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Weathering model train cars

Steve’s been in touch. With the help of youtube he’s been busy weathering model train cars.

“Hi Alastair,

There are a number of YouTube vidoes that show a simple method for improving the look of Hornby ‘Railroad’ LNER Teak Coaches.

I was impressed by what I saw and decided to give it a try.

The steps that you need to follow are relatively simple:

1. Dismantle the coach by first removing the bogies. Unclip the body shell by sqeezing the clip at each end. The body shell should now lift away.

If you encounter any resistence first check that the glazing unit is not glued to the inside of the body shell. If there is no glue it should be possible to remove the body shell with a small amount of force.

Now unclip the glazing unit from the base of the coach. You may now lift the glazing unit and the coach interior piece away from the
base. The ends of coach shell are separate pieces and can be pulled downwards and away from the main unit. There are YouTube videos that will explain the whole process.

If the glazing unit is glued to the inside of the body shell then unclip the glazing unit from the base and while keeping the body shell clips open remove the base of the coach. You should be able to see the areas of glue and these may be stripped away by inserting a craft knife between the two surfaces. All remaining components may now be separated as before.

Carefully wash and rinse all the component of the coach in order to remove any dirt or grease.

Mask off the roof section and apply several coats of Citadel (Shade) ‘Seraphim Sepia’ to the teak surfaces. This may be applied using a soft paint brush.

I see no advantage in using an airbrush, although one may be used if you wish. The ‘Seraphim Sepia’ is a wash and will dry very quickly.

Take care not to apply too much at once and brush out any excessive build up in creases and corners. The colour will darken as you apply a further coat.

I applied five coats to my coaches.

This process will not damage any of the original lettering on the coach.

The doors at the ends of the coach are usually black in the Railroad models. If you wish to give them a teak finish than apply a coat of Citadel Base Colour ‘Zandri Dust’ before the coats of ‘Seraphim Sepia’.

Apply a coat of varnish. Initially I used Humbrol Clear applied with a paint brush. Now I prefer to use a Humbrol Satin Varnish Spray as it gives a more uniform finish.

If the roof surfce is damaged in any way and you wish to respray it then mask off the body sides and apply the colour of you choice.

(Precision Masking Tape should not damage any of your previous work.)

Apply any paint of your choice to the coach interior. E.g. Framework – Humbrol ‘Dark Earth’ (29) ; 1st class seating – Blue; 3rd class seating – Red.

Paint sections of the underframe as you desire.

The photograph shows some of my efforts so far. The coach on the elevated section of track (top) is from the latest Hornby ‘superior’ range for comparison.

Kind regards

Steve”

A Hornby LNER Teak Coach disassembled

Parts before and after treatment.

Finished coaches behind a P2 ‘Cock O’ The North’.

Three coaches for comparison: Untreated ‘Railroad’ model, Treated ‘Railroad’ model, Hornby ‘Deluxe’ model.

Underframe & interior piece partially painted + paints used (most of).

The featured ‘Brake Composite’ coach needed a roof respray. I used ‘White satin’, which is not to everyone’s taste. I have just
received a can of WRX ‘Grey White’ for the next coach that needs a roof respray.

A big thanks to Steve – it reminds me of the weathering locomotives post from a while back.

Now on to Michael.

His last post was called ‘Two years of trail and error’, is here.

It’s worth revisiting it to get a feel of what Michael is doing.

He really is chopping out the bits that he didn’t like – common railroad mistakes we all make:

“Alastair –

I thought I would share a major course correction I am working for my railroad. I played with that configuration for quite a while. I learned a lot, including what I did not like.

I decided there were some significant weaknesses with the old design. That design was basically two large irregular ovals one above the other connected by an incline. The design lacked a coherent “operational story”, in other words, the railroad did not have a clearly defined job to perform.

Also the design was an island design in the middle of a large room otherwise used for storage. I decided the room itself was poorly utilized and there would be no way for me to achieve the “Wow! factor” I was really looking for.

So this past summer I tore it all down; removed all the ugly and junky storage; I had the walls and floors finished and greatly improved the lighting.

While the room was being reworked I designed a brand new around the walls and peninsula design for the railroad.

The pictures I am sharing today are of the as-built design on new benchwork before any paint, scenery or structures goes on the layout.

As a reminder, the sole purpose of this railroad is to run my fifty to sixty year old vintage Lionel O-gauge equipment. (HO is not an option!)

The new design preserves all of my original layout goals, but without the common model railroad mistakes.

There are several improvements with this layout:

Much larger footprint;
* old design was 11 x 27 feet, ~300 sq. ft.
* new design is 17.5 x 38.5 feet, ~670 sq. ft.
* Interestingly, the total amount of track is almost the same: just over three scale miles.

