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Post by TBird1958 on Sept 6, 2015 6:55:56 GMT -8
I haven't started one of these in awhile...... Had the chance to shoot some recent work on a sunny afternoon, hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend! A couple of Athearn Genesis PC&F Evergreen cars, one with Youngstown doors, the other with Landis.   An Atlas LPG tank, upgraded with a Plano walkway/end ladder set and Athearn Genesis 100 ton trucks with 36" wheels. The Plano parts give a nice, delicate appearance, they're easy to apply and are very strong.   An Atlas 52' Evans car, as a stock model it's molded in red plasic with a thin coat of red paint followed by the dark blue. To get rid of the waxy cast of the plastic I gloss coated the car, followed by dull coat. The car was weathered with colored pencils and chalks. I added Plano walkways and cut bars along with Kato roller bearing trucks.   |
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Post by riogrande on Sept 6, 2015 7:00:03 GMT -8
Sweet! Weathered "just right" - especially love the Evergreen box cars.
Cheers.
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Post by mlehman on Sept 6, 2015 7:07:26 GMT -8
I haven't started one of these in awhile...... Well it's about time  Beautiful work. I'm with Jim F, those Evergreen cars are great  I've been posting a bunch of pics taken on the Cascade Branch now that trackwork is close to complete. Cloasing in on 12,000 views after two years, there's lot more at the end of the thread at: cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/219241.aspxHere's a sample.     |
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Post by wrgmilw on Sept 6, 2015 7:08:27 GMT -8
To TBIRD
I like your Rock Background . is your background part of a diorama ?
Your freight cars look great as well !
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Post by dti406 on Sept 6, 2015 7:33:23 GMT -8
T-Bird, those Evergreens do look nice, I was in the process of building, painting and decaling an Evergreen car, but Athearn put the wrong parts in the undecorated kit and with the fact that the drawings supplied with the car do not have the part number with missing part it has been a PITA to get the replacement parts. Nothing accomplished this week, but here are some pictures of my new New Haven FL9's at the club.   These are awesome looking and running locomotives, I got the straight DC version but they are great. Rick J |
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Post by TBird1958 on Sept 6, 2015 7:35:58 GMT -8
To TBIRD I like your Rock Background . is your background part of a diorama ? Your freight cars look great as well ! Thank you! Yes, the rock work is one of two dioramas I use for photos. I really enjoy model photography outside, strong sunlight is fun to work with. I actually took those shots with the dio set up in front of my garage in the afternoon. |
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Post by markfj on Sept 6, 2015 8:00:32 GMT -8
Well, my humble offering is this IMRC 50’ PS-1 double door kit that is pretty much a straight up build. The only modifications I made were to extend the sills at the corner to better match the prototype. That, and I used Branchline tackboards in place of the clunky, oversized ones supplied in the kit. If I do one of these kits again, I’ll remove the entire sill and replace it with styrene to eliminate the need to splice and blend in the pieces. Wish I could have gotten a better paint match too.   Erie 67635Yes, it needs weathering. Everyone's work looks great! Thanks, Mark |
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Post by tankcarsrule on Sept 6, 2015 9:43:15 GMT -8
Mark, those are great looking cars. Regards, Bobby  |
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Post by TBird1958 on Sept 6, 2015 10:01:22 GMT -8
Mark, those are great looking cars. Regards, Bobby
Thanks Bobby! - Your fine work serves as a great inspiration!
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Post by fiend540 on Sept 6, 2015 18:24:47 GMT -8
Tbird, your modeling and photography skills are always impressive. Any pictures of that flat car and load, the few glimpses in the other pictures have me intrigued!
