Sunday Photo Fun, October 9, 2016

[fr8kar]

I modified a Walthers trilevel autorack with parts I designed and 3D printed, along with some swing motion trucks.




Then I touched up the paint and renumbered it before adding some handbrake details and weathering it.








One down, a dozen more to go . . .

[dti406]

Managed to finish a couple of cars this week!



IMRC 8,000 Gal Tank Car Kit, substituted metal sill steps from Yarmouth Model Works in place of the plastic sill steps, painted the car with Scalecoat II Reefer Orange and Black Paint and lettered it with Champ Decals.



Kadee 50' Cushion Underframe PS1 Boxcar Kit, painted with Floquil Boxcar Red Paint and lettered with Herald King Decals.



Finally got around to painting my M&StL RS-1 and will be applying the decals this week.

Thanks for looking!

Rick Jesionowski

[TBird1958]

Looks great Ryan!

Here's a couple projects in the works.................


Some additional GP30 progress, another shot of the chassis after being milled and painted next to a stock one.

Have a great Sunday guys!

Regards,
Mark





The rest of it is coming along, I've renumbered it and added the nose headlight - I can't say enough good things about the Life Like shell, it's a work of art!




I managed to get the roofwalk for the Alco models car cut out from a large piece of Plano stock, I also rebuilt the end ladders using some Tichy grab irons and some spare Walthers pieces. The original parts were arther crude.



Here's a quick comparison shot.



I usually like to have some easier stuff to work on as well, here are some Atlas and Intermountain ACF's that were a car fleet project, I added cut bars, Genesis trucks and in some cases a little paint in addition to some light weathering too.

[riogrande]

I like the BN autorack - Trailer Train markings are pre-1990. Ryan, what is the earliest date on those. Very cool.

Rick, dig the RI Kadee box car. I think Kadee molds them in brown but they look better painted.

Mark, very nice to see the process for getting the GP30 KATOized! One of these days i need to give that a try; I have some P2k GP30's needing that treatment. I've got the CF4750 Far-Mar-Co hoppers but still need to get the CF4650 curved side; I've seen lots of photo's with the 4750's for sure.

My submission this week - I got all the ground texture down across the open area, have pulled up the masking tape over the tracks using a box cutter and decided to tackle the river bed color using Rob Spangler's acrylic paints. I am pleased with out it came out although I might tweak it a bit before I put the Mod Podge down to get the water surface done.

[TBird1958]

Jim, that's looking great!

[captainmudflap (AL)]

<scr<<s
Hi Gang, Here is a Mantua 2-8-2 Camelback I purchased on eBay, two years ago.. I cleaned it after removing the Reading livery, I decaled it for the CNJ (for my late cousin Robert), added a coal load, Engineer & Fireman, painted the shiny handrails black, as well as the cab & apron roof too. Blackened the tires and side rods, & added graphite weathering only, on the loco and tender. It was a favorite of his, before his passing this year. It was sold-off in his estate. Where it is now...I have no idea...  (I'm glad that I saved the pics), and can share them with the forum...

P.S. As Robert was just shy of 91 years of age, after I shipped his loco to him in N.J. - I asked him how he liked it, and how about that cool fireman? He replied..."What fireman?!?!"  He didn't notice it at first, as his eyesight was poor. Later on, via the phone, he asked me: "How long do you think that fireman will stay put, before he falls-off on the tracks???!!!" I reassured him, the "Fireman" would remain on that platform apron (via super glue), shovelin' coal, and keepin' the fires burnin'! He was happy with that peace-of-mind. (To my knowledge), the fireman remained on the platform! R.I.P. Bob...
Thanks for lookin'!
Happy Railroading!
AL

[riogrande]

Thanks Mark. When I first tried mixing the colors I found I was missing tan, which was key. This is my first riverbed. Rob Spangler used drywall mud sanded to get the surface, which is what I did for the base. Then the colors were achieved by mixing medium cadmium yellow with black and tan acrylics by trial and error. I came up with 3 shades, dark green (black with a bit of cadmium yellow and tan), medium tan-green and a light greenish-tan; then blended them at the boundaries. Since my canoeing says I noticed that rivers are deepest at the outsides of a curve where the velocity is highest and water scours and erodes the bottom, and shallowest on the insides where they are usually shallowest. I may tweak it a bit but it's about ready for the gloss Mod Podge, which I intend to cover the surface with and then rough it up with a brush to get a wavy texture.

