank and a good coatof weathering for these are the workaday machines of large early-to-mid twentieth century factories, manufacturing plants, and small industrial railroads.

I weathered mine with arcyllic paints mixed with bradgon enterprises weathering powder, which I mixed into the paint with a touch of water to get a well-mixed natural look and an ultra-flat finish. Mud and rust below the running board is typical of these swtichers which often had to deal with puddles, mud and dirt as they traversed all the winding trackage of the average industrial district.