Large Shed

The body of the shed got a coat of India ink -alcohol mix followed by Floquil grime. One can see I used up some scrap to brace the walls.

I recently finished my large shed for the WRD. I call it a large shed since even a small barn would crowd the scene. More photos to come shortly...George Dutka 

The shed is together and ready for weathering. The lightning rods and wind wane still need to be attached. I did not like using the BEST doors. They are soft metal and arrived out of shape. It took a bit of flattening and clamping to get them to stay in place. Tichy would have been a better choice.

Weathering began with a PanPastel tone.

Once the PanPastel was applied I touched up the edges and lower sections with red chalk.

The roof was next to be weathered. I used PanPastel white on the corners applied with a micro brush.

Throwback Thursday - Oiling Around, Then Leaving Town.

CP 2816 gets a little TLC at Guelph Junction on June 13, 2003.

By Peter Mumby.

On June 13, 2003 I chased CP H1b 2816 "Empress" (MLW 12/1930) from Woodstock to Guelph Junction, Ontario.  The day was heavily overcast, so I had largely been shooting with black and white film.  When the train stopped for lubrication at Guelph Junction, I decided a few colour shots would be in order.  I was particularly interested in catching this "oiling around" process since a former high school student of mine was a CP employee and was assigned to the steam program at that time.  He had developed his expertise with steam by volunteering with SOLRS at the Elgin County Railway Museum, and it was fun to see that this interest had led to such satisfying full time employment. 

With lubrication chores completed, the Empress and her train are under way eastbound out of Guelph Junction.

Wordless Wednesday No. 408

 

   

Don Chalmers Collection

CNW173254 June 14, 1991 CP Leaside.

A couple more of the Don Chalmers photo collection...George Dutka       

RBOX 39559 Jan. 6, 1988 Cobourg, Ont.

January Update

A new car added to the WRD fleet is a Rapido boxcar that has been weathered mainly with AK pencils. The roof did get a wash of acrylic gray from the dollar store and some highlights with PanPastel gray.

I have been doing some modeling but not as much as in past winters. I have though been out railfanning a lot more than years past. Here are some photos that don't fit into any of my posts that are coming up and a couple that are...leaving it to you to figure out which ones go were...George Dutka 

When time permits my friend Brian Smith does a coffee run (Tim's run here in Canada) for the OSR crew when they arrive in St. Thomas. His better half Laura took the photo.

Now that Hindsight 20/20 is over here are a couple photos of two layouts included in the days events. We first have Bill Badger operating a B&M train on Jim Dufour's layout during 2015. One can see Jim's stonework next to Bill.

This view is how Neil Schofield round barn scene looked when I visited back in June 2019. The round disk is the barn mock-up.

My farm scene will have this large shed planted by the farmhouse. It is scratch-built with wood walls and styrene roofing. The casting are from BEST.

It is a nice sunny day and I was taking a tour to both the CN and CP yards. Here I am at the CN yard, east end in London, Ontario, Dec 7, 2020.

I hung three of my WRD signs out on the back fence yesterday to rust up over the winter. Hopefully they will look like the flower by spring. The other signs I will be painting.

I am presenting a weathering clinic twice shortly for the NMRA's WOD and SLR divisions. If you are a member or not check their websites or contact the superintendents for ZOOM log on details. WOD clinic will be February and SLR in March. I guess I best get preparing the clinic soon. This car was assembled using one of Ryan Mendell's mini-kits.

Its January 8 2021 and I called Peter Mumby the night before to meet in Komoka for a bit as it was to be sunny and we had not caught up since before Christmas. As it turned out there was no sun and our visit was really short due to the extreme cold...at least to us old guys. Peter did have a commitment shortly afterwards anyhow. We had a social distance visit and exchange magazines and models. I did hang around a bit longer and caught VIA 71 at Komoka. The station once sat across this crossing.

As I arrived at Komoka on January 8, 2021 I could see Peter heading to another crossing...he missed train 148. I barely got this shot as I had to quickly bail out of my car. I think I am getting to old for these quick moves. Note the engine numbers...they are the 11's, 5711 and 2511.

Hindsight 20/20 6.0

Neil Schofield presented a part one of how he built his round barn scene. So why is the clinic called a barn entrance...well he built this module in front of a doorway on rollers.

Yesterday I attended a portion of  Hindsight 20/20 6.0 which is a craftsman or RPM style meet done on Zoom. I don't know a lot about Zoom as I had only been on it for WOD meetings. It was easy to log on and the clinics were good. Two New England modeling friends gave clinics so that was a plus. I also am interested in the SR&RL two foot gauge railroad and seeing a garden layout in a large scale was neat too. There will be another one next month, so check it out. Sorry about the quality of the photos I took them with my phone of the computer screen in my workshop...George Dutka

Large scale SR&RL railroading.

Neil Schofield views of what he built. He mentioned it took a week to build the round barn but three weeks to build the home which appears to be an easier build.

Jim Dufour has a very nice layout that I have visited in the past. What he talked about was all the granite block structures that are found along the B&M line he models. I always thought his blocks were cast plaster but to my surprise they are made of resin.

The closing view of Jim's presentation with two of his granite block builds.

GMD Recollections: 60-Series Delivery Day

The shop tracks at CP's Quebec St Yard in London, Ontartio were full of new GMD deliveries on August 02/89

By Peter Mumby.

