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.

Patched Out Power

Well it's been some time. Hoping to get back on track as work sometimes takes the front seat, as well as family. I was lucky enough to get some work done on some motive power. I scored a GP39-2 off eBay. It was an Atlas Trainman unit that had been weathered,and had Lok Sound decoder installed.

First thing I did was clean off the weathering. It wasn't very prototypical. I also removed the horn from the front and filled in the hole with some styrene rod.I touched up the area with some reefer orange paint. I then removed the factory BNSF lettering from the long hood. I then masked and airbrushed the reefer orange onto that area to finish the patch out. 

Next I added some BLMA RV AC units to the roof and relocated the horn. I had some of th BNSF Heritage Green, however it was not cooperating. I ended up painting a brass horn I had BN Cascade green to show the horn was replaced. I also added a small piece of metal rod between the AC units to represent an antenna as seen in the prototype photos. I also repainted the handrails yellow. Metal lift ringers were also added.

 I wasn't happy with the yellow handrails, so i reverted them back to white. I also touched up all the grab irons with white as well. I also removed the factory numbering on the unit. I kept the 2703 because of the number boards. I added some Gothic Numbers form a Microscale Industries sheet, and added the Washington Northern logos to the nose and below the numbers.

I'm currently in the process of updating all the warning and caution labels, and I will be adding some safety striping to the sill later. I also added some Details West MU receptacles with cable, Atlas Air Hoses and a Details West Plow to replace the Atlas one..

Below we have WN 2703 switching out the foods plant. 

"New" Power comes to the Aberdeen Shops

Well over the holidays I worked on finalizing some wiring, test ran a loco and worked on a few more things which you will see in upcoming blogs. I made some purchases on eBay. One of them was addressed in my last post, the 3D printed silos. The next was a GP 39-2 with LokSound decoder. The model is an Atlas Trainman, and it was weathered and had the BNSF Scheme. Sadly it wasn't my favorite scheme (The old BN theme), but alas the price was great, especially for a sound decoder installed.

The locomotive arrived the other day and I have a few plans for it. I plan to patch it out for the Washington Northern, and add some detail parts to it. The Atlas Trainman models aren't bad and I feel they are geared more toward those on a budget. But with a little extra money, and of course effort, you can turn a Trainman model into something very nice. A few years ago, Model Railroader did a nice article about detailing an Atlas Trainman model. That article was republished recently in the special issue put out in December about modeling modern era.

Stay tuned for some updates as I work to make this one of Washington Northern's patched units.

Weathering some Motive Power

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Holiday. Mine was full of traveling to family and enjoying GREAT food!

Over the holiday I took some time to work on some of my GP35s. With the painting done and just some minor parts being installed, I figured I would begin weathering. I first started with doing a wash of 70% rubbing alcohol mixed with some black India Ink. Results were OK, but noticed some paint beginning to wash away. Then I realized that the clear coat I used was acrylic. So I fixed what I could and blended in the paint. Crisis averted! SO i decided to try out my Valljo black wash. Results were, but after it dried, I realized I went a little too heavy and it was really bad. SO I decided to take sum rubbing alcohol and try and fix what I did. It actually worked and with some patience and some fine tuning, I was able to salvage. So my wheels were turning and decided I would try and make a wash using oils and some Turpinoid. Well let me tell you, results were AWESOME. After everything dried I realized it was heavy in spots. SO i got out the turpinoid and worked on thinning out the heavy spots and blending. I was happy with the results.

The top 3 photos were pre-touch-up work.

A little more touching up.

Posed by the paper plant

Little dark.

This one turned out the best.

As for the photos, you can see in the last set that the track is starting to get put down. I am about 60%-70% done with putting track in place. Next up will be to glue it down in place. After the track is glued, I will be putting in the feeder wires and get all the wiring hooked up. Hopefully I will have some trains running by next week!

I also took some time to work on the paper plant and extended the walls a bit to match the other background building I installed. Once all that is in place, I will begin detailing.

