Video of the Week

This week's video comes from Shannon Crabtree of the Virginia Midland. Shannon also has a blog. Link to the blog is located on the right side of my blog. Check it out and subscribe.


Shannon talks about train shows and some updates to his layout.


Enjoy!

Video of The Week

I am going to start a new segment in my blog dealing with videos found around the internet that I either have watched and used as a guide, or just find helpful for us in the modeling community. These will vary from Railfanning videos to How-To's and layout tours/updates.

First is a video from Dan at DansRailroad2011. I have seen many of his videos and I think they are great. They are long, average 15min, but he goes into detail explaining the model and what he has done with it.


In this video, Dan goes over fading down a LPG tank car. Its a very nice video and may help those who are getting into the whole weathering scene. Sit back and enjoy.

Don't forget to subscribe to his channel if you haven't already!


Have a great end to the weekend, and happy modeling!

Working on the Team Track/Transload Area

Today I pulled a project out hat I had been working on for quite some time. About a year ago I built a transload shed as I saw on an Atlas forum. First building I tried turned out terrible after i painted it. I tried again with some more Pikestuff kits I had. Turned out OK. I painted it and then weathered. The weathering was awful and the building looked out of place. So back to the drawing board.

After some more reading, and careful measuring and cutting and sanding, I came up with what is pictured below. The main body, door and garage doors are Pikestuff. The concrete base was made of strips from the Pikestuff kits. I painted them with a textured paint from Lowes. I then followed up with a primer gray to capture the cement/concrete look.

I still need to do some touch up painting around the base and add some detail parts.

Stairs are cast metal from a DPM kit and the railings are from a Walthers kit. I started to add the downspouts.

I will be adding another downspout for the other side and i will put a light fixture above the door. I plan on adding some decals and a light weathering job. I also have the industry name to put on the building as well.

Have a great rest of the weekend and happy modeling!

Some Motive Power

Looks like I intended to to a blog but never got around to it. I took photos of the MP15 I purchased. This was an undecorated unit with sound. I purchased it off of eBay. When I opened it up and began inspecting everything, I noticed that I was missing some handrails and grab irons. I checked Atlas' online store and determined that they did not have the parts I was looking for. Fearing they were out of stock, I contacted Atlas. They helped me out and mailed me all the parts I needed.

The new MP15 @ the transload facility.

Here she is all decaled. I still need to add the numbers to the cab and eventually the number boards. All decals are Mircoscale minus that Washington Northern Decals. I used various MP15 photos to get the accurate locations of the decals. You can't see it here, but I removed the stock figures and put a custom figure in. I ended up repainting the engineer's jacket to one a little modern. I used some lime green paint. I will try to get some close ups when it is all finished.

Its Been A LONG Time

Well it has been a long time since I did any modeling, let alone update this blog. I have a seen a few posts and videos from my fellow modelers and the modeling bug has bit me. SO today I started to clean up the work bench and get some things in place on the layout. Once i get a few things organized I think I will clean the track and ensure everything is working correctly. Stay tuned for some posts of some progress on some motive power, and getting some weathering done on some rolling stock.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!