Thought I'd feature my most recent freight car project, another ExactRail Evans boxcar, that came rolling down the track here in the last couple of weeks.  I've just finished up the weathering on this boxcar.  I'd estimate I've put about 16 hours actual working time into weathering this one.  That time includes masking, patching, gloss coating, decaling, flat coating, rust pitting and streaking, and flat coating again. On to my boxcar in just a minute, but let's start with the inspiration for my model. I had stumbled across this photo by Ray Lewis somewhere on the internet.&nb ..read more

I don't think I've posted this picture before, but maybe.  It was taken quite a long while ago.  We're seeing GTW SD38 6256 rolling slowly through the simple 3 tracks GTW yard with what looks to be 7 loaded gondolas, 3 boxcars, and a plastic pellet hopper.  The JSSX engine maintenance area and office is seen in the upper portion of the photo as well.  And the 3 track JSSX yard to the right, with the short interchange track connecting to the GTW. And nothing to do with the above photo, I've probably shown this boxcar here before, but I recently pulled it from the cabinet ..read more

How do you like the Tangent model 86 footer at the top of the blog?  I finished weathering that one up several weeks back, and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. In the photo above, Southern 42525 is passing by in a train on the GTW line in front of the Tri-State Paper plant. I weathered this one by referring to the prototype photo below of a similar car taken by Joe Pusey.  The model turned out a bit darker than I thought it should have, and I should have worn down some of the lettering a bit more, but over all it's pretty good. What got my attention with this particular 8 ..read more

Had a failure of the laptop computer the last week of November and so wasn't able to get on the interwebs, email, or access any files.  Actually, the computer itself was fine, but the ribbon wire that connects the computer to the screen broke/failed. So I bought a brand new laptop, and after a few days was able to do most internet type things, but couldn't load any photos to the blog or create a new post.  I'm not much of a computer problem solver, but I do have a tech guy that I can usually get come to help me out.  In this instance though, he happened to be unavailable for som ..read more

I really like the photo that I've posted up at the top of the blog for September.  JSSX 815 (which I numbered after my sister's birthday) is dragging along empty CN gondola 143177.  Here's the same picture again so nobody has to scroll back up to the top. The gondola isn't mine, it belongs to Don Janes, but I did the weathering on it. This photo is from a few months ago when I had assembled the overpass, has my JSSX 815 about to roll beneath it I'm not sure whether I'll do it or not, but I've been considering blocking in these windows with siding or maybe concrete block just to ..read more

Just took delivery today of this Rapido B36-7.   I had this one here two or three years ago to do the patching and weathering for Brian Smith.  I had really liked the way it turned out back then, and last week a picture I had taken of it popped up on my laptop.  I knew Brian was beginning to downsize his collection a bit, and with one thing leading to another, we (perhaps surprisingly) agreed on a price. And so here is my BSTX 5859... I had the engine out for a shakedown run this afternoon.  A little hesitation from the motor for a few moments, but likely just a resul ..read more

Been working on this GATX boxcar for Luc and Radisson.  Finally got 'er finished up, so I thought I'd show it here.  The goal is to somewhat replicate the appearance of this prototype boxcar, albeit with reporting marks for Radisson's ACRR and no graffiti. The model started out as an ExactRail RBOX car Here it is before removing the logos and lettering Paper towel soaked with Solvaset on the right-hand end of the boxcar softens up the original markings for removal after about 30 minutes. Then, some rubbing with a damp Q-Tip and a damp toothpick will remove the markings. I've alre ..read more

I thought that this time I'd present a few looks at a (Rapido) gondola that I've recently weathered for Don Janes. I'm sorry that I didn't take a picture of the shiny green gondola as it was new and just taken out of the box. Although it doesn't really look like it in these photos, I brushed over the outside of the gondola with Burnt Umber water mixable artist oil paint. I dabbed that paint on the top horizontal chords of the car and also on each of the panels, and then used a very slightly damp flat brush to smear those dabs down the sides creating lots of dark areas.  Now, sometimes, i ..read more

I've re-done the background building that I printed and posted about here four weeks ago.  The building is the Fisher Body Plant 21 in Detroit. After mounting my printouts on the backdrop and living with it for these past weeks, I decided that it appeared undersized, so I printed it over again. This time I divided the final image into 4 sections and printed them in "portrait" format on 8.5"x14" paper instead of "landscape" on 8.5"x11" paper so that the prints would be taller. I set the two final images out on the floor for this comparison view... The larger print is just under 32 inches ..read more

I ran JSSX engine 813 as an extremely short train of a single boxcar this week.  Here's 813 pulling a rather worn looking Mississippian Railway boxcar from the JSSX yard. Maybe we can follow along for a ways That's the JSSX office at the left.  That little pile of pallets is the same ones that I showed here last time just after I'd put them together on the workbench.  I quickly brush painted them with "Barn Wood" craft paint this week and then spread a single drop of black Panel Line over the four of them. Here they come around the curve and about to go under the "new" overp ..read more