I also scored an Atlas Gold Series MP15DC w/sound off eBay. It was a undecorated unit. I plan on working on putting it together and preparing it for paint. I noticed some of the extra spots for the number board and marker lights. I am going to tape those areas off to prevent any paint from getting on them. My plans for the marker lights are to paint them with some clear red paint. I was always a fan of marker lights and I wanted to keep some nostalgic symbols on the locomotive. I also have some Kato SD 40-2s that will need to be prepped for painting as well. I also have an old GP unit that will be getting a makeover. It was from my old freelanced layout. I plan on repainting and redoing that loco as well.

Lastly I also won a Atlas Master Series GP 38-2 on eBay as well. This too is an undecorated unit and will be painted up as well. LOTS OF WORK AHEAD!

Atlas Gold Series MP15DC

Recommended Reading

From time to time I will be sharing what I have used to help me along this process of model railroading. I will post some reference books, how-to books and publications which I feel are of great value. I will also try to include articles from magazines which I find useful as well. One thing I should have done was research things before jumping into them. That is one piece of advice I'd like to pass on. In today's age books, coupled with the internet and other online references, have launched our hobby into a new arena!

A few weeks ago I placed an order for a magazine from Model Railroader. I know some people I know have let their subscriptions run out because it seems all they (Model Railroader) cater to is the Steam Era folks. Nothing against those guys because everyone is entitled to do their own thing for modeling, but sometimes it'd be nice for us modern era folks to get some spotlight. Well now insert this special publication.

IF you are just starting out with the modern era, or you want to spruce up what you have, I would suggest getting this. It highlights articles from past Model Railroader editions. Some of the articles are also included in some of the book I have purchased as well. 

This covers the article done about Lance Mindheim's Downtown Miami layout (track plan included). There is an article about the Utah Belt. (A layout which I just love, but the motive power paint scheme looks fantastic).

One of the best articles, in my opinion, covers how you can take a basic Atlas Trainman GP 38-2 and turn it into a nice model with just using some basic paint and detail parts.

In the freight cars section, they cover how adding some Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) placards to your tank cars adds some realism to them. The decal sets can be picked up from Microscale Industries. Another article covers how to re-letter without repainting. Some other articles are adding custom graffiti and weathering a box car.  

There is an awesome article about adding a modern Corn Syrup terminal to your layout. The photos were great, as was the information. 

Progress

Well layout progress has been a little slow lately since I was at training for work the past few days, and with being away from work leaves the issue of having to come back to things that were put on hold.


The bench-work was completed, and I added the background today. The background is Masonite (1/8") cut into two 4' lengths. I have one small 2' section that needs to be cut. The Masonite was secured with 3/4" lath screws. I then painted the Masonite with primer and followed it up with sky blue spray paint when the primer dried. I wasn't sure if I was going to like the results but when I hit it was the sky blue it came to shape nicely. But i saw I was missing spots, but this gave me a nice effect of light, thin gray clouds. To me it seems to give it a little depth.

( The picture looks a bit dark. I will try to get better ones)

I also cut some 1' foam today to fit the layout. I tired using a utility knife, but could never achieve a nice clean cut. I did a little research on YouTube and found that there were some blades out there used to cut foam. I took a trip to my local hardware stores with no luck. So I checked out Amazon, as one of the videos suggested. I picked up Festool blade, model S155/W. This blade is specific for soft materials (cardboard, foam, etc.) This fits most model jig saws. It worked out great, I got a nice clean, smooth edge. I cut four 18" x 4' pieces for the layout. Tomorrow I will paint the bases brown and glue them into place.

I also did some work for my main industry on this layout, a food processing/bakery industry. I am basing it off some photos and overhead shots of these types of industries in my area. The facility will be a kitbash between the Magic Pan Bakery and Buds Trucking Company. Both are Walther's kits. I paints the metal part of the warehouse area today. The colors for this are Almond for the bakery and ingredient unloading building. Silos will be painted white.

