Weathering really big tank cars

As part of the weathering project I mentioned in an earlier post about Rapido models of Pacific Car & Foundry 70-ton box cars, I also agreed to take a crack at weathering some 33,000-gallon tank cars. (You can read the previous post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/08/another-weathering-project.html .) Tank cars of this size were quite an advance when introduced in 1962, as “stub-sill” tank car designs were approved for use. This meant no center sill. 

A pioneer in building these cars was American Car & Foundry, with what was called a “whale belly” design. The stub sills carried the narrower part of the tank, and the center section was enlarged to the maximum clearance diagram. The AC&F demonstrator of the design is shown below (AC&F photo, courtesy Ed Kaminski), riding on 100-ton trucks.

Substantial numbers of these cars were built, usually with capacities of around 33,000 gallons. But before long both AC&F and North American Car decided that the more complex fabrication of this design wasn’t necessary, and after about 1965 or so, both builders had changed back to “straight barrel” designs. But the whale-bellies continued in service for many years.

These cars were built to carry Liquified Petroleum Gas, and thus are often called LPG tank cars. For a short time in the 1960s, even larger  cars, up to 60,000 gallons, were on the rails. But in 1970, the DOT instituted a maximum gallonage limit of 34,500 gallons. 

Tangent Scale Models produced ready-to-run models of the North American Car whale-belly cars in HO scale. Here is one of the cars, emblazoned with a huge logo, as were many of the cars. You may note it has neither ACI label nor a COTS or lube stencil. When the cars were built, neither of those was yet introduced. But for the layout where these cars will run, set in 1975, both need to be added. 

The other model is below. These two cars have 1964 and 1965 built dates. That makes them 10 years old in 1975, so they can receive significant weathering, once I have added ACI and COTS. 

I give Tangent high marks for including in the delivery boxes of the models, small photos showing where to put the ACI label for each car. Also visible is the location and type of lube stencil. I should note that the LP Gas photo is from 1980, thus more heavily weathered than appropriate for 1975. 

I resorted to an ancient Microscale decal set to obtain ACI labels and lube stencils. I proceeded with normal decal application. Shown below is the Pacific 66 tank with these applied. The lube stencil looks non-vertical because it is on a slanting part of the tank (compare the photo above). My first weathering pass is also visible here, though more needs to be done.

I now proceeded with weathering of these two models. They are so large that I found I needed more than one session on each tank, a minimum of once per side. But I will show those results in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

HO construction equipment, Part 2

In the preceding post to this one, I showed some very nice HO scale models of International-Harvester construction equipment that I undertook to weather for a friend. In that post I showed some prototype views to indicate how such equipment can look after time in service. You can view the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/08/ho-scale-construction-equipment.html . The models were made by First Gear (see their website at: https://firstgearinc.com/diecast-replicas/ ).

I’ll begin with the smallest of the three vehicles, the I-H model 175. As mentioned previously, it has a ROPS cage (Roll Over Protection Structure), and a ripper at the rear. When the loader bucket and ripper are used, the teeth quickly become bare steel, and that’s been added. Tracks become a grayish “dirty steel” appearance. Overall brownish grime was added also, but the unit does not appear too old.

For comparison, here is a similar-sized vehicle from Caterpillar, somewhat different ROPS and a rear winch. Color and degree of dirt, and appearance of tracks, are useful to see (Cam Thompson photo).

The next model, the TD-25 bulldozer, also has a ROPS and ripper. A new, out of the box view was shown in the first post (linked in the first paragraph, above). Here again, the ripper teeth and the bottom edge of the blade would be bare steel after even a little use. Weathered separately from the model 175 shown above, the TD-25 has a little greater degree of grime. 

The third model is a different use of the basic TD-25 model, being equipped with a side boom and a rear winch. On the opposite side from the boom are counterweights (like many parts of the prototype that would be moveable, they are moveable on the model). This is apparently a rare model from First Gear, as it commands impressive prices on the internet. Here is a view of the model when new.

Weathering this model was approached slightly differently. Tracks were still changed to a “dirty bare steel” look, but a more grayish grime and dust was applied to the overall vehicle. Most other details were handled in a similar way to the other two models . 

