A Barn Refurbished

This was a quick fixer-upper that I did in little over an hour. I was actually working on two rebuilds so no down time waiting for paint and glue to dry.

I recently did a quick refurbishing of a small plastic barn. Another flea market find that has passed through my hands and off to a new layout home...George Dutka

I once again forgot to take a photo of the structure before I got started on it. Here we see Camo Coat olive green on the walls and dark brown on the roof. The whole building was red when I began. You can actually see a bit of the red showing through. My base coats are sprayed on as a light coating which will not hide any detailing.

PanPastel green is brushed on the walls while the roof got Bragdon soot, some light brown and a couple tones of PanPastel grays. I used a micro brush to apply a light rubbing of PanPastel white on the trim.

Signs are added many are copies from my FOS, Bar Mills and RailroadKITS kits signage's.

The back end of the barn has a closed door.

I added some details to the doorways that are open at the front. The red barrel is one from a package of Campbell's that Jim Sloan gave me back in the fall. They are all going to good use Jim...some of the others are being added to my fishing shack structure.

The wall boards are weathered and worn looking making this a nice little plastic kit to refurbish.

A BEST pigeon is added to the roof.

MR's - Canadian Canyons

Steven Otte our tour guide at MR took us into the room that the N scale Canadian Canyons layout was displayed. It has been the 2019 feature layout. We also got to see a few of the feature layouts from past years located in the hallways.

At the 2018 Trainfest our group toured MR. Their current feature layout Canadian Canyons was on display in their work shop and we had a good look at it. It actually is pretty impressive considering the area they are modeling in such a small space. There was two groups checking the layout out making photo taking tough. Here are a few views taken with my phone recording the day...George Dutka

Drew fills in the gang on the layouts features. That is Mike Walker in the foreground with the red hat. He actually was dressed for the occasion with a CP hat and shirt.

One can see the joints were the layout can come apart for movement.

MEC Milk Car

A MEC milk car seen in Portland, Maine during 1917. Kieth Sirman collection

An interesting old time milk car I scanned recently. I purchased this photograph from Kieth Sirman a number of years ago with the thought of one day building a model of it...enjoy the view and maybe build a model...George Dutka

Throwback Thursday - So, Have You Ever Been to Crivitz?

ELS locomotives 1224/1221/202 lead their train of empty bulkhead flats towards the junction and small yard at Crivitz, Wisconsin on July 03, 1998

By Peter Mumby.

Back in early July of 1998, I was invited to travel to the Green Bay, Wisconsin area with my friends Bill and Kevin Orchard.  The main draw was that Milwaukee Road Northern #261 was operating a number of fan trips out of the city over the American holiday weekend.  The Orchards were fans of big steam, railroads of the US Midwest, and the Packers, so for them it was the perfect storm.  I was just along for the ride and to experience something different in the railfanning department.

Railfanning in unfamiliar territory is always more satisfying when you have someone in the know to act as tour guide.  We met up with a friend of Bill's by the name of Brad Plets ( of the Plets Express line of railroad videos.). Brad offered to take us to visit the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad (ELS) at the junction point of Crivitz, Wisconsin.  We followed a train into town before catching more of the action in the small local yard.  In addition to being my first visit to any ELS facility, I saw my first EMD SD-9 locomotives, and my first Baldwin diesel.  Not a bad side trip at all!

ELS 1201 also put in an appearance at Crivitz on July 03/98.

Baldwin DS44-1000 number 202 has been set off in the Crivitz yard.

Wordless Wednesday No. 316

Lube Structure

This was a quick rehab taking me about 30 minutes from start to finish and a great improvement from the original look.

Not sure of the heritage of this model. I purchased a box full of odds and ends to practice some weathering on. I think it turned out pretty good. It sold pretty fast at the last train show I worked...George Dutka

I forgot to take a photo before I began this project. I sprayed a group of small structures with a light coat of Camo Coat brown. Note it all did not get covered but it all will work out well. There was a sticker sign that I forgot to remove before painting that shows the original colouring.

PanPastel green is added to walls, doors and window. Some new signs are applied. rust to lube pumps and PanPastel gray to the wooden deck.

The roof was coated with some Bragdon soot, and some acrylic paints on seams and patches.

GMD Recollections - Santa Fe All the Way.

The GMD 40th anniversary display included ATSF GP60 #119.  The date was June 16, 1990.

By Peter Mumby

The GMD plant in London had a multi-track enclosure at the front (north) side of the plant that was sometimes put to use as a display area.  Such was the case on June 16, 1990 on the occasion of the company's 40th anniversary.  Santa Fe 119 represented the GP60 model currently in production.  Other display units representative of recent production included CN SD60F #5535, built in 1989, and CP SD40-2F #9015 from 1988.