Once the foam is secured down, I will then make the decision whether to go with Atlas track, or make the leap and put in hand laid track, but I still may put in a mix of Atlas and some Micro-Engineering. Turnouts for this will be Peco.

Update

Hello everyone! I apologize for the absence but work has been keeping me very busy and not helping with hobby time!

Since my last post I have installed some lighting and put down foam on the hollow core doors. I have been tooling around with track plans and it has been the most time consuming, an frustrating, thing. I have seeked help for at least two people for ideas and nothing seems to strike my fancy. My issue is that I want to have minimal amount of industries but maximize number of cars and car spots. HOWEVER, I do not have the space I really want for what I want to do. SO it as back to the drawing board.

I narrowed it down to about 2-3 industries. I wanted something unique but fun. First I drew up an idea for a paper plant. Things were looking great. I was doing research, Google Earth, Bing Maps and even some of the Trackside Industries books. IN the one book I found a plan for a paper plant. I was pumped, until I got the measuring tape out. I couldn't do it for the space I had. SO back to the drawing board.

A few weeks passed and I got the urge to try and get something figured out. So I started hunting again. This time I saw a cement plant. I had a number of cement hoppers and I started looking again. I figured the cement plant would be the center focus, with some smaller industries to keep it fun. Issue was that I couldn't achieve what I wanted. This time the space was too big for what I wanted to model.

This brings me to my other friend Google Search. I just started typing keywords for small HO switching layouts. I dug around and found some of Lance Mindheim's blogs. I have read them before but haven't really kept up to date. Well I poked around and did some reading and I found something that fit the mold. It was a simple "L" Shaped layout that had one siding and a major industry that took 3 different car types. (Boxcars, Grain hoppers and tank cars). I read the article some more and it made sense! Keep it short and simple. Easy track plan with Atlas track that can be upgraded to Micro Engineering (OR Hand-laid track). So I went and dug through the cache of rolling stock to see if I had the necessary items at hand, which I did. ( I had been building for a paper plant prior.) So next step was to start looking for a building kit. I knew I would either need to kitbash or scratchbuild. While looking through the collection of building kits, I found a Magic Pan Bakery Kit. With that I started thinking, maybe I need to make a low relief building of this and go from there.  So looks like a little more research will be in the works for me.

While looking at the picturs some more, I really wanted to have a cement and aggregate facility as well. (I just recently purchased some Blue Star Ready Mix tractor trailers for gravel hauling) SO I will be modifying the plan I saw, but who knows, I may just keep it short and simple.

 

Photo from Lance Mindheim's Blog

 

 

 

If anyone has feed back they wish to provide please let me know. I have been trying to have a functioning layout for over 3 years and I just keep getting frustrated over track work and a plan. 

Mail Call Monday



Here is a few items I received in the mail from various sources. Most of the items were from eBay but one items is from Modeltrainstuff.com and the other was a sale off Facebook.

(SORRY FOR THE SIDEWAY PIC. IT WOULD NOT LET ME EDIT IT)

 

I picked this beauty up from Shaun Toman's Custom Weathering. Model is a Tangent PS4750 Covered Hopper. Pictures do not do it justice but this will look great at my trans-loading area on the layout.

Picked this up off of eBay. Custom weathered Liquid Sugars tank car

This was another eBay purchase. I think I have a covered hopper in my collection from the same company Specialty Minerals.

 

Yet another eBay purchase. I actually bought 3 of these. In the picture are the two I got in one auction.

The item I bought from Modeltrainstuff.com was the Walther's Cornerstone Series Medusa Cement.

 

 

 

I also picked up a clay slurry tank car which I cant find a decent picture of at the moment. Things are coming along but I think I will need to start inventorying and cataloging my cars so I know exactly what I have.

 

Thanks for keep up with the updates. Stay tuned for more, and maybe even a YouTube video in the future!