This was an interesting project, both to learn about the prototype machines and to view some weathered prototypes. It’s been interesting.

Tony Thompson 

HO scale construction equipment

As part of the weathering project of some 1975-era freight cars, about which I posted recently, I also was requested to weather some HO scale models of 1975-era construction equipment (see the freight car post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/08/another-weathering-project.html ). These are era-appropriate models, made by First Gear and very nice (see their website at: https://firstgearinc.com/diecast-replicas/ ).

Below I show First Gear’s International Harvester tracked loader, model TP-25 with ROPS (Roll-Over Protective Structure) and ripper at rear. The prototype, equipped like this, was a 25-ton machine.

The smaller version was the I-H 175 series, around ten tons weight. Below is an internet image of one, helpfully well used, also with ROPS. 

I also benefited from my son’s sending me an image of a very similar Caterpillar vehicle, also with ROPS, useful for seeing what a well-used machine looks like. First, an overall view, very helpful view of the looks of the tracks and overall dirt. Second, a view of the blade, emphasizing the bare steel look of the teeth (Cam Thompson photos).

These give me what I need to start weathering these impressive First Gear models. I will come back to that in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

Another weathering project

I recently undertook to weather some mid-1970s freight cars for a friend. His layout is set in 1975, thus prior to the graffiti era. The models happen to have built dates within a year or two of the layout’s era, and thus will not be heavily weathered. 

(For those who are interested in graffiti, you might like to look at my article in Model Railroad Hobbyist. My post linking to that article, including a brief description of my method of paper overlays for graffiti, is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-latest-column-in-mrh.html , and could also delve into my long-running series on techniques of graffiti application, culminating in no. 25 in the series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/04/freight-car-graffiti-part-25-more.html .)

Several of the models to be weathered are the recent Rapido models of Pacific Car & Foundry 50-foot double-door box cars for Southern Pacific and subsidiary Cotton Belt, classes B-70-69, B-70-71, and B-70-75. All were produced between 1972 and 1975, and all had Hydra-Cushion underframes. Below is a view of a nearly-new car, SP 245723 (Class B-70-75), seen at Indio, CA on June 15, 1975 (Steve Vincent photo). Only three months old, it has Youngstown doors, as did most of these cars.

Here is a photo of a Class B-70-69 car, all of which class was assigned to the Cotton Belt, 820 cars numbered 66529–67349. These cars also had Youngstown doors. This prototype photo, from Jim Eager, shows the overall appearance, but having been taken in 1984, shows a level of weathering not appropriate for 1975.  

 Below is an image of one of the Rapido cars, right out of the box. It is well detailed and all aspects match the prototype, as far as I know. 

An important issue for me in completing weathering was to deal with all the changes in car maintenance lettering over the years after my own 1950s modeling. Cars had to be reweighed periodically until the 1970s; brake gear had to be oiled and tested; and in the late 1960s there were ACI labels applied. 

The ACI (Automatic Car Identification) labels were introduced in 1967, and it was mandatory for all railcar owners to apply them, although as late as 1975 only 90 percent of all cars had the labels. But by that time, it was already evident that the system could not continue. Dirt accumulation on the labels caused false readings, as did physical damage like scrapes. Railcar owners were supposed to have an active maintenance program for the labels, but that didn’t really happen, and the system was abandoned in 1977.

In 1972, a  consolidated stencil was introduced by the AAR for air brake maintenance, and was called a COTS label (Clean, Oil, Test, Stencil) to record work that was done. This was a single black box, and was adopted slowly. In 1974, a two-box label that added lubrication information for the wheel bearings was introduced, and the Federal Railroad Administration made it mandatory for all cars. Because the prototypes of some of the Rapido cars were built before 1974 (like the model shown above), they have the single-box COTS version.

Finally, cars had been required for decades to be reweighed periodically to determine light or tare or empty weight, but as all-steel cars became predominant, weight variations essentially disappeared, and later in the 1970s the reweigh requirement was eliminated. But all the Rapido models are new enough in 1975 that none wold yet have been reweighed.