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Post by TBird1958 on Sept 6, 2015 20:32:30 GMT -8
Tbird, your modeling and photography skills are always impressive. Any pictures of that flat car and load, the few glimpses in the other pictures have me intrigued! Thank you! I'm just using an iphone 5 for a camera right now, as my computer isn't liking my digital one. The flat car isn't quite done yet, it needs some scale wood bracing for the large placard on the side. The car is a 60' SSW flat from Tangent and the load is a structural shape from JL Innovations. I'll re shoot it pretty soon. Cheers, Mark |
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 7, 2015 4:02:40 GMT -8
I finally finished a project I've had in the works for a long time. About twenty years, in fact. Around 1995 I was working as a survey party chief on the expansion of Santa Fe's Alliance Intermodal Facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The facility was open and fully operational during the construction, which meant that I watched trains as I worked every day. This exposure caused my interest in intermodal equipment to spike, and by the end of the summer I had acquired a 22 foot long intermodal train complete with containers and trailers. One of the cars I had designs on upgrading was the Athearn Impack car as one of Santa Fe's 10 unit Fuel Foilers. After several false starts at upgrading it, detailing it and weathering it, I finally decided to pull this model from service several years ago and give it a proper treatment. Two signature elements of this car - besides its ridiculous length of 465 feet - are the narrow decks which allow 102" wide trailer wheels to hang over the sides (this was addressed later with angle iron welded to the deck) and the exposed brake plumbing and rigging. About halfway through I stopped working on it and instead focused on building a Free-mo module. I set it aside until a couple months ago when I decided to finally finish it. After I finished the plumbing and hitting a mental wall I finally had a realization of how to execute the handbrake rigging. Instead of trying to fabricate levers, rods and slack adjusters that passed through the hollow frame, I decided to build these parts up as attachments to the exterior of the frame. It will require some shadow painting to give the illusion that the frame is hollow where the levers pass through the frame, but it will certainly be more durable than my initial approach. After finishing the levers and rods that make up the handbrake rigging, which extends from the B unit to the D unit, I finally got it prepped and painted. After an eight hour decal marathon the model was finally finished this past week. This time of year is great painting weather, so pretty much everything I have done lately is presented in an as-built finish, but make no mistake it will be weathered to represent the car near the end of its service life. Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out how to take a decent photo of this thing. I apologize for the poor photos:     |
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Post by riogrande on Sept 7, 2015 7:06:22 GMT -8
Ryan, those look pretty good to me but I'm not an expert on them. There is a weight that fits in the area between the wheel platforms - did you install that weight and if so, did you paint it? I've been thinking I should paint the weight black for my yellow Trailer Train version.
I recall back in 1985 when I was helping my mom drive a U-haul from California to Texas along Interstate 10 through Arizona and New Mexico, passing through a town where there was an ATSF freight yard and a long string of those white spine fuel foilers. It made quite an impression on me.
I doubt the fuel foilers traveled the D&RGW, however, it is my understanding that the similar ITEL Impack cars were regulars on the Rio Grande Rail Blazer train, of which I am modeling. I've managed to scare up 3 5-car sets in the past couple years to add to the standard 89' flat cars and a few of the Front Runners as well.
The 10-car ATSF Fuel Foilers are very eye catching!
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Post by drolsen on Sept 7, 2015 7:58:13 GMT -8
Ryan, that's really impressive. I find freight car projects like that intimidating because of the repetition involved in detailing each unit. I have several 48' spine cars and Maxi-III well car kits on the shelf, but I never get around to starting them. I can tell that Fuel Foiler was a lot of work! Congrats on finally finishing your project.
