LA Warehouse District Project - Poor Boxcar Storage

I stumbled across the rest of the boxcars I had from Accurail. I sorry to say they didn't survive the storage process very well. I am missing the under carriage for four of these and there are a number of different parts broken, mostly the stirrup steps. I'm unsure of whether I should just consign these to the junk drawer for practice shells or try and fix them back up.

It did give me the opportunity to play around with the new camera (Nikon 7500, my first new Nikon since 2008, essentially replaces my D70 and D90) though, I'm pretty happy with how the pictures came out. Oh the flaws we see under the harsh reality of a blown up picture.

Research - Freight Car Fleet Development; ATSF - Part 2

I started with a spreadsheet and translated all the boxcar data from the Railway Registry PDF into something that I could manipulate and add more data too. There are almost 300 different boxcar series listed in the Registry so it was a bit of painstaking task to get it all in there and I'm sure there are a few mistakes. I actually caught some typos in the original manuscript just to through a bit of a twist into the research.

The first thing I did was take the Shock Control Era book and compare the numeric series with those on the spreadsheet and add a couple columns for the boxcar identification and the year it went into service. I am not concerned with the year it went out of service if it existed on the 1975 Railway Registry then its fair game for inclusion on the layout. This gave me the type for just over 1/3 of the list (122 series to be precise), which represents 60 different boxcar types that were built or rebuilt on or after 1954. The rest were built prior to that date and of course the reference book for that is out of print and going for $100+ when you can find it. Once the other reference book, "Santa Fe Railway Listing of Freight Cars by Class and Car Numbers, 1906-1991", arrives I should be able to find the  the rest of the boxcars classes on the list. Of those already identified I can eliminate anything longer than a 50' car (the layout is being designed around the brick canyon, which will limit freight cars to 50' or less) and any car exclusive to the automobile industry. I can further eliminate cars that are rare as they were unlikely to have appeared in the Patch section of the LA Warehouse District unless they happen to provide service to an industry in that area.

At this point in time there is still a significant number of 40' boxcars on the roster. These consist primarily of Bx-85s,  Bx-136s, Bx-126s and Bx-115s. Not surprisingly the 50' boxcars make up the majority of the roster at this point.The most numerous are Bx-72s, Bx-69s, Bx-66s, Bx81s, Bx-74s, Bx-145s, and Bx-70s. Now, admittedly, the data is not complete but it gives me start on what I can find commercially. Of course manufacturer's don't make this easy, rarely do you find the Santa Fe's class listed on the side of a boxcar. So that will take a little more digging up than I care to think about.

Santa Fe Bx-85, 40' boxcar

Santa Fe Bx-115, a 40' boxcar

Santa Fe Bx-126, a 40' boxcar

Santa Fe Bx-136, a 40' boxcar

Santa Fe Bx-69, a 50' boxcar

Santa Fe Bx-81, a 50' boxcar

Research - Freight Car Fleet Development; ATSF and C&N

One of the things the model railroaders and miniature gamers share is a love of research. I have this need to get things as close to being right as possible, at least in some areas. Both hobbies require a certain amount of "compression" because of space and we have to adjust what is available to us to fit inside that window of what is right and what is practical. In miniature wargaming we adjust the size of forces to fit the action, because we can't deploy and entire battalion 1 for 1 on table top battlefields, we must compress the forces to fit the table but still be able to have the capabilities of a battalion. 

Model railroaders face the same compression needs. We don't have the space to model the entire railroad nor do I have the means or the will to model every freight car that the ATSF owned. So I must take the information and compress it so that the freight fleet I develop has the look and feel of the ATSF without modeling the entire fleet. The LA Warehouse district is set in the 1970s, I'm feeling that 1975 feels about right so that's the "feel" I want to hit. On the flip side I could model the C&N almost car for car. There were only about 25 Boxcars, 4 Gondolas, 4 Flats, 40 Ore Cars and 2 Cabooses, along with a selection of passenger cars. That could be accomplished although its far larger number than I would need for the small layout I have planned. I could even manage the entire stable of steam locomotives. I would need four 2-8-0s (almost impossible to acquire on the market these days), one 2-6-0 and one 2 Truck Class B Shay. I could never hope to acquire the number of diesels I would need for the ATSF in 1975. But I digress.

While the C&N freight car fleet is easy, even easier when you consider that it didn't actually do interchange business the ATSF freight fleet is a bit more difficult. Again the goal is to make it feel "right" which means not doing the "rare" cars but sticking to the more common cars that would be seen everyday. So I have acquired a couple of research items to try and make this happen. The first was a CD from Tap Lines that I acquired off of Amazon. It contains 11 PDF files of "The Official Railway Equipment Register".  It included both 1972 and 1975 so I thought that would be a could purchase. This register shows a complete inventory of the freight cars of, almost, every railroad in the United States. My thoughts are that I can work out the proportion of the different box and refrigerator cars that would appear in 1975 on the layout. While I haven't worked out the industries I want to include I'm thinking that it would be mostly box and refrigerator cars so I'm going working on those numbers first.