I gave the models coats of flat finish, then weathered them with my usual procedure, using washes of acrylic tube paints (for process description and illustrations, see my “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). Here are the Cotton Belt model shown above, in the foreground, weathered, and in the background, an unweathered SP car of Class B-70-71.

I have five of these cars altogether, and am proceeding with the balance of the group. I will return to them, along with two quite different tank car models, in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

What about “mundane” freight car kits?

Following my lengthy saga about kitbashing an Erie 50-foot automobile car from a Branchline kit, with replaced roof and ends, and a detour considering it as a C&NW car (about which I put up five posts, concluding with this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/07/my-erie-50-ft-auto-car-conclusion.html ), I received a question. I’ll paraphrase it like this: “These big, complicated projects are fine, but do you ever do a plain old simple kit?” As a matter of fact, I do, and so I’ll show one. 

I think most modelers would agree that Accurail kits qualify as simple kits. Recently I built one of their USRA double-sheathed box car kits, a Great Northern car that models one of the 1500 box cars of this design that GN received in 1919. They were numbered in the 23494–24993 series, and were GN’s first box cars with a steel underframe instead of truss rods. Below is a GN photo of one of these cars, freshly repainted at St. Cloud shops in March 1925 (GNRHS collection).  

These cars were very durable. By my own modeling date of 1953, there were still 1222 of the original 1500 cars in service. and they continued in use through the 1950s. Below is a photo of one in 1958 (Virl Davis photo, Richard Hendrickson collection), with the original USRA Andrews trucks and 5-5-5 corrugated end visible.

(For a condensed history of the GN box car fleet, along with the rest of the GN freight cars, I recommend the chapter by Richard Hendrickson and Staffan Ehnbom in Patrick Dorin’s book, Great Northern Lines East, Second Edition, Signature Press, 2001) .

The Accurail kit is, of course, straightforward. It could be upgraded by replacing the molded grab irons with wire ones, but for me this is a layout model, and can serve in original condition. However, there are a few changes to the kit as supplied that I do make. 

To begin, I cut the steel weight in half, glued the two halves together with canopy glue, and glued the pair in the center of the floor. This leaves truck screw holes completely open, and I tapped them 2-56. Mechanically, I put InterMountain wheelsets in the kit sideframes, and Kadee #158 whisker couplers in the kit coupler boxes. Here is that weight application.

Next, I replaced the vulnerable plastic brake wheel with a Cal-Scale brass one, soldered to a brass wire staff. And third, I added roof corner grab irons with the Tichy wire parts. 

Then, after a protective coat of flat finish, I weathered with acrylic tube paint, in the form of washes (see “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). The GN emblem here is the 1941–48 version. Finally, I added decal paint patches for fresh reweigh and repack stencils, along with route cards and chalk marks.

This kind of straightforward freight car kit is fun to build and quickly gives a layout-quality result. It will go into service on my layout right away.

Tony Thompson 

Weathering: a couple of open-top cars

As I often mention, I have put together a pair of what Google calls “Reference pages,” linked at upper right in this post, with a fairly specific description of the weathering method I usually use, along with examples of numerous car types to illustrate what is done. The method is based on washes made with acrylic tube paints. But there are some excursions beyond even those relatively complete descriptions. 

An example is open-top cars, which can exhibit a wide range of appearances. Certainly if the cars are gondolas, wood floors can exhibit the kind of wear and damage and color changes typical of flat cars, and various kinds of debris, dunnage, and trash is often left in gondolas. Metal loads such as pipe can leave a residue of iron rust, as can wire or steel banding used to secure loads. The prototype photo below is one illustration (Dick Flock photo). Notice both the colors and the rubble on the floors.

How rare it is to see model gondolas that look like this! Still, there are those who have labored to achieve this kind of appearance in models. One I’ve recognized before is the late Bill Neale, mentioned in posts such as this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/11/gondola-interiors.html . Here is a repeat of one of my photos of Bill’s gondola interiors.

