New York Central in Chicago and Toledo: Other Railroads

Louisville & Nashville

I just recently purchased an L&N E7 loco that needs to be cleaned up and detailed. In general the loco is in good shape with the exception of lift rings and handrails missing. Much to my surprise it came with a decoder, that I wasn't expecting.

Railway Express Agency - Detailing a Walthers REA Wood Reefer (Part 1)

I have been collecting Rea Express Reefers for the past year trying to grow my fleet. In and around the La Salle street station and other near by stations REA cars were everywhere. So I figured I would need a fair amount to create a great looking scene. I really like the job Walthers has done with both styles of REA cars (wood & steel express cars). The graphics are well done and the detail really makes the final product "pop" when completed.

Instructions

Make sure you look over the instruction sheet provided with car. Get familiar with where all the grab irons are to be mounted, and then make sure you have all that you need. (In the couple of cases where pieces were missing getting the replacements wasn't too bad. ) In general Walthers does a pretty good job with both the text and visual aids.

This is a pretty good example of what the grab irons look like in the different sizes and the amount you should have for each. The exploded view to the right of the grab irons is showing you where to drill the holes. Tip; I use a magnifying glass to see which way the divots are facing when pre-drilling the holes.

Look at your directions for the grab iron locations, then try and locate them on the model. Using glasses or magnifiers locate the divot and begin pre-drilling with your #78 drill bit. Tip; I don't drill the hole all the way through with this bit, I just want a good starting point so my other bit doesn't run a stray.

Railway Express Agency - Detailing a Walthers REA Wood Reefer (Part 2)

In this next couple of views you can see where I pre-drilled the holes for the grab irons. No matter how hard you try there's always going to be one or two divots where the drill bit walks out. Just try and keep it as close to the divot as possible. I tend to lean the drill over up against the divot location until I have a little depth in the hole. This way when I come back with the bigger bit it will stay put.

Once the holes have all been drilled out I install them using ACC. I put a little drop on a piece of scrap plastic and dip the ends of the grab irons in it. Be careful not to put too much on the ends. (I have small pair of "needle nose" pliers that is perfect for this application.) The alignment get can a little tricky, just go slowly, I typically try to get one end started and then the other. As long as you don't push it in too far it should be a snap. After all the grabs were made to fit in between the divots.

Here's a picture of the grab irons installed. In this case the car body is "hunter green", I used Floquils Southern Green to paint the grab irons. The color almost matched perfectly! By the time I dulcote the whole car and weather it, you would come close to telling it apart.

The next few photo's are of the finihed car. As I mentioned earlier, I dulcote the whole car to blend in all the shinny spots. This includes the car printing and glue spots, if you want the car to look brand new then apply glosscote instead. It pretty much has the same effect. I was looking for a slightly used look so after I dul-coted the model I sprayed on a light mixture of Floquil "Mud" (50/50). I applied it to the lower portion of the car and roof. What'a ya think?

Chesapeake & Ohio

Detailing Proto 2000 Chesapeake & Ohio E8 - Part 1

I just recently purchased a Proto 2000 E8 C&O locomotive. The C&O ran through both Chicago and Toledo, so I figured I should probably have at least one small passenger train to represent it. I apologize for not taking a as purchased (before) picture. I started in on it and then realized that I didn't. To this point have removed the small exhaust stack molded into the shell, and glued in "Calscale" detail parts spark arrestors. I also painted over the number boards and installed decals.

This picture shows the installed decals #4021, the original number board was to be aluminated. I never really liked this personally. You will also notice that I painted the marker lights.

This picture shows the pilot provided was black, I haven't seen pictures of these units with a black pilots, so I plan on painting it yellow with the top portion gray to match pictures of the prototype.

While I had the shell off I went ahead and painted the crew members. You may have noticed in the picture that I didn't paint the lower portion of the figures. You say why? You won't see the lower half of them when the shell is put back on, so why bother? I will be installing DCC in the unit in the very near future, I will also be changing out the light bulbs for LED's that I purchased on-line. They are made to fit right into the lenses opening on the nose.

Below is a picture of the spark arrestors installed. I squeezed the mold on stacks together and gave them a slight twist with a small pair of needle nose pliers. They came right off, I didn't even need to drill out the holes to install the spark arrestors. They were glued in with a dab of Walthers "Goo" on the stem, then I pressed it into place. On the inside of the shell I placed a small amount of ACC on the stem. At this point I've only hand painted them with Polly "S" Grimy black.