Dave
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Post by icrr3067 on Sept 7, 2015 8:04:41 GMT -8
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 7, 2015 13:19:41 GMT -8
Ryan, those look pretty good to me but I'm not an expert on them. There is a weight that fits in the area between the wheel platforms - did you install that weight and if so, did you paint it? I've been thinking I should paint the weight black for my yellow Trailer Train version. I installed the weights in each unit. It's pretty light even with the weights, but the metal wheelsets help. I primed everything and painted it white, so the weights aren't really very visible. I just paged through Dave Bernstein's Southern Pacific Eastern Lines 1946-1996 last night and saw a photo taken in 1986 of what appears to be one of the Cotton Belt or Southern Pacific Impack cars on the head end of an intermodal train. It appears to match the profile of the Athearn car, which represents Impack's slightly tweaked version of the Fuel Foiler design. Are these the cars you're talking about, or were there more operators? I also have a handful of the Front Runners. At the time I was only able to get the TTX logo version, but after a little scrubbing with a chisel blade and Solvaset, some black paint and the Microscale decals I was able to reletter them all for the Trailer Train version. I also replaced the hitch with the Details West cast metal version, which can only help to add more weight and certainly improved the looks of the car. It was a simple upgrade that didn't take much more than a couple evenings, including letting the paint dry. Thanks, Jim. It's a little much to try to model one of the solid trains of these cars, but a single 10-Pack mixed in with regular pig flats, Front Runners and a new spine car or two is right up my alley. |
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 7, 2015 13:34:41 GMT -8
Ryan, that's really impressive. I find freight car projects like that intimidating because of the repetition involved in detailing each unit. I have several 48' spine cars and Maxi-III well car kits on the shelf, but I never get around to starting them. I can tell that Fuel Foiler was a lot of work! Congrats on finally finishing your project. Dave Thanks, Dave. The fact that it's ten platforms contributed to killing the momentum more than once! It helped to realize that I had only to come up with a plan to detail the control valve/reservoir parts and the relay valve parts. The rest was just repetition like you said. But it was the unique nature of the B, C and D platforms that proved most difficult to me. I have one of those Walthers 48' spine cars and a few of the Maxi-III cars, too. The Maxi-III set is going to be lettered for BN, but I'm not happy with the finish I got, so I may repaint them. When you do work on those cars, please share your progress. I'd love to see what you can do with them. What I'd really like to do is get a couple of the earlier Gunderson Twin-Stacks with the bulkheads. Some time ago I had one on my train that was being moved as a bad order home shop to the Gunderson facility that occupies the former ATSF Cleburne shops. After what seemed like the world's longest air test, the carman came up to the cab to sign the air slip and said he had a hard time with a five-packer. When we dragged it into the yard the train went into emergency, so I walked back and discovered the E well was torn in half, which pulled the brake pipe apart:   In the bottom photo you can see the distinct outward bow the car developed as it was stretched apart. Anyway, I'd like to model one or two of these cars in happier times. |
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Post by riogrande on Sept 7, 2015 15:22:06 GMT -8
I just paged through Dave Bernstein's Southern Pacific Eastern Lines 1946-1996 last night and saw a photo taken in 1986 of what appears to be one of the Cotton Belt or Southern Pacific Impack cars on the head end of an intermodal train. It appears to match the profile of the Athearn car, which represents Impack's slightly tweaked version of the Fuel Foiler design. Are these the cars you're talking about, or were there more operators? The cars I saw in 1985 were the white ATSF 10 car fuel foilers. IIRC, the Athearn cars are modeled after the ITEL Impack cars, which were very similar but not exactly the same. Apparently Cotton Belt had a bunch of (I think) 8 car Impack sets. |
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 7, 2015 17:05:05 GMT -8
Jim, what I meant to ask was about the cars in the Rail Blazer trains. Were those ATSF cars, Cotton Belt, Trailer Train or something else?
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Post by kentuckysouthernrwy on Sept 7, 2015 17:23:41 GMT -8
Ryan, that's really impressive. I find freight car projects like that intimidating because of the repetition involved in detailing each unit. I have several 48' spine cars and Maxi-III well car kits on the shelf, but I never get around to starting them. I can tell that Fuel Foiler was a lot of work! Congrats on finally finishing your project. Dave Thanks, Dave. The fact that it's ten platforms contributed to killing the momentum more than once! It helped to realize that I had only to come up with a plan to detail the control valve/reservoir parts and the relay valve parts. The rest was just repetition like you said. But it was the unique nature of the B, C and D platforms that proved most difficult to me. I have one of those Walthers 48' spine cars and a few of the Maxi-III cars, too. The Maxi-III set is going to be lettered for BN, but I'm not happy with the finish I got, so I may repaint them. When you do work on those cars, please share your progress. I'd love to see what you can do with them. What I'd really like to do is get a couple of the earlier Gunderson Twin-Stacks with the bulkheads. Some time ago I had one on my train that was being moved as a bad order home shop to the Gunderson facility that occupies the former ATSF Cleburne shops. After what seemed like the world's longest air test, the carman came up to the cab to sign the air slip and said he had a hard time with a five-packer. When we dragged it into the yard the train went into emergency, so I walked back and discovered the E well was torn in half, which pulled the brake pipe apart: In the bottom photo you can see the distinct outward bow the car developed as it was stretched apart. Anyway, I'd like to model one or two of these cars in happier times. I built the A-line set of Gunderson cars 30+ years ago. That was monotonous if I remember. I still have them deep in the recesses of stuff as well as a BN green 5 unit set of the fuel foiler style cars. GOOD PHOTOS and interesting projects, everyone! |
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Post by dti406 on Sept 7, 2015 17:32:56 GMT -8
Regarding the ATSF Fuel Foiler's, in either the Intermodal or MFCL Yahoo Group their was a discussion on these cars. The general consensus was the ATSF did not let them off the property as they had some design features that did not lend them to interchange service on other railroads. There were some comments that they did not track very well when pushed in reverse but and engineer/trainmaster quashed that supposition.
