Shop Projects

The WN Shops have been quite busy. A few weekends ago I started a project I was putting off for a long time. I purchased some undercoated SD40-2s from Kato. I really liked them and figured it was time to paint them up.

The first one I figured I would try and do what I do with my WW2 armor models and try a shadow coat. Looked great till I put a second coat of BN Green on. It looked TERRIBLE. So i quickly threw the locomotive into a 91% Rubbing Alcohol bath. Took the paint off right away and I had a clean canvas again. I repainted the model with no issues.

Shadow paint job....

Once the paint dried, i put some decals on. I'm running low on decals and I am waiting for Kevin Smith to get some to me so I can finish up the SD 40-2s. I also need to add all the warning labels and some safety striping. I'll do some highlighting and some light weathering and I will be in service! After that a decoder will be added, along with a Keep alive.

I have also been working on the box car fleet for the WN as well as some of the covered hoppers. I am hoping to have some pictures up of the box cars in the coming days. 

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!

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. 

Track Down...Feeders installed

Last week I was hit with being sick and had some remnants of that this weekend. Today I was feeling much better and decided to hit the train room. First up was some cleaning and organizing with a deep clean of the area rug that is in the room. After that I decided to organize some containers with my rolling stock. You never realize how much rolling stock you have until you go through it.

I then decided to break down and do my least favorite, but most important, part of model railroading. The wiring. I guess because my soldering iron skills aren't the best is why I shy away from it. But you only get better with practice. I practiced on a couple pieces of track a few years ago and the results weren't bad but nothing like the guys that have been doing this for years. So I decided to solder directly to the rail as opposed to soldering to the rail joiners. I saw in some places that this was frowned upon because you do not have the best electrical connectivity as you would going direct to the rail. Plus this method was mentioned in the book How to Build a Shelf Layout (http://www.amazon.com/Build-Switching-Layout-Lance-Mindheim/dp/1453811346/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1450061846&sr=8-3&keywords=lance+mindheim.)

Got a little too close with the soldering iron and melted some of the foam. 

I will fill it in with foam putty.

I also worked on another industry for the layout. Not sure what it will be. This is a City Classics kit. Its a pretty easy build and one of my favorites. I painted it using rattle can paints from Rustoelum and Valspar. The concrete color is tan camouflage paint and the brick is the brown primer. The door are a light olive type color from Valspar. I tested out the car entrance and I need to lift the building a bit to achieve rolling stock making entry.

Stay tuned. Hoping to have the wiring completed this week!

Moving Along!

Hey Gang! Sorry for not updating as usual. I got hit with sickness truck and was unable to get anything done. I am feeling better so it's back to the train room.

I clear coated the warehouse building of the paper company. I need to just install a roof section and paint it, clear coat the building and that will be ready for some details decals and some weathering. I also added a second story to the food processing/bakery plant. I also reconfigured the silos to go along with the track plan i had in a previous post. I mounted the background building to a piece of 1/2" thick foam board, then I glued some plastruct metal siding to the top to match the original structure . I still need to add some more details and weather the top. I am also working on an unloading area for grain and tank cars. Still in the planning stages with this not exactly sure what I want to do.

(I was taking the picture at a weird angle)

I also go to gluing down my track. I am now about 85% done. After that hoping to start installing feeder wires and have some trains running soon. The sickness put me back a few days.

A view from the paper plant side of the layout.

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

End of November Update

So today I decided to tackle building another one of my kits I bought. The Walther's Commissary Background Building Kit. I painted the brick with just a coat of Rustoelum Primer Brown. This is the came color as Boxcar Red from the old Floquil line of paints. After the paint dried I painted the doors and windows with Rustoelum satin green from the rattle can. It almost matched the color of the plastic, but I decided to keep it because after a little weathering, I'm sure it will com out quite nice. I also painted the cement highlights with Model Master Concrete, I picked that up at my local hobby shop.

This is prior to me installing the overhang roof and adding some roof details.

As you can see I still need to do some detailing to the metal piece where the loading dock is and. I touched up the over painted areas with some boxcar read which, when dried, matched the brown primer perfectly. 

I then added some roof details from my parts bin after spraying them with some light green from my paint collection. The details that came with this kit were very small, and in my opinion, unrealistic. I will weather these a bit to give it an older look.

My goal with this project was to make it look like the building was an old Railroad Express Agency building that was abandoned, then bought and re-purposed for a warehouse. I was stoked for that, well then another thought popped into my mind. I was looking on my top shelf and noticed part of the Superior Paper Plant kit I had cut down was up there. I then added it to this kit and came up with this....

I liked the way it looked. Plus I figured I now had an opportunity to bring back the paper plant I wanted. With some preliminary track layouts and such, I realized I couldn't achieve what I was hoping, but not to be discouraged, I did a little looking and figured out I could make this a paper printing facility. Lance is always talking about that it is not the number of industries on the layout, but the number of car spots, and couple that with some variety of cars. So I figured this industry could take come box cars with paper in them, and some tank cars for chemicals for ink. Or even make it a paper plant but only part of the industry being modeled. I will need to do a little more research. 