I wanted to head in this direction too, although perhaps not as far as Bill went. I have two open-top cars awaiting weathering of their interiors, which happen to be cars about which I’ve recently posted. Both are fairly ancient HO white metal models. One is an Ulrich N&W hopper car (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/03/restoring-ulrich-hopper-car-part-2.html ).

The other car is the Roundhouse C&O gondola project of Richard Hendrickson’s (completion of which was described in this prior post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-richard-hendrickson-gondola-part-2.html ). 

My standard method of weathering with washes of acrylic tube paints is my approach, well described and illustrated in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post. I’ll begin with the C&O gondola, the completion of which was described in two recent posts (concluding with the post linked in the previous paragraph). I wanted it to show some rusty tint, though maybe not as complete as the Bill Neale cars shown above. With additions of chalk marks and route cards, here is the car:

The other car is the Ulrich hopper. Here again, I wanted some rusty tinge on the interior, plus a few chalk marks on the sides.

I may go back and add more color to the interior of the gondola, will wait to see how I like it in a couple of weeks. But I continue to feel that getting car interiors right is worth some extra effort.

 Tony Thompson

Small project, SP Boarding Bunk car, Pt. 2

In Part 1, I showed both the model that inspired me to this project (made by Todd Osterberg) and also a prototype photo of a Pullman 12-1 sleeper re-purposed by SP as a bunk car for maintenance-of-way (MOW) crews. This primarily was a task of repainting and lettering. To see that part of the project, you may visit this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/small-project-sp-boarding-bunk-car.html .

I might add a definitional point: SP divided many of its MOW cars into Roadway cars, meaning cars that carried materials, equipment and supplies, and Boarding cars, meaning cars that were used by personnel, such as bunk, dining, foreman, engineering, and similar cars. There’s much more on this and related topics in the superb book by Ken Harrison (Southern Pacific Maintenance of Way Equipment, SPH&TS, 2022).

As I mentioned at the conclusion of Part 1, there still remained some modeling tasks. First among these was to add internal view blocks where the interior partitions were in the Pullman car, since one ought not to be able to see through the car in those areas. 

I built them my usual way, with 0.020-inch styrene about 1 inch tall inside the car, and 1/8-inch square styrene strip glued into the corners. I then painted the inside of these a dark gray, and the outside a pale gray, and glued them to the floor with canopy glue. The floor still needs to be painted black. Note also that I added four 1/2-inch steel nuts, painted black, for weight (about half an ounce each). Otherwise these cars are quite light.

Second, these cars often had the window shades pulled down by crews using the car, and left down — there was no porter to restore them. I used a pale tan paper for the shades, setting them at different heights in the various windows, and gluing them in place with canopy glue. This looks odd when you look at the window glazing alone. (The shades are, of course, on the inside of the glazing.)

But of course the roof + glazing part, when inserted into the car body, brings these shade representations into a correct-looking location in the car side

Next I weathered the car, including the roof. I used a brownish acrylic wash, primarily Raw Umber, with a little Neutral Gray to lighten it and give a faded look, and a deeper Burnt Umber in places.

I decided to body-mount the couplers on this car, though that can be limiting in some switching moves with an 80-foot car. The car will mostly reside on the “outfit track,” as SP would have called it, in my layout town of Ballard, along with other maintenance equipment. I also made sure that the trucks, painted boxcar red with the rest of the car at the repaint, were suitably grimy.

That completes the car. Thanks again to Todd Osterberg, for the inspiration for this small project, and to Jason Hill, for the excellent MOW decals. As an SP modeler, I have to say we’ve needed those decals for years, and I look forward to using them on other projects!

Tony Thompson

The Rapido SP box cars: finishing

As most readers know, Rapido Trains recently released a number of paint schemes on a new HO scale model of Southern Pacific Class B-50-15 box cars, and a quite good stand-in for Class B-50-16. I have posted the historical background of these two classes to help understand the model choices (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-new-rapido-sp-box-cars.html ), and have also shown most of the paint schemes offered (that post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-rapido-sp-box-cars-models.html ). 

[By the way, I also wrote a response to some of the criticism of these models, in a previous post. It is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/standards-for-commercial-freight-cars.html .]