The second are some books from the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society, Inc.. During the first thoughts about the LA Warehouse District I acquired their "Mechanical Refrigerator Cars and Insulated Refrigerator Cars of the Sana Fe Railway 1949-1988", reference book. It has the kind of detail that I can really get into. The next two are recent acquisitions; "Santa Fe Box Cars The Shock Control Era 1954-1995" and "Santa Fe Railway Listing of Freight Cars by Class and Car Numbers, 1906-1991". I'm still waiting for the second book (which is out of print) to arrive. Which brings up a point, if you are going to produce a series of reference volumes why do you let them go out of print? I was able to find the Listing of Freight Cars on Amazon but there is another volume that I want that has been out of print for a long time; "Santa Fe Boxcars; 1869-1953" published in 2001 and out of print for long enough that it has become a collector's item.

So between the various reference works I should be able to figure out what ATSF box and refrigerator freight car types would appear and in what numbers and I can work out the percentages and narrow down my purchasing requirements to get the ATSF "feel" that I'm looking for.

I like the spiral binding, the book lays nice and flat.

Lots of information on the different type, including the series numbers but not the quantities. That's where the Official Registry comes into play.

Another Round of Boxcars - Painting

I pulled the airbrush out and my Tru-Scale MOPAC Boxcar Red (TCP-139) (here is a link to my original post about using Tru-Scale: Airbrushing with Tru-Scale paint ) and sat down and went to work. First thing I didn't prep things very well with the paint. I use these little plastic, disposable medical cups to mix paint in. This one had some gunk in it and the acetone loosened it from the bottom and the debris kept clogging my airbrush. I spent far more time cleaning out the clogs than I did actual painting. Note to self always check the cups and, always use a clean one. Acetone is wicked stuff and can damage just about anything, especially plastic, so be careful and have a nice clean area to work in, mine isn't. I see a winter cleaning of the work room coming up along with as many shelfs as I can jam into the remaining clear wall space.

Once I finally got the airbrush operating properly I was able to get the initial paint work on the boxcars done quite quickly. If I was going to apply decals I have a nice glossy surface to work on which is perfect for decals. Since I'm going to be applying dry transfers it really doesn't make a difference. Since I'll be using both I'll leave the glossy finish in place then seal it with Dullcote.

Just a couple of shots from last night. Its hard to take pictures when you are wearing a mask and handling an airbrush, an extra set of hands would have made things easier last night.

Two done, down to the third one. My favorite test bed boxcar.

And here we go, three bright and shiny boxcars. Hard to figure out which one was that awful burnt orange color.

And the underframes

Another Round of Boxcars - Prepping

The only thing I seem to be really making progress on is rolling stock for Calamity. I have three boxcars just waiting for some work. One of these was my test bed decal car. I'm unhappy with the results of my decals, if I had a laser printer I think they would look better, but when you are in close you can see the pixels. So considering going ahead and having custom decals done at this point. Will hold on that thought till after the first of the year. In the mean time I do have three sets of transfers from Clover House, so these will be fancy boxcars.

Tonight was spent prepping these for painting. That means removing the trucks (and carefully storing the screws) and removing the ladders from each side. Following that I used my jig to drill holes for the new grab irons. I received the brass ones yesterday and I like them much better. So holes drilled, grab irons bent into their proper and installed and we are ready to paint!

Ladders removed ready for grab irons

Installing some grab irons on one of the new cars. They need a little straightening.

Installed on the decal test bed car, those first attempt decals have to go!

  

Decals removed, grab irons installed

And a two

And a three

Boxcars for Calamity - The C&N RY borrows some rolling stock - Finished

I'm calling this pair of boxcars finished at this point. I tried to do some water streaking using heavily water down inks and it looks okay. I did the streaking and then I came back with some lighter dust to try and lighten up the effect a bit. Overall pretty good, I think the next set will be better. I received the new dry transfers from Clover House today; Rio Grande Southern, Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Colorado and Northwestern. So I just need enough boxcars to use them all! I have two here that are ready to go so I need to acquire one more. I may go ahead and use the two here for the C&N since I have been working on those decals. I also discovered today that those ladders on the sides aren't cast on, they are pinned off so I can take them off. I may go ahead and remove them from anymore Bachmann boxcars that I get. Those ladders will help the CC and DSP&P boxcars stand out a bit more.

The streaking effect is a little harsh at this point

Added some additional dusting and call it done

DSP&P calling this one done as well

Boxcars for Calamity - The C&N RY borrows some rolling stock - Part 2

Finally getting to the part that I really enjoy, weathering! I haven't done boxcars in a long time and the last ones I did were for my "Patch" layout, steel with rust. That's not quite going to cut it this time around, rust doesn't show up much on wood. So time to experiment a bit and see what I can do with something that has a lot more wood siding to work with. I also found my Bragdon weathering powders so I worked with those a little bit on this one as well. The Bragdon powders are loose and I found them very hard to control so I went back to the Pan Pastels, I find them much easier to work with. I can see a couple of areas where I might go in with the Bragdon powders to touch some things up.

Here is how far I got this evening

I started off with wheels again. These are for all the freight cars and cabooses that I painted with the Tru-Scale paint a couple of weeks ago.

Look pretty good. Probably spent to much time on these considering how hard they are to see under the car.

This is how the Colorado Central box car started out

After painting and dry transfers (Clover House, New Creations)

A quick application of Burnt Sienna ink from Liquitex

Applied the first coat of Pan Pastel, this is the dark base

This is after the application of the second and lighter color of Pan Pastel

This is the car the Denver, South Park & Pacific started from

After paint and dry transfers (Clover House, New Creations)

The application of Burnt Sienna Liquitex Ink

A darker grey applied to the roof for soot

First application of the darker Pan Pastel

Second lighter application of Pan Pastel

So this is were I got, one more evening's work should finish these off.