Detailing Proto 2000 Chesapeake & Ohio E8 - Part 2

The next process was to install all the grabs going up across the side and nose of the unit. I used reference pictures I got off the web.

Gulf Mobil & Ohio

I just received a Proto 2000 GM&O PA. This is actually my 4th loco in these colors, but will be my first to detail and weather. The GM&O didn't go through La Salle street station or Toledo for that matter, but it was in the Chicago area. So if I had a passenger train in a near by yard or passing siding it would be right at home. The GM&O had some beautiful passenger equipment, a friend of mine had a older Rivarossi car done in these colors and it looked great. So why not have a small representation on the layout. Heck, everything else will be.

GM&O F3 A&B Units Later Scheme (Part 1)

I hate to start out by apologizing but I do. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until after getting to this point with the project that I haven’t been taking any pictures, my bad. So here goes, I purchased the two units on-line. They initially started out life as Southern units.

The first thing I did was to strip the shells using slightly diluted brake fluid. Then I cut the skirting off on both sides of each unit. Next, I drilled out all the grab iron locations on both shells (fingers got tired doing that). The additional grab iron locations were determined with the use of pictures.

On the A-unit shell I did not put the “polling’ ports on (to this point I haven’t been successful making them), nor did I place the front pilot grabs in the proper location for the small platforms on the pilot. I don’t have a good picture to see what they really looked like so I didn’t add them for now. I can allows come back to make the modifications when I attain material. There are a couple of other details that I’m missing, particularly the ones on the roof. Again I can’t find any good pictures to this point to give me guidance on that.

Next, I added to the shell all the detail parts and grabs that I had or could make. To paint the shells I used a mixture of Wisconsin Central Maroon and caboose red to get the color I was looking for. I wanted the units to look close to retirement condition. Never the less, the color looks good to me. At this point I was stuck again determining the roof paint. In several pictures that I located the roofs looked like they were still black for the most part. The A unit paint job on the roof best represents what I could tell from those photo's. Due to the simplified painted job it doesn't even look like they repainted the roofs, only the portion that I painted Maroon.

Once the painting was completed and dried I added the decals. Using my standard application, I cut out all the decals with an x-acto knife and place them iton luck warm water. I typically wait until the decals float off the backing. Next, I placed the decal in the general area tit belons. I take a small piece of paper towel to help remove access water from the area , and then make my final adjustments to the decal. Let dry overnight, I usually wait 24 hours before applying and solva-set.

Once the general painting process was completed I began blackening in the grill areas on the sides. I will be going back over these areas dry-brushing the screens to make them “stand” out. In the one picture you’ll will notice that I used pieces of the skirting that I cut-off to make the fuel tank and storage box area standout. (The fuel fillers and electrical plugs will be added on later.)

The picture below shows the tools that I typically use to blacken the grills. Many people make the mistake of trying to brush on "inks" for this purpose. What I do is just use the brush to place a couple of drops of solution on the grill. Then using a dulled down x-acto #11 blade I spread the solution around out to the edges. Then I turn the blade to the back edge and us it like a pencil dragging it along, the soultion wick-off the knife blade right up to the molded grill edge. Its not perfect but it works a hell of a lot better than trying to use a brush.

GM&O E7 #101A and #103 (Part 1)

Unfortunately I did it again. The GM&O E7 #103 was pretty much already done when I realized I wasn't taking any pictures. Not to mention I already started #101A as well, but we can start here. The first picture shows the grab irons installed around the side and across the nose. I used a piece of Evergreen Styrene for the foot platform running down the side. I marked the location on the model with a mechanical pencil the location for the platform. Then using a used #11 exato blade I scratched away some of the paint down to the plastic where the platform would be located. This is to ensure that the styrene has a plastic to plastic bound.

I had to eye the location of the footboard because I couldn't fine any information on the actual length or positioning points.

In this view you can see the grab iron (.00012 K&S wire) positioning across the roof of the unit. I used eye-bolt in two location and bent the .00012 wire at the ends. Getting the wire in the exact position is proven to be rather tricky. I still don't have it down yet, but if you don't add this feature to the loco's you loose the whole effect of how these units looked.

You can also notice that I removed the stock horns and replace them with a single 5 chime horn. To fill in the holed I cut the horns off in-place and then with a very fine file, filed them down flush with the roof.