The present post takes its title, “Finishing,” from a remark of Richard Hendrickson’s from some years ago, speaking about “ready-to-run” models: he felt these should really be called “ready to finish.” They may need details replaced or upgraded, trucks may need to be changed, and of course the models almost always need weathering and other finishing, such as reweigh and repack stencils, chalk marks, and route cards.

One example of a “finishing” step is to correct the brake gear, if your particular modeling period is such that the K brakes on some of the Rapido models should have been replaced with AB brakes by the time you model. I wrote about this fairly simple process, using the AB brake parts helpfully provided by Rapido in many of the model boxes (a post that is located at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-rapido-sp-box-cars-brake-gear.html ).

Now let’s turn to weathering and its accompanying steps. These are procedures I have already described in some detail in my “Reference pages,” linked at the upper right corner of every post, and I won’t directly repeat that material; but I thought I would take space to at least outline my process with the Rapido models under discussion.

My first step (after any detail replacement or truck changes) is to weather the roof with washes made from acrylic tube paints. You see this below on a maintenance-scheme Rapido car. I do it this way because it is easy to work on the roof with the sides available for holding the model. You can see that the roof is duller in color, with gray tones.

The next step is to hold the car by roof and center sill (or trucks) and weather sides and ends. After a few hours (if it’s warm) to get fully dry, I give the car an overspray of Dullcote or equivalent. Actually I nowadays usually prefer Tamiya’s “Flat Clear,” number TS-80.

When that’s dry, protecting the acrylic pigment on the car, I add small patches of Glosscote from a bottle, only as big as the paint patches would be, for new repack and reweigh stencils. Then patches of black or boxcar red decal are placed. These are visible below in the usual locations (you can click on the image to enlarge it, if you like). I chose black for the repacking stencil location because some rather minor yards did repack journals if needed, and often had only one color of paint to patch with: black.

[Note also in the above view that the plain metal wheel faces have been painted, in this case Tamiya “German Gray,” XF-63. Wheels in this era were liberally coated with journal oil soon after entering service, and this color, or a darker gray, gives a realistic look.]

Once the paint patches are placed, the stencils can be added. For repacking, I use the Sunshine Models “Western Reweigh and Repack Data” decal sheet. For SP reweigh dates and symbols, I use the Tichy decal set, HO 10053, which is for SP tank cars (using artwork I prepared), but it also includes many SP reweigh locations and dates from 1950 to 1953. Those locations range from the most familiar (SAC, LA, OAK, ELP) to the less familiar (FRN, Fresno; BS, Bayshore; EGN, Eugene) and even to the rare and unfamiliar (KF, Klamath Falls; AVD, Avondale; CKT, Crockett). For this car, it’s BAK (Bakersfield).

You may note that I added a couple of route cards to this side of the car, something fairly often observed in prototype photos. One of them is light green, inspired by an SP route card shown in one of my recent posts about route cards (you can peruse it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/route-cards-part-21-more-examples.html ). 

On a wood-sheathed car like this, a route card could be attached wherever the clerk wanted to put it, but two common locations were above the truck  bolster (as you see above), or just to the left of the door. I have applied route cards in both locations on my various wood-sheathed cars. 

For an additional example, here is a Class B-50-15 Rapido car, weathered and prepared exactly like the foregoing model, and carrying a reweigh location of Bayshore, to supersede the unlikely factory reweigh date of 1936 on a post-1946 paint scheme.

The chalk marks seen on both cars above were made with Prismacolor artist’s pencils, both white and French gray 30%. I used to make mostly readable numbers (implying train numbers, etc.) but so many prototype photos show smaller writing, that now I just make a small scribble for most of the marks. I’ve learned that the pencils need frequent sharpening to write truly small scribbles.

This brief summary is, as stated at the top of this post, just a small part of all the detail about weathering presented in my “Reference pages,” linked at the top right corner of every post. If you are interested in more info, please look there. For now, I am pleased with how these new Rapido box cars are turning out.

Tony Thompson

Ready-to-run?