In the late 1980s CP was heavily involved in the delivery of new products from the GMD plant.  In 1989 both GP 60 and SD 60M locomotives were being assembled simultaneously, as was made manifest by this particular grouping.  As the result of subsequent mergers and acquisitions, all of the units visible here were later renumbered.  UP 6207 became part of that road's 2300 number series, while ATSF 4026 and 4030 became BNSF 8726 and 8730 respectively in 1998.

Waterbury Gets A New Creamery

 

A CV milk car has been spotted at the creamery

Expanding a Building Flat Kit....by Don Janes

     Lately I have been working on some structures so I can eventually finish the Waterbury, Vt. scene on my layout.  There is a low backdrop wall set out about nine inches from the main wall to hide three staging tracks behind Waterbury.  Because of this the area I have to work with in Waterbury has been reduced so I have built several background structure flats. One of them was posted on this blog recently.  One structure I have always liked was the Calamus Milling  kit.  It is designed to be 9" wide and 2" deep.  I thought it would look good as a creamery but when I set the front and side walls up against the backdrop it just didn't look right.  It was just too shallow and too far from the siding track. Pondering my options I decided to make it into a full structure.  I searched through my supplies and found wood siding that matched that in the kit and I had several Tichy windows on hand to match the ones in the kit and also some additional doors to add to the extended sides..  Armed with the necessary supplies I set about to build a full size creamery.  

This is the cover photo of the FOS kit

.           I just built the structure to fit the available space and placed the additional doors and windows where I thought they would be on a real building.  George had sent me some photos of some real New England creameries and I was pleased to see that the one of the Enosburg Falls Vermont creamery on the CV Richford Sub. was very similar to the kit. 

The creamery at Enosburg Falls, Vt. on the Central Vermont.

 

The structure above is one of the creameries located in Waterbury.

The basic structure is finished and the roof has lots of bracing.

       

     Once the basic structure was in place I decided, judging from the prototype photo, that the creamery should have a boiler house with a large smoke stack.  I found a round brick smoke stack made by Bar Mills in my parts drawer and decided to build the boiler house from scratch.  I had never built a brick building before so this was a good one to start with. I would be quite small and not too complex.  I built the basic shell from .040 styrene and used N Scale Architect sheet brick material. The windows and doors were from my parts box.

The Bar Mills smoke stack before painting and weathering.

The finished scratchbuilt boiler house

The boiler house and stack are completed and lights added.

     Once the boiler house was finished I added the card stock roof to the creamery and then covered it with tar paper.  I found several different roof vents in my parts box and added them to the roof. Once they were in place I weathered the the structure. 

     At this point I decided to add exterior lights over the doors.  For these I used warm white 0603 SMD LED's mounted in Tichy lamp shades. I feel these lights just add a little more realism and bring the building to life.

    The loading dock came next.  The loading dock in the kit was a little shorter than I wanted and a little too wide so I decided to scratch build a new one with wood I had on hand.  Once I am ready to put the creamery in place permanently I will add the door at the end of the ramp and various other details like milk cans found around a creamery. 

Here you can see the finished loading dock and the lights over the doors 

The structure is basically finished and a milk car is spotted at the loading dock.

The siding also has a coal dealer and feed mill on it making for some interesting switching.

Throwback Thursday - Titania.

GEXR 177 was sitting in the small yard across from the Via station in Kitchener, Ontario on October 09/03.  The name "Titania" is barely visible on the cab side below the unit number.

By Peter Mumby. 

The Goderich-Exeter Railway was founded in 1992 by RailTex, its original owner.  With its headquarters at 101 Shakespeare St, not far from the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario, it was not surprising that the line's first locomotives were named after Shakespearian characters.  These four GP9 units had all been assembled by GMD in 1960 for the Quebec Cartier Railway.  On GEXR they were numbered 177- 180 and sported attractive green and cream paintwork.  They were named as follows:

177 - Titania

178 - Paulina

179 - Portia

180 - Falstaff

In 1996 numbers 178, 179, and 180 were transferred to other railways, leaving only "Titania" to be photographed in the original colour scheme in 2003.

 

Wordless Wednesday No. 407

 

 

At the Gas Pumps - 1946

If one is modeling a service station in the 1940's these photos might help with the details such as the clothing and pump details.

 A look back at a service station in 1946...George Dutka 

Modeling an 1946 era car at the pumps might be interesting to add the hood open, a rag on the fender and the attendant with a can of water.

Modeling

My large shed-small barn structure has the roof on and base coat applied. The rest of the colouring will be done with PanPastel and chalk. The steel roof is Evergreen Styrene that will be weathered up a lot.

Here are a few views of projects on the go by Don, Brian and myself in the past few weeks...enjoy...George Dutka

Just got this photo from my friend Brian Smith who has just retired. He now has a lot more time to model. He needs an overpass for his farm scene road. Here is his start to the scene.

Don Janes has sent me some photos the last week or two of FOS kits he is working on. All background kits. This one I have shown you last week fully but here is a detailed view of the loading dock. I like the fire apparatus that are including with the kit. Don sent me a view also of the building flat that he is enlarging into a bigger building...it is going to be a CV creamery but I will let him post about this structure shortly.

I am not sure if I agree with the business combination found on this back door. I guess anything goes.

On my barn I am adding lighting rods and a weather vane. Alder Models had a nice package of these that I have used in the past. They are now out of business but occasionally they turn up at train shows if one remembers what they are.