The uninterrupted main line is more than a half scale mile longer.

All reverse loops are removed; reverse loops on 3-rail O-gauge aren’t an electrical problem but they do take up a lot of space and can be hard to reach in some areas; they are not particularly prototypical.

Turning trains is accomplished by using a wye.

The incline is removed. This track didn’t get used much and became a source of irritation. The new design is flat all around. I will obtain the appearance of grades using scenery and forced perspective. Additionally, having a grade is not operationally important in this case.

Simplified wiring.

Larger more sweeping curves; longer straight sections.

Can reach all track easily.

Better designed aisles; The narrowest pinch point is 21 inches wide, and there are many areas where the aisle width is greater than 36 inches. So there is plenty of room to walk around. The interior main aisle is accessed using a very simple lift-out bridge.

Benchwork is about 7” higher than before.

The biggest improvement is in the operational story.

This railroad is very loosely based on the Colorado and Wyoming Southern Division.

The Southern Division carried coal from the mine at Primero, to the coke ovens at Segundo, and then onward to the Colorado Fuel and Iron steel mill at Trinidad. There were interchanges at Jansen and Trinidad with the Colorado & Southern, AT&SF, and Rio Grande railroads.

The new design includes areas on the track for Primero, Segundo, and Jansen and provides for interchange traffic using the two staging tracks labeled Trinidad. With this design the railroad has a clearly defined job moving coal, coke, steel and other products between the different locations.

I’ve worked out a good deal of operational detail (at least on paper).

The overall plan and room outline drawn in SCARM

View of Trinidad and lift-out bridge

View of Jansen

View of wye at Primero

View of train room from Janson

View of train room from Quarry spur

Enjoy!

Mike”

A big thanks to Mike for sharing some common slip ups, and to Steve for showin us hoe he weathered his model train cars.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get going on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Model train people

Dan had been in touch again – this time about model train people.

They are something some overlook, but as he points out, they really brings a layout to life.

And what’s more, he has a wonderful tip for picking them up very cheaply too:

“Al, one of the responders asked for the people of the B&M as I did for the Santa Fe.

Here they are!

There is a park neat the Winchester Highlands station. Overall view.

Picnic

A vendor

Best ride in the world!

The park is an active place.

You are never too old for a time in the park.

Gazebo time.

A little relaxing near the pond. (In a previous post you saw a train pass the pond.)

A commuter from a previous train walking on the bridge over the tracks.

Worker at the produce transfer house.

Workers at the Goins Lumber yard. (Yes there are two places with my name. Walt’s choice.)

The police and fire fighters are also present at Winchester. Typical fire house in the area.

Someone is getting a new sofa.

Got to get the news papers delivered for the morning coffee.

The afternoon lemonade is ready!

A family stop for food and a rest stop.

Work at Goins Lumber and supply.

Dock worker at a B&M Ft House

Waiting fro the train.

Delivery at Alfonso Mill.

Going to work.

Switch man at LL tower. All turnouts are hand throws. So someone has to throw them.

Loading at Lowell Junction. ( The back drop was done using water color craft paints and dabbing with a brush. The trees are a plant we call Sedum or Ever Lasting. They turn reddish in the fall and last through the winter. When dry they are sprayed with glue and then a mix of ground foam colors.)

Freight station worker at the Lowell Junction Ft,. House.

At the Bag-O-Crete plant and the Bowery in the back ground. Carling Black label.

LJ tower. There are worker inside, too.

RR worker.

It is the people who make the layout live. On the layouts I have either done or done the scenery, there are probably 1,000 little people. I know that on one grand station I did had at least 100 people on the platform.

At train shows, I pick up bags of people that they are selling from layouts that have been decommissioned, (torn down.)

Dan”

A huge big thanks to Dan for sharing his tips on model train people.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

O scale layout – Martin’s

Martin’s sent this wonderful narrative and pics of his O scale layout 17×13:

“Hi Al,

I suppose I’ve been into model railways since a very young age, my earliest memories are of Hornby O gauge clockwork train sets for Christmas and then on to Tri-ang OO gauge.

When I was around 14, I dabbled in American HO with the fictitious name of the Empire, Midland and Lake Shore Railroad. This came to nothing, and I drifted in and out of the scene, trying gauges from N to G.

Nothing ever really lasted that long before other interests, music and girls took over, both costing much more than model railways ever did.

Fast forward now to my recent early retirement on health grounds and subsequently my age…

O scale layout 17×13

My loft is boarded and permission was granted for a model railway to be built there. I had a skylight fitted to aid ventilation and installed extra power to the wires that were already up there.