 The question mark in the title of today’s post will remind older readers of previous discussions of this topic on my blog. And that stems in turn from a clinic my late friend Richard Hendrickson used to enjoy giving. He would open with a photo of a “ready-to-run” model right out of the box, shiny as anything, and then show a prototype slide of fairly new car, but of course showing signs of service. He would then put the original model shot back on screen, and dramatically exclaim, “Ready to run? I think not.”

He then went through the steps he himself used to prepare such models until they really were, in his standards, ready to run. I’ve described the same sort of process in this blog, but not recently, and in any case, my own approach has evolved a little. So I’m going to show it one more time.

I have somewhat arbitrarily chosen a new “R-T-R” model from my shelves for this project. It’s a recent InterMountain product, a 40-foot PS-1 box car. It happens to be L&N 6255, and though not “mirror glossy,” it is certainly shiny. As you can see, it has an 8-foot door, in common with new PS-1 orders by L&N totalling more than 2000 cars by the time I model, 1953. This particular car has a built date of April 1952.

My first step with a model like this is a coat of flat finish. I usually prefer the Tamiya product (their number TS-80), because of the far more dependable spray can, but do use Dull-Cote sometimes. The car has to be flatted for the next step, application of my acrylic-wash weathering process, because the water-based washes won’t “wet” a glossy surface.

Now some may comment that a new car just out of the builder’s shop would indeed be glossy. That’s true. But prototype photos of cars only a month old already show a duller finish and often a few chalk marks. If you model a specific month, as for example Richard Hendrickson modeled October 1947, then yes, a car built that month can be clean and shiny. Otherwise, I would maintain, a shiny car is a poor model.

So once the model is entirely flat, I weather just the roof, with my usual mix of acrylic tube paints (I like Liquitex), Neutral Gray, Burnt Umber, and Black. The water-base wash method is fully described in my “Reference pages,” linked at the upper right of this blog post. I might mention here that roofs got dirtier than car sides, as many prototype photos show, and I usually weather accordingly. Here is the car at this stage. It’s obvious how bright and white the unweathered lettering still is.

Why just the roof? That way, I have lots of model to hang onto while working on the roof. And in the following step, I can hang onto the model with the roof and underbody (or truck bolsters), while working on sides and ends. I have occasionally tried doing the entire car at once, but for me at least, it’s unnecessarily difficult and I often make a mess.

This might be a good place to mention trucks. Though most wheelsets coming with an R-T-R model have at least somewhat blackened wheels, they are at best semi-gloss and too pale. Moreover, the sideframes are usually jet black and glossy. Though my preliminary overcoat of flat finish mitigates the glossy sideframes, the whole truck still needs work.

I brush-paint the wheel faces with Tamiya “German Grey,” XF-63. I used to paint the axles and the insides of the wheels too, but since it’s almost impossible to see those surfaces on a layout, I no longer do that, just painting the wheel faces. While I’m at it, I usually dry-brush some of the Grey over the sideframes. The photo below shows the result. 

In this photo you can see the flat gray wheel faces, along with the coupler sides and trip pin, and a kind of highlighted gray on the sideframe. Note that the “NEW” date here is 4-52, so my modeling year of 1953 would have found this lettering still in place, along with the builder emblem next to the door. Work on the trucks isn’t finished. I will come back to them when I weather the car sides.

Next step is to weather the sides, very much like the process of doing the roof. This car is not too old, so I don’t want to make it very dirty, but do want to tone down the bright white lettering. The photo below shows the left side at this point. Note the dark splotch toward the right end of the visible side, at the top. I sometimes add things like this, which one certainly sees in occasional prototype photos, for variety.

You may also note the bulge upward in the running board, where it has come partly unglued from the roof. I have no idea what kind of adhesive is used in assembling these models, but I am confident it is not canopy glue. I simply run a razor blade under the running board from end to end to complete the “de-gluing” process, then re-glue with canopy glue. It is not only a tenacious adhesive, but remains flexible for years. Etched metal parts I canopy-glued 25 years ago are still fine.

