William Bison Pt 1

This is the first of three industries for a new module called Hayden we are building, it is set in 2008. It is actually the remains of a kit from another module. I saved it knowing i'd be able to use it as a background building/flat at a future time.

The original kit is Walthers RJ Frost, a cast concrete style structure of a cold store from transition period. I wanted to show age to the setting, a property that has been in different hands and modified to keep up with changes in technology.

Freight cars have changed a lot from the transition to 2008, cars can carry greater weight and greater volume which has meant cars have changed in length, width & height. Refrigerated cars nearly doubled in length and height so loading platforms have had to adjust. Whereas in transition the cold store could receive two freight cars, now it is only one for all the volume is similar.

The biggest thing is car heights and as the kit had a canopy it was obviously going to be too low for modern stock. I moved all the mounting points on the building up about 20mm and attached the canopy as described in the instructions. All the old holes were filled with putty and sanded smooth.

Before paint I made a sign board and then drilled for mounting lights over the sign and under the canopy to illuminate the unloading dock.

The building is painted in a natural concrete colour to show the utilitarian aspect of industry. Doors and canopy are a sea grey. To simulate a tar roof I used a piece of 400 grit emery paper.

Still need to add some roof ventilation details and weather it before completion but gives a footprint and base to work with.

Happy Railroading!

Re-Painted Pick Up Pt 2

I managed to roll the pick up through the spray booth for a touch of weathering. Nothing too drastic, just bit of kicked up road grime. I still plan to do a bit in the bed but that'll be with a brush probably.

Happy Railroading!

Re-Painted Pick Up

Here's a little auto project I've been working on.

I got this pick up in a joblot of miscellaneous items for peanuts, as some of you will probably recognise it started life as a Woodland Scenics Pick 'Em Up. The pale blue pick up with the, in my opinion, bad weather job. That is what stopped me stumping up the £15 for a generic 50s pick up truck. 

This bargain find gave me the opportunity to do what I think an aged 50s pick up truck should look like. Also I would have a model no-one else would have!

I didn't take any before pictures as you can all look up the original. It came apart surprisingly easily. The glued in mounting pegs broke but didn't affect the reassembly. Once in it's component parts it was washed thoroughly and left to dry.

I contemplated the colour change long and hard and settled for a period red and cream. As the plan is for this to be an ageing farm truck I chose matt or matter paints to add to the patina.

While disassembled I repainted the interior in multiple colours too. I left the original figure painted as was.

For a relatively small model and project it has taken quite a while to get to this stage alone. Primarily as it sat in the background and waiting until I had a reason to fire the airbrush up for the main painting etc.

So here it is, still awaiting the road muck, wear and tear etc mind:

So now it awaits the next stage. Hopefully it won't take me as long to finish it off. Keep an eye out for the completed pick up!

Happy Railroading

Athearn Genesis F Unit Cut Lever Bars

We all understand that as time goes on RTR models improve, more parts, more accurate etc but that doesn't mean the older units need replacing with newer units.

For example we have some first generation Athearn Genesis F7s, the ones with the Highliner shells and etched grilles, these were a marked improvement over the BB derived RTR units 10 years ago plus. The main let down of those early Genesis units was that the DCC & Sound was by MRC and frankly were rubbish but fitting a Tsunami in a DC unit or ripping the MRC out got around that. 

When Athearn produced the Genesis units factory fitted with Tsunami DCC & Sound they added more detail parts as standard, along with more road correct details. Two examples are MU hoses, which i'll cover in another post and the second is cut lever bars.

The good thing is that all the shells are already setup for cut lever bars so adding them to the earlier productions runs are dead simple. Now I appreciate many aftermarket detail suppliers do cut lever bar kits and you can always make your own, but these Athearn parts fit straight on!

Athearn Part Number: G19134 is a sprue with five cut lever bars: early style front, late style front, plough style front, left rear & right rear. At this point I will highlight that one sprue is only good for ONE A unit and half a B unit so every B unit needs TWO sprues to complete.

In order to avoid damaging the rear cut leaver bar when taking the body off and to avoid taking the coupler out the cut lever is molded in two parts. Each part has two plastic pins on the back, these align with the mounts on the shell where a dimple is placed between two rivets to mark where to drill. Drill the dimples out to 0.4mm holes. These are a good fit but recommend a small dab of CA to retain.

Below see picture before and after:

It's a relatively simple improvement and for all you don't see the rear of a A unit or the ends of B's very often although it's surprising the difference it makes viewing side on, so a worthy addition in my opinion.

I'll cover the fronts and MU Hoses in future posts.

Happy Railroading

Heart of the Midlands Exhibition Pt.2

Following my previous post, here are a few pictures from the weekend. Unfortunately I didn't get around to taking pictures until Sunday morning or else I'd have posted on the prior evenings.

We got set up on Friday afternoon/evening, all good out of the box. Unusually we weren't the only American outline layout at a exhibition, we were actually 1 of 4. There were 2 European and the rest British, total of 38 in all I believe.

Saturday was really busy from doors open at 10am until about 3.30pm, hence little time for pictures or to get around to look at other exhibits. Initial reports suggested a 25% increase in foot fall over previous year.

Sunday was a little steadier but constant across the day. Managed to look around a little but didn't take lots of pictures of the other exhibits but there are some videos, by others, on YouTube already, just search for "Loughborough Model Railway Exhibition 2019".

Padden Flatts as set up:

UP 1803 brings in grain hoppers for the days work:

All under the watchful eye of Billy the Bison (our mascot who we brought back from Wyoming earlier in the year)

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable show, thanks due to all the organisers and to our other operators for the weekend.

Happy Railroading!

Heart of the Midlands Exhibition

Not done too much updating as a lot of time been spent getting our exhibition layout "Padden Flatts" ready for upcoming appearance at the exhibition "Heart of the Midlands" in Loughborough and run by Soar Valley Model Railway Club.

I will post some photos over the weekend but in the meantime here is the flyer:

Come along and don't forget to say hello!

DT&I 12298

Last one for today, another Bowser kit, sadly this one had previously been in the hands of Stevie Wonder. I try not to buy items built by others for exactly this reason but being it's my only DT&I car I persevered. One of the coupler spigots was broken off, one of the bogie mounts had a stripped tread and the body mounting tabs had all been cut off... The coupler spigot got replaced with styrene and I sleeved the stripped threaded bolster. There was a lot of dried glue around the chassis from previous attempts following the broken mounting tabs, I cleaned as much off to get a good fit again. I replaced the metal floor weight with a thicker one that brought it up to NMRA recommendations and then fixed the chassis into the body.

Intermountain metal wheels, Kadee# 158s, train line hoses and hand bent cutlever bars were all added before weathering accordingly.

Won't be as long until the next post.

Happy Railroading