General Electric U28C and U30CG in Warbonnet Red

I thought I'd throw back to the late 1960's with a look at GE's late entries into the passenger diesel market prior to Amtrak.  The models are Trix models from the 1970's with my own "tricks" added.



General Electric U30CG

GE's attempt to match EMD's FP45's.  Not very successful as they were taken out of passenger service due to derailments.  (The derailments may not have been the locomotives' fault).  Went on to occassionally power the "Super C", Santa Fe's first attempt at high speed piggyback service.  The U is for Universal, 30 is for 3000 hp, C is for 6 axle trucks, the G for a steam generator.




General Electric U28C

Both models have brass handrails installed, but I did this so long ago, I have no idea what brand the detail parts were.  Microscale decals were added, as well as new air horns.  But the biggest and best addition was.... 



Chassis

...the Kato chassis.  I squeezed the Kato chassis into the Trix shells.  It required some shaving of the frame and trimming of the trucks, and modifying the pilots, but the performance of the Kato motors made it worth the effort.  I just wanted to save those Trix shells.

Thought I'd show you some cars in today's video.  Many of the Santa Fe cars are custom painted and decaled. 

References:
AT&SF Color Guide... by Lloyd Stanger
Santa Fe Freight in Color,  Part 1 Boxcars, by Stephen Priest and Thomas Chenoworth
Furniture and Automobile Box Cars by Richard Hendrickson





Custom painted and decaled.  Con Cor car.  Note black SL logo.  Decals custom made by Custom Rail Graphics




IC Lightly Weathered




Custom painted and decaled and weathered  




Custom painted and decaled and weathered.




Maine Central weathered




Custom painted and decaled and weathered.  No yellow "Super" in Shock Control



CP 50' Mechanical Reefer. 

Side panel riveting picked up nicely with chalks used for weathering.  Chalks are my main weathering material.

Micro Trains car weathered, beat up side panels.

Custom painted and decaled and slightly weathered.

Custom painted and decaled and lightly weathered.

Note yellow DF logo. (custom made decal) 



PRR Center Depressed Flat Car

Load has been painted green and industrial decals appllied.  Really enhances load appearance.  Tie downs made with "silver metallic thread" availabe in sewing stores. When I bought this thread, I was the only guy in the store. I consider myself a true "train nerd".



Custom painted and decaled and heavily weathered.

Represents plug door box from 60's era.

Custom painted and decaled and weathered.  Yellow SL logo, with replacement brown 8' panel door.

Custom painted and decaled and weathered. This paint scheme goes all the way back to the mid 1950's  Large "DF" stands for "Damage Free".

Custom painted and decaled and weathered.  Paint mixed with white to represent fading.

Custom painted and decaled and weathered. Note yellow "Super" in Shock Control logo.

Railbox 50' plug and sliding door

Heavily weathered PC 50' boxcar.  Penn Central equipment poorly maintained prior to merger into Conrail.

Avideo of this train can be found 0n YouTube at:  http://youtu.be/KTPXVdVOF0M

Addendum to Weathering MT Auto Racks

Con Cor Auto Racks and Vert A Pac car in Video on YouTube

IC "Vert A Pac" Car

I saw an advertisement involving this freight car in the early 70's showing how the sides pull down into ramps, then Chevy Vegas were driven up the ramp, ramps were closed, leaving the Vegas nose first.  Accommodations were made at the factory for various fluids in the cars.  I don't know if these cars were still in service in 1981.

Santa Fe Auto Rack  Red Paint Scheme

All of the Con Cor cars have "N Scale of Nevada" photo etch panels.  These panels are no longer available.  (If someone has some extras, I need 6 more.)  This improved the appearance of the Con Cor auto racks remarkably.  I also modified the extensions on the Micro Train couplers, thus shortening the distance between cars.

Close up of Santa Fe Logo

The "t" in Santa Fe was applied in house by spraying Santa Fe red on a piece of sheet metal, then spraying on the "t", and welding it to the car.

Southern Pacific

SP auto racks were notoriously filthy.

Soo Line

Santa Fe in Mineral Brown

Denver and Rio Grande Western

Grand Trunk

Rooftops

Really weird precise weathering patterns.  I believe they follow the riveted sections.

SP rooftop

Canadian National

Chicago and Northwestern

I will deal with the Red Caboose Auto Racks in a future posting.

Prototype Photos:

I have posted a N Scale video of a 1981 Auto Rack train on YouTube at:

http://youtu.be/XxzUouLStgo

Weathering Micro Trains Auto Racks Pt. 2

Weathered Photoetch

The lower photoetch shows where the Tamiya masking tape was applied. Remove the masking tape and weather the remaining panels with streaks of rust from top to bottom. Streaking may continue to a lower panel.



Weathering the Roof

The above photo shows the weathering of the roof from left to right, with the initial streaks to the finished product.  Start with streaks of oils where rivets holding rooftop panels would be, and then dry brush across the rooftop.  The end result is on the right.   When that is done and fully dried, on to assembly.

Pieces for Final Assembly

Carefully position photoetch to side of model and put end caps in place.  Slowly add pillars to model one by one, working from ends to the middle, while making sure the end caps are in place.  The photoetch will try to slide out of position at first, and you must take care doing this.  After one side is in repeat on otherside, again, making sure the photoetch does not slip out of the end caps. 

Finally, pop the roof in place and attatch the weathered  (I am sure you have done this) trucks.  MT has a number of different wheelsets to chose from, including brown (rust) wheelsets. 

At this point it is time to spray Dull Cote over the entire model.

When finished, your model should look something like this.........

Assembled Weathered Chessie System MT Auto Rack

 Weathered Burlington Northern MT Auto Rack

 Weathered Santa Fe MT Auto Rack

 Weathered Rock Island MT Auto Rack

Thanks for looking up this blog.  I hope you found the last two blogs on weathering these models interesting.  Soon I will have a blog on weathering the Red Caboose Auto Racks, which require a different approach.  Next week, more N Scale action on the Needles Division!

 I have posted an N Scale video of a 1981 Auto Rack train on YouTube at:

http://youtu.be/XxzUouLStgo