My last step with the overall model is a coat of flat finish to protect the acrylic pigments of the weathering. Without that, a fingernail scratch can mar the acrylic layer, but flat finish is very effective in protecting it.

Finally, I add chalk marks with a white Prismacolor pencil, and add a small rectangle of white or manila-color paper to the route card board. With most models, I would also have to paint-patch areas for the reweigh and repack stencils (as I have described in this blog numerous times), but this car is so new it would not even have required a repack by the time I model. So the model is complete, as shown in this view of the right side:

I have spent the space to describe this finishing process fairly fully, just to clarify the steps I would pursue on any so-called “ready-to-run”model. My friend and mentor Richard Hendrickson was right: a model like this that you acquire is really only “ready to finish.”

Tony Thompson

A UP automobile car, Part 2

This post continues an account of building a Proto2000 kit for a Union Pacific 50-foot automobile car, particularly the changes needed to the model that are not contained in the kit directions. You can read that post here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/04/adding-up-automobile-car.html .

Meanwhile, I did my usual procedure, drilling and tapping the underbody to accept 2-56 screws for both the trucks and the coupler box. And the rather poor Proto2000 coupler box was discarded in favor of a Kadee box to house the No. 58 coupler.  The wheelsets have the “fat” wheel treads, but since this is essentially a “mainline” car, they won’t be particularly visible on the layout.

Next, I began adding details to the car side: doors and ladders. But before going too far, I needed to face a complication: the UP cars had the door track extend across the tabs I’d already made (in the prototype photo in the previous post, link in the first paragraph above, look at the side sill profile to the left of the double doors). After experimenting with ways to make this fiddly detail, I decided not to worry about including it. Again, it’s going to be a “mainline” car.

Beyond that issue, details were attached entirely by kit direction, until I came to the running board. I decided to use one of the beautiful Kadee 50-foot grid running boards. This class of cars was not built with that type of running board, but after World War II, Union Pacific was active in upgrading running boards to steel grid types, usually Apex like the Kadee part. One welcome feature of these boards is that they already have very nice corner grab irons installed. I attached the running board with canopy glue.

In the photo above, it’s obvious that the sill steps haven’t been added, just waiting until the underbody was mated to the car shell. That prevents the sill steps from being the “outermost” car parts during installation. Though good-looking, these are very thin and thus fragile parts, and I fully expect to be replacing them with A-Line metal steps after a few operating sessions.

Another issue is route card boards. On this class of UP box cars, they were installed on the bolster end at the left of each car side (you can see them in the prototype photo in the post cited in the first paragraph, above). I used a small styrene strip to represent these. Once the route card boards installed and painted, and the steps were installed, I gave the entire model a coat of flat finish, preparatory to weathering.

My weathering method, using acrylic washes is well described in the “Reference pages” that have links provided at the top right corner of this blog post, for anyone desiring more information. For this model, my first decision was to indicate some paint failure on the roof, a common occurrence with galvanized roof panels, to which paint did not stick well. 

Prototype photos show that paint failure on galvanized roofs begins at sharp edges, such as raised panel edges and roof ribs, then spreads. I have tried to reproduce that. I brush-painted Tamiya “Light Sea Gray” (no. XF-25) in irregular patches, inspired by various prototype images. Below is a roof shot, showing how this “paint failure” representation looks, after weathering.

Below is shown the same side of the model that you saw above, after weathering, and addition of reweigh and repack stencils, along with some chalk marks. As the paint scheme would be some years old in my modeling year of 1953, the car is moderately dirty.

This will fill out my fleet of automobile cars nicely, cars that I operate on the layout in through trains between Los Angeles and the Bay Area (loaded one way, empty the other). It will probably show up in the next operating session!

Tony Thompson

Bay Area Prototype Modelers 2022

The annual Railroad Prototype Modelers (RPM) meeting held in the San Francisco Bay Area has naturally been on hiatus through the pandemic, but on June 18, it returned at last. I have always enjoyed attending this event, the Bay Area Prototype Modelers (BAPM) meeting, and this was no exception. What a pleasure to see the familiar sign on arrival at our usual site in Richmond!