Regarding Dave Olsen's comment on doing a 10 car train, I am working on a 10 car train of the converted USRA Panel Hoppers to a Quasi Covered Hopper that "The Andersons" used to ship grain from their Maumee Elevators to the Port Elevators in Toledo. I have finished 5 of the cars with 5 to go, The kits become easier with repetition but are still a lot of work.
Rick J
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 7, 2015 18:03:06 GMT -8
Regarding the ATSF Fuel Foiler's, in either the Intermodal or MFCL Yahoo Group their was a discussion on these cars. The general consensus was the ATSF did not let them off the property as they had some design features that did not lend them to interchange service on other railroads. There were some comments that they did not track very well when pushed in reverse but and engineer/trainmaster quashed that supposition. I think it might have been my questions about these cars that prompted that discussion. If I remember correctly, I asked if there were any train placement restrictions on the cars. One of the responses included a link to a video on Youtube that's representative of the way I remember these cars in their later years after they were operated in dedicated trains: You do great work, Rick. Those are some cool looking cars. I have been working on a BN unit grain train for decades. Out of the 68 cars in Bottineau, ND one week in 1991, I've modeled 42 of them. Some of those have been modeled more than once, but I've slowly replaced all the old ACF 4650s made from cut down Athearn 5250s and have replaced all but one of the Athearn 4740s with the correct models from Tangent or the correct type from Atlas, Intermountain, Accurail and so on. Even doing the same types over and over, I never can get into an assembly line type of groove with them. I once did seven Thrall coal gondolas and thought I didn't want to see another one ever again after I was done. The 10-Pack definitely tested my limits. |
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Post by dtinut on Sept 10, 2015 7:23:53 GMT -8
Well, as usual, little late to the party. Nice stuff - the fuel foilers are neat with the extra details - good job sticking with it Ryan. I started this project about 5-6 yrs ago (maybe longer?) when Bob Harpe started a clinic on building SOU GP38. I bought a cheap Atlas GP38, and stripped it, but is was as far as I got. Other things distracted me, but I collected all the info from his clinic, and saved it for later. Well, it's later, and I was searching thru my parts drawer when I noticed the Atlas DB hatch with the filter box cut into it, and decided to pull out the box of parts, and see where I stood. I had all the stuff to do this, except I needed one more OMI 9007 (all bells forward) horn. So I posted a WTB msg on one of the groups for HO stuff, and got a reply same day.. perfect! I basically followed BH instructions, although I decided not to do all the Cannon replacement parts that Bob did. Note: the frame was milled to make the short 1700 gallon tank. Here is finished model with weathering.     Regards, Brian |
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Post by TBird1958 on Sept 10, 2015 8:28:28 GMT -8
That GP 38 looks fantastic! I've always liked SR's paint scheme, classy yet businesslike.
Cheers,
Mark
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Post by fr8kar on Sept 10, 2015 10:16:30 GMT -8
Wow, that's one slick GP38, Brian! I love it.
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Post by tankcarsrule on Sept 10, 2015 17:39:55 GMT -8
Bob Harpe would love it Brian. I do too.
Regards, Bobby
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