The earlier photo's were a bit over exposed - I got some new brighter LED lights to illuminate this side of the layout; here is another couple photo's at stopped down a tad:

[mvlandsw]

    Here are some pictures of a bulkhead flat car that I scratchbuilt about 35 years ago. It is built of styrene and brass. The load is built up with individual pieces of strip wood with Chart Pack tape for the banding. I used Weather It on the load to gray the wood slightly. That was not a good idea. The chemical action has continued over the years making the lumber darker than intended.

   The pictures were taken by the late Don Cassler on his M&K Railroad.   Click on pictures for larger version.

Mark Vinski

[captainmudflap (AL)]

Oct 9, 2016 11:15:01 GMT -8 mvlandsw said:

    Here are some pictures of a bulkhead flat car that I scratchbuilt about 35 years ago. It is built of styrene and brass. The load is built up with individual pieces of strip wood with Chart Pack tape for the banding. I used Weather It on the load to gray the wood slightly. That was not a good idea. The chemical action has continued over the years making the lumber darker than intended.

   The pictures were taken by the late Don Cassler on his M&K Railroad.   Click on pictures for larger version.

Mark Vinski

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The car & lumber-load look great Mark! The lumber load appears as wood, that's been exposed to the elements. Maybe in transit too long, or refused by the consignee, and redelivered to a further destination, with harsh weather. Bare wood, weathers fast in the rain, sun, & other elements...I'm sure you wanted it to look less new, but you succeeded in weathering it to look very realistic...indeed! Your track work, and weathering are excellent modeling, and realistic too!
AL

[fr8kar]

Oct 9, 2016 10:43:30 GMT -8 riogrande said:

I like the BN autorack - Trailer Train markings are pre-1990. Ryan, what is the earliest date on those. Very cool.

There's a builders photo of one in my 1980 CLC, but I'm not sure what the exact build date is.

[riogrande]

Ryan, 1980 is good. Most of the Walthers racks I've noticed were late 1980's so I'll have to look for one of the BN tri-levels.

Agree with AL, the lumber load looks great although it looks weathered and I would expect it to look fairly fresh.

[tangentsm]

Here is a Milwaukee Road PS-2 4000 modeled to represent 1973, so the weathering is a bit tame for a 10 year old car. This is a stock Tangent Scale Models car released in 2013, and the only modification is code 88 wheels to improve the car's appearance. I used oils for weathering including the rust at the roof eve, a common failure on these cars.



David Lehlbach

[johnroth]

Wow, I love that autorack! What's different about those trucks? They look similar to the originals.

[fr8kar]

The original trucks that come on the Walthers model are their generic 100 ton truck, which looks kinda similar to the trucks in David Lehlbach's photo of MILW 98301 above (with apologies to your trucks, David! It's just a nearby example). On the Walthers trucks, the outer (visible) springs are arranged as a group of three and the distance between the axles (0.805") scales to 70" which is typical for a 100 ton truck (generally 68" for 70 tons, 70" for 100 tons and 72" for 125 tons). On these trucks there really isn't any provision for the bolster to move side to side perpendicular to the rails. A swing motion truck allows for exactly that kind of movement and they are often found on cars that need to protect the cargo as much as possible, including cabooses. So what enables the truck bolster to move on modern swing motion trucks is this U-shaped pan that the spring packs set into. You can see in this photo how there's a little air underneath the pan and above the sideframe casting:



The other main difference is the distance between the axles. On these trucks it's 63" which comes out to 0.723" in HO scale. I know 0.08" doesn't seem like much, but it looks a little weird with those 28" wheelsets spread out so far and slung so low in the original trucks, especially after spending so much time around the prototype.

Of course the sideframe itself has a slightly different shape than the Walthers sideframe and the spring arrangement has two outer springs with a group of three kind of hidden behind those. Here's a detail view of the model truck on its own:




When I was working on these trucks I also did two versions of the 70 ton swing motion trucks with 33" wheels, which are very common on normal height autorack flats in the TTGX series. One has two outer springs and one has three outer springs (the middle spring is tucked behind the outer two a bit).






The version with three outer springs is also correct for UP CA-11 and CA-11M cabooses. That caboose is actually the reason I got started on drawing them. UP couldn't get the GSI trucks that were used on the early cupola cabooses anymore and apparently didn't want the Barber Bettendorf elliptical spring swing motion trucks nearly every other railroad had, so they specified the National swing motion truck.

This whole topic is one of those things that seems superficial at first until you get curious and go digging. Since I notice these details, I'm compelled to model them, even though I doubt many people will spot them as the train goes by.