2,000th Post

CNR 6767 arrived at WRJ just in time to be turned around on the milk train. The first three cars are CV milk can cars. I just finished a modeling piece on CV milk cars and this photo was an unused extra that I thought I would share with you.

My first mile-marker was post 1,000 on Jan 2, 2016, today marks another milestone on my WRD blog, 2,000 posts. Hard to believe Peter, Don and I had that much to share will you and I am really surprised that I still have so much more material to post. In the terms of prototype photos I have well over 1,000 photos that all are worth you having a look at and I have yet to scan many of my own views from the last 40 years.

These are my go-to base coatings for plastic kit rehabs...more on this in an upcoming CARM issue.

I have fallen behind with covering modeling projects from last year and the layouts I have visited. As I have mentioned before I have been spending most of my time attending to my mother and mother in laws issues, both in their 90's. I do from time to time work on something that can be done quickly. A lube shed that took me 30 minutes to refurbish will be posted next week. I also have a few pieces of rolling stock and engines part way completed that I will hope to cover once done. I guess in the past couple of months most of my modeling time has been spent blogging...so stay tuned as we have a lot to cover in the next 1,000 posts...George Dutka

An ex-TH&B car seen in Hamilton, Ont. during the 1940's from the Sirman collection, Bob Bowes copy.

This CV boxcar was built by Bob Hannah in the late 1980's or early 1990's. Bob gave it to me a decade or so ago. I decided to add a bit of weathering to the roof so it fits in better to my contemporary fleet. The two PanPastels used are seen here. I also used a couple of acrylics tube paint and Bragdon rusts.

Here is a close-up of the Bragdon rust being applied prior to the PanPastels.

My friend Terry a retired CN conductor recieved a group of photos from our old boss Train Master Norm Davis who lives across the street from Terry. During his time in London he was required to photograph all CN structures located in his territory. I now have these and will scan and post them from time to time. On Oct. 3 1986 at the west end of Ingersoll, Ontario was a small shanty called Ingersoll West. Located on the Dundas Sub., an ABS signal territory that is two tracks with a crossover located there during the train order era. An operator would be required when trains are being single tracked and crossed over. Years later at times a brakeman would be called as a switch tender on an as-needed basis.

The back side of the West Ingersoll train order office. A neat little weathered plywood structure worth considering as a model.

For my harbor front scene I am working on a few structures this winter. I normally would have this one finished in a week but with parent issues it has been in the works since early December. In this view the fish sign is already applied. The edges require a red looking edging that one is required to paint on. I went another route using Bragdon powders in a colouring that is close to red applied with a micro brush. More on this structure will be on my Modeling Maine in Narrow Gauge blog found on the sidebar.

One of my recent finds a F&C hopper got an over spray of Floquil grimy black followed by a bit of Bragdon powders. The interior got some Woodland Scenic coal with a dusting of PanPastel coarse coal.

Interlocking Tower Refurbished

Something new on the White River Division?

I recently spruced up this interlocking tower kit that someone else had built. It is a well built wooden kit but not well painted and detailed...a cheap flea market find for me. Once completed I decided to set it at my diamond location to take a few photos. It actually does not look all that bad there but I only refurbished it for some extra practice. I spent maybe 30 minutes on this project. It was a for-sale item I took to a recent train show...and now has a new home.

You may have noted the B&M Rapido RDC car on the layout. This is something new to the WRD. I got a great deal on this one during Trainfest when our group visited the Walthers warehouse. It was marked as defective but I could not find any issues with it. I had a chance to run it on their test track. For just over $100 US I can live with this. I did not actually find the defect till I got home which was a very small crack on the plow corner and really does not show. If one gets a chance Walthers is well worth a stop.

If you are not drooling yet about my great deal our whole NFR group walked away with something that had a ridiculous price on it....George Dutka

Top of my file cabinet...Today

Here is a recent look at my file cabinet...think I need to clean it up a bit.. My ash pit diorama along with a few drop in scenes take up most of the space. Some of my N scale models that don't fit on my diorama or need work. The caboose lamp my father in law gave me recently is  also on display. The three photo boxes are full of my New England photos I took over the years...George Dutka

Throwback Thursday - Meet the Cariboo Prospector.

BC Rail's Cariboo Prospector has arrived at the Lillooet station at mile post 157.6 of the Squamish Subdivision on July 05, 1989.

By Peter Mumby.

During the final couple of decades of operation, British Columbia Railway ran a number of tourist-oriented passenger trains.  Best known was the Royal Hudson train, along with the Pacific Starlight Dinner Train and the short-lived Whistler Northwind.  All of these trains were locomotive-hauled, whereas the regular passenger train, the Cariboo Prospector, operated exclusively with Budd RDC equipment.  At the time of this photo there were nine such cars on the roster.