I also am working on finishing up the unloading racks as well as the final detaisl for the silos for the food plant. 

STAY TUNED!

Sunday Funday

Today I took some time to work on some of the structures for the layout.

First up was the bakery/food processing plant. I put on the painted sections for the warehouse portion and glued them in place. I need to prime and paint the masonry that goes at the bottom.

 I then installed the base for the silos and the building next to them. Once the glue dries, I will install the tops of the silos and then add the detail parts (rails, ladders etc.)

Some other plans I have for the plant and some unloading rack/area for the vegetable oil, corn syrup and liquid sugar. And a place for grain and flour unloading. This will be a nice build and I will be kitbashing and scratch building some of the structures. Can't wait to detail and weather them. I need to purchase some industrial tanks and the food processing plant should be good to go.

Stay tuned!

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. 

Motive Power Project

Well its been a few weeks. I actually finished this project about a week or so ago but with planning for a wedding I haven't had much modeling time.

I now have some time and wanted to post the progress of the newest addition to the WN.

Here is the cab and hood area all painted. This was pre clear coat.

 

Took the time to detail the cab a bit with the addition of a figure. I wanted to have a little more realism in my locomotives rather than a ghost cab. I added some of the decals and started applying the handrails. Figure is from MeDoMinatures

Here is another shot of the locomotive engineer.

 

 

 

I still need to paint some of the finer details and finish up with some of the other details like adding striping and some builder plates decals and other lettering.

New Power! New Project

I wanted to take a moment to to show a picture of a new project.

I purchased a used MP15 from Geno Sharp. Got a great deal on this Athearn Genesis MP 15 w/ DCC and sound. What the selling point for me was the working beacon on the roof (I'm a big fan of them!)

MP15 in the old Alabama Central Scheme. Unit was one of the SOO "Bandits"

First I had to strip the paint off. That was done with 91% rubbing alcohol. Here is the end result.

Tonight I plan on shooting it with a coat of primer, and hopefully have the BN Green on by tomorrow evening!

Stay tuned for more on this project and other upcoming things on the layout!

GP35s

I have been very busy with working on some rolling stock and some locomotives for the railroad. Thanks to Kevin for the guidance and words of encouragement.

Painting has been completed, and clear coat is applied. I used Tamiya clear coat thinned to a 30% paint to 70% thinner ratio. It went on great. I prefer it better than a rattle can. After clear coating, I began to apply the decals.

 

Decals were provided by Kevin, and the number boards were done with Microscale Decals numbers from a lettering/numbers set. I was thinking about using the EMD numbers set from Microscale, but that would not match the photos Kevin provided. Decals were applied via the Microscale Micro Set and Micro Sol process.

 

After applying decals, I painted the white on the handrails and clear coated the engines again to seal the decals prior to assembly. 620 still needs some truck details, and some other small details. 611 needs to have some touch up paint jobs for the details on the pilots and couplers. I also need to add some airlines and some other small details.

 

Both units will need to have DCC decoders installed. I am also looking at having ditch lights put in as well, but that will be down the road. I also want to weather these units as well. I am still on the fence about safety striping as per the era I am modeling is the late 90s. That may change though due to the lack of vehicles for that era.

 

 

 

I put the Geeps aside and started to work on some rolling stock. I picked up a few undecorated ACF covered hoppers on eBay a year or so ago. I took some time to paint them and worked on some decals. The numbers and letter are from a Microscale set and the WN logo is from the decals Kevin sent to me. I still need to add a few more details, weathering and data decals.

Motive Power!

I wanted to start some work on some locomotives for the railroad. After talking with Kevin, he mailed me some decals for the locomotives when I was finished painting them. My first set of locomotives I would be painting were Kato GP35s. I picked the up off eBay for a decent price. Kevin provided me with the specs for the engines and I printed off some reference photos from Kevin's website, as well as some photos he sent me.

The paint scheme is Burlington Northern Green and Union Pacific Harbor Mist Gray. Painting the locomotives was fun due to the new airbrush I purchased. I am using a Passhe H Series airbrush. Its simple to use, and for a beginner like me, its a great thing to have.

I coated the locomotive body with the BN green, and I taped it once it dried for the application of the UP Gray. Prior to the UP Gray, I added Detail Associates lift rings and a Cal-Scale curved grab iron to the rear. The base of the shell was painted UP Gray with the pilots painted flat black. Once everything is completed, I will paint a clear coat on in preparation for decal application. I also plan on adding a few more detail parts to the front of the locomotive such as MU hoes and the coupler bars. The grab irons are the stock Kato, as well as the handrails.

I also had some figures sitting around. The Kato locomotives do not come with crew members so I added some of my own. Its a mix of custom figures and some Preiser figures. The custom figures are from Melissa at MeDO Miniatures and the Preiser figures are from the crane operators set. I had another set of Preiser figures I plan on customizing for my conductors.