As usual, there were many excellent models on display, and I photographed a few that especially struck me for quality or distinctive treatments. For example, there was a group of box cars by Jesus Peña, who said he had never had the courage to try weathering, until he saw a Michael Gross video (and here’s a link to one of Michael’s articles: http://mrhpub.com/2017-01-jan/online/html5/index.html?page=154&noflash ) using artist’s pencils, and decided to try it. His results looked really nice to me. Here is one of his cars, a Class BX-37 box car, ATSF 141923.

One example of a modern freight car treatment that I liked was by Robert Forsstrom, a grain hopper that’s not only gotten dirty, but has been patched and given new reporting marks, along with some graffiti. Very nice looking combination of treatments.

Another display I really liked was Richard Mitchell’s locomotives. In particular, he has used the Mantua/Tyco Pacific (essentially the B&O Class P-7e) as the basis for a number of railroads’ heavy Pacifics. Most receive new cabs, to get a prototypical shape and thin walls. Below is a striking example, the T&NO “Sunbeam” power, but in addition, he displayed a C&NW “400” engine, the streamlined B&O P-7d, a GM&O Class P-167, and the prototype, B&O P-7e.

Lastly, I want to show one of a very nice series of models “in progress,” always a most informative way to see the work that is done. These were by Rick Selby, and the particular example I show below is based on the SP 60-foot box cars of Class B-100-44, 100 cars built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1978. 

Rick began with the Athearn Genesis 60-foot FMC box car kit. Roof and ends were removed on a milling machine, and Cannon & Co. Plate C ends were added, then extended to Plate F height with styrene. The new roof was built with styrene to match the PC&F prototype. A nice looking model and as I mentioned, always interesting to see work in progress.

I will stop here, and will have more to show in a future post, additional models that I really enjoyed seeing at this year’s BAPM.

Tony Thompson

Choosing a passenger locomotive, Part 3

 In the two previous posts I described why I want to add an additional locomotive to my layout fleet, for passenger moves; the criteria I chose; and (particularly in the second post) also discussed at some length the Southern Pacific prototype I wanted, the Class P-10 Pacifics. That second post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/06/choosing-passenger-locomotive-part-2.html .

My Precision Scale HO model of a Class P-10 is factory painted as no. 2485 (of which I showed a prototype photo in the previous post, link above). That sounds like the basic finishing is complete, but there are some rather obvious issues with the model as it comes from the box, even though the overall impression is nice. I show a side view below.

In the photo above, the skyline casing is evident, along with the big 6-wheel Class 120-C-8 tender, and the model is correctly lettered. But the wheels of the lead truck are almost obscenely shiny, and likewise driver “tires” and wheel centers are shiny silver (and even the screws holding the brake shoes), along with all rods and crosshead. Here’s a close-up:

Needless to say, this is not how the prototype looked. Of course it’s true that many passenger locomotives, when freshly shopped, might have driver tires painted white, but those were narrower than the model — and the model tires aren’t white. More importantly, road grime very soon concealed any white paint of that kind.

My first step (after giving the entire locomotive and tender a coat of flat finish) was to brush-paint the lead truck wheels, and the offending driver parts, Tamiya “German Grey” (XF-63). I also dry-brushed the same color onto parts of the rods and other running gear. This is a first step in a more realistic appearance for this part of the locomotive. Wheel flanges remain shiny, but it’s a start.

My next step was to do a light weathering job on the entire locomotive and tender. By 1953, this locomotive was almost certainly based in the Peninsula commute pool, so would not have been allowed to get too grimy. There are photos as late as 1955 of quite clean commute locomotives. 

I used a light wash made with acrylic tube paints, mostly Neutral Gray (for more on my acrylic wash weathering, see the “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). For the running gear, I’ve noticed a warm, yellow-brown color on prototype rods and crossheads, perhaps from the color of greases used. For that, I mixed some Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber. On the tender, a few streaks from occasional overfilling of the tender were included. 

I’m happy with the look of the model at this point, and I only need to add couplers and cab crew for this locomotive to enter service on my layout. I’m looking forward to it!

Tony Thompson