The train in our photo was scheduled to depart North Vancouver at 07:00, with an arrival time at Lillooet of 12:30.  This was a daily operation.  Depending on the time of the year/day of the week, the two lead cars would continue north to Prince George over the Lillooet and Prince George Subdivisions.  The trailing cars would return south to North Vancouver later in the afternoon.

BC-30, the lead unit in the photo, was an RDC 3 built in 1956.  The high cost of maintaining these vintage cars led to the eventual demise of all BC Rail passenger service on October 31, 2002.

Wordless Wednesday No. 315

1945

GMD Recollections - Down By the Station Early in the Evening.

Sitting in front of the Via depot in London, Ontario are F40PH-2 locomotives 6420 - 6425, the first six members of class GPA-30b.  The date is Sept. 01/87, and these units have just recently been delivered from GMD by the CN yard switcher.

By Peter Mumby

Usually when the CN yard crew picked up new units from General Motors Diesel, this was the beginning of a delivery sequence involving a line haul long enough to put a smile on the faces of every member of the accounting department.  Export locomotives, for example, would travel east to Halifax, where they would be loaded on an ocean-going ship.  Westbound deliveries usually went as far as Chicago for furtherance by connecting railroads.  However, with the exception of deliveries to CN itself, the haul to Via's pick-up point was about as short as it could get.  The London Via station was just a few short city blocks west of the CN yard.

Based on several observations, the customary routine was for CN to deliver new locomotives singly or in pairs to track #2 at the Via station.  The next scheduled eastbound passenger train would pull into station track #1.  While the customary station business was performed, the engineer would walk over to the new unit and proceed to back it on to the front of his train.  At departure time the dispatcher would be informed of the new lead unit number, and the train would leave for Toronto.

The routine on the day the accompanying photo was taken differs from the norm in a couple of ways.  First, there were six new units on delivery, and second, they have been put on to station track #3.  I was not there to see them leave town, so I don't know if they were added to two or more trains, or if they possibly went to Toronto as a light engine move.  Or, were they all put on one train? That would have been a sight to see - seven locomotives heading a four-car passenger train out onto the Dundas Sub!

If you looked at this post a bit earlier I had posted the wrong photo...hope I got it right now...George

Williams Bros. Inc. - 1950 Chev Stake Truck Kit

My new 1950's Chev appears in Bellows Falls, Vermont

Another truck I assembled while on a roll last year is a 1950 Chevrolet stake truck by Williams Bros. Inc. I actually found that I had two. They are very simple to build just need the stakes painted and added along with the wheels. The hard part is getting the windows masked well before painting.

I used a can of red spray-bomb for the body. The stakes are painted a wood colour and frame and tires chalkboard paint black. I added some acrylic rust spots but it may get more weathering at a later date, a FOS scale plate and styrene mudflaps. The hubs are painted silver along with door handles and grill. The grill was just dry brushed. Now to see what I can do with these other Williams Bros. models...George Dutka

Some details are added to the box. Most are Juneco details although a Tichy barrel lid, wood board and a sign is also included. The more details the more interest to the box.

A Second Sylvan Flatbed

My second Sylvan flatbed better clear the crossing soon, I hear a whistle in the distance.

I had a second identical model of the Sylvan 1937 Maple Leaf  2 ton flatbed. I decided to built it as I finished off my first truck a few months ago. Easier to build a duplicate when all is fresh in my mind. Once again the model went together really well although I left out the steering wheel and figure as in the first model. I painted my truck with Home Hardware camo olive green. The flat bed got some stripwood weathered which will hold the load. Acrylic silver is added to handles, grill, hubs and hood ornament. The tire area that would touch the road got a coat of acrylic chalkboard black...kind of an off black with a look of dark gray. Once I added some acrylic rust paint spots I used PanPastel gray and Bragdon rust on the body, rims and flatbed edges. I added a couple of cast metal barrels, wood pieces, signs and hoses made from wire. I also threw aboard a Tichy sack which would maybe contain cement.

The license plate is a FOS scale detail that I added along with a full load of odds and end. It might get a Ontario plate shortly. A second  really neat looking truck for the WRD...there is a second post below...George Dutka

Old Service Station

Rensselaer, NY near the engine service area.

While checking out the Rensselaer, NY station on Nov. 3, 2018 I noticed a neat looking Texaco station that would look good on a layout. As the prototype it could be tucked in anywhere. I like the idea some of the Texaco lettering is missing. I have a bit of a backlog of posts so today there are two...George Dutka

One could photocopy and reduce the sign in the window and the logo under the Texaco signage.

Walthers Feed Store - On WRD

The feed store in use during the summer months on the WRD. 1950's era scene is a general store at this location.

Here are a couple of views of the completed Walthers feed store on the WRD. A drop-in option I did not think fit well, so it is a thing of the past...George Dutka

The Walthers structure before weathering.

A CV train passes the crossing at the feed store on its way to White River Jct.