The loft had previously been used for storage of all those things that might come in handy one day, but never do… my woodworking skills are zero and I didn’t want to go to the expense of a wooden baseboard and the weight the floor would have to carry.

So, a search on eBay brought me to lightweight interlocking and height adjustable aluminium framed tables, at 3 for £30, these looked ideal and were bought.

When they arrived, I quickly took them into the loft and built them up. There were four height settings, the highest being just right, and metal clips to lock each table to the next one. They also had a flimsy hardboard top, which was not really useful as I bent very easily. More were ordered.

My neighbour was having their loft converted into more rooms and I ‘borrowed’ a sheet of insulation foam. This was ideal as I rested on the frame work of the tables and was so rigid I could overlap one table to another, making a very strong but lightweight base for the railway.

The foam also took PVA glue very easily and was great and very easy to work with.

The layout was to be a British based industrial line with a cement works and small harbour as the main points of interest.

It was to be O scale layout 17×13, DCC sound, and rolling stock started to be collected.

The tables were erected and the foam sheets glued to them after a thin coat of emulsion paint had been added to the top of the foam sheet to allow PVA glue to stick to it. The aluminium foil that covers these sheet won’t accept PVA glue.

I managed to buy some wonderful industrial buildings by the late Allan Downes which, after a bit of modification, they were On30 scale, fitted in perfectly.

Track and points were added. I made the usual mistake of trying to fit Clapham Junction into a matchbox area, and the first attempt was scrapped before it really began.

The second attempt was kept a lot simpler, it’s amazing how you can picture these things in your mind and when you come to put them into practice, there simply isn’t enough space or the curves are too tight.

Anyway, I planned an end to end in a U shape some O scale layout 17×13. Too old to start crawling under baseboards now.

The layout had to have the cement works, a harbour, an engine shed and a fiddle yard, though in hindsight the fiddle yard should have been made longer, but I hadn’t banked on going North American at that time.

More scenery and buildings were added along with a very small station at the harbour.

By this time the locomotive roster was getting too large for the layout….there were eight British Rail Class 08 shunters and twelve industrial engines, all supposedly working a relatively small cement plant and harbour!

I’d deliberately decided in the track plan not to have any run around loops, which made and still does, operation of the line very interesting and things certainly have to be worked out to get trucks into the correct position and have the locomotive on the correct end in doing so. The building of the line was great, it’s operation even better!

So, Frobisher Cement Works was born…Frobisher being the name of the road where I once lived.

I had many happy hours up in the loft, operating the line and teaching my 8 year old grandson how to ‘drive’ an engine using DCC in a prototypical manner.

The only bug bear of the whole thing was three link couplings…ARGH!

I spent more time fiddling around getting wagons to couple up that it almost came to a point where I would give up in total frustration.

I used set formations of wagons that only had to be coupled to engines, but quite often, buffer locking spoilt many a operating session.

I even experimented with using small magnets, and these worked quite well, but they were very fiddly to fit and just didn’t look right somehow. Then came the revelation!

I was sitting in front of the TV one night, when the usual drivel was being shown. I picked up my tablet and turned to YouTube for consolation. Now, harking back to my childhood, I’d always had a soft spot for North American railways, I’d always wanted a Triang transcontinental set and having spent some time working in Canada and holidaying in the New England area, found a channel that seemed interesting.

I stumbled across the Santa Fe Junction in Kansas City and I was hooked!

Five or six engines pulling countless and different looking wagons, many graffitied, which seemed to add to the attraction, and the horns on those engines just blew me away.

I started to do some research and via a very steep learning curve found that American O gauge was exceedingly affordable and very well made. Ideal for a O scale layout 17×13.

A beautiful DCC sound equipped engine could be bought for as little as £200…UK equivalent £6-700.

Freight stock, which is so detailed bought for as little as £12, although the norm was about £30 per car.

I quickly established what to buy and what not to buy. Avoid anything 3 rail, Lionel, Williams and MTH, although I can now convert these to 2 rail.

Look for Atlas, Weaver engines, but take care as some are three rail, and rolling stock for ready to run items and Red Caboose, Intermountain and All Nation for kits.

I made the mistake of not researching the different types of railway cars enough and found that most of the stock I was looking at and subsequently bought was not suitable for a present day line as roof mounted boards had long gone by the present date. Still, what I couldn’t use I could always sell or trade later.

So the decision was made to transport the layout 4000 odd miles the Northeast America!

The Empire Midland and Lake Shore Rail Road was about to be re-born…