Passenger Fleet Color Choices

After badmouthing the garish red paint* on the combine in my previous post, I figured I'd better present my preferences, or at least the process for determining my choice.  I'm following a suggested scheme by Selley for their passenger cars.  I'll admit that when I first read it I dismissed it, but after searching and seeing what others had done I came back to it and embraced it.  It's basically this: roof - black or brown, sides and ends - Tuscan red, trucks and platform details - olive green, underbody and select details - black.  So, I pulled my colors I thought might work and began making color swatches on a sheet painted with the same primer I'm using on the cars.

Below, the choices I'm leaning towards.  Or, mellow traffic signals.  You decide.

*I should admit that many great passenger trains have been a bright red or similarly bold rosy hue.  John Allen's streamlined passenger train was painted Mandarin Red, as was his little combine that worked the branch line out of Gorre up to Daphetid.  Perhaps that was the inspiration for the little combine I found. 

Combine Countdown

Having finally put a coat of primer on the now-detailed Binkley Shorty Baggage, I can turn my full attention to the remaining car in the Milk & Mail trio, the Binkley Shorty Combine.  This car I purchased from an eBay listing that supported a model train club in Vermont, if memory serves.  Clearly someone put some time and effort into it, building an interior, shaping the roof and applying some sort of contour putty to it, then painting it a garish red and black.*  Still, time has not been kind to this car, and I must rebuild it and put it to work on the Ocali Creek.

This post is titled, "Combine Countdown" because I begin working on this car with a good idea of the sequence of events that now lay before me.  Having upgraded the baggage car - mostly the roof - I know the steps to take that will bring me closer to completion.  First was to clean away the detritus and damage to the roof so that I could rebuild it.  This was done a while ago as I was assessing what would need to be done to this and the other car.  

Now I could proceed to extend the clerestory roof edge down the bullnose - a challenge for any kit that requires you to shape the end manually, though Northeastern has a jig for their wood kits, but I digress.  I did this with HO scale 4"x4" styrene strip.  Warm the strip in your mouth a minute then roll it under a firm round object, like the handle of an Xacto knife.  Continue until it holds a curve similar to the roof.  This will make gluing it in place a great deal easier.  I cut a little divet off the end to let it snuggle up to the lower roof edge.  This isn't crucial, as plastic putty will fill any gaps - and boy are there gaps.

Up next, putty, sanding, and preparing parts for the clerestory roof screen.  Thanks for reading.

*Garish perhaps for a train car, but lovely for other things.  The lyrics to a song I once sang spring to mind: "Morning sun greets many banners on its westward track.  Fair to us above all others waves the red and black."

Truck Repair

No, not that kind of truck repair, unless you were thinking of the assemblies that sit beneath train cars, in which case, yes, that kind of truck repair.  Maybe rebuild is a better term.  Anyway, look at this:

The donor truck is a Selley passenger truck intended for their old time open platform shorty cars.  I have a few kits waiting to be built and have set aside some free-rolling MDC/Roundhouse old-time passenger trucks with metal wheels for those kits.  The Roundhouse trucks, to my eye, look better under the Selley cars.  Still, I don't want the Selley trucks to go to waste, even though the plastic wheels that came with would them qualify as pizza cutters, if they rolled well enough.

SO, I unsoldered the Selley trucks as best I could and though I lost a few I was able to get enough parts to make a pair.  I used the truck-tuner tool to ream a conical bearing in each side frame until Kadee ribbed-back wheel sets would fit and turn easily.  Then I "welded" the trucks back together using two-part Loctite Weld.

These trucks will run beneath the former-NP Fruit Car, intended to be run in the Morning Milk & Mail train on the Ocali Creek's Pine Branch.  I chose these Selley trucks for this car despite their difficulties in rebuilding them because they fit.  It really is a practical matter more than an aesthetic choice, though I like the look much more than the arch bar trucks intended for the car and used by the prototype.  In my fictional history, the OCRy got this car second hand and, as part of the rebuild, used some second-hand passenger trucks.  Such is the way on short lines with meager budgets.

Sub-Roadbed for Streets, Ditches and More

I decided to use cork sheets for the base of the streets in Ocala Springs, aka Pine Branch Park.  The wider road uses 3/16" thick material while the narrower road uses 1/8".  Note the cork is cut wider than the road surface to include the sidewalks, shown here in their raw, gray resin state.  These are herringbone station platforms from Frenchman River which I will cut and modify as needed.

Speaking of station platforms, I will also be using a herringbone brick pattern there but this one is laser-cut material by RS Laser Kits.  The base under the station platform and parking area is 1/4" cork and will be slightly sanded and shaped before the area is scenicked more fully.  The plan for this and the streets in general is to use spackle, though that may change as I consider other options.  There's more to be done before that step.

That gouged-out mess in the second photo is going to be a drainage ditch.  Drainage is THE most important element of track laying on the prototype.  Here I used a Dremel with a cutter attachment to rout away the press-board sub-roadbed surface.  Once contoured and scenicked it will not be so ragged.  Pipes will be used at the track to convey the water away.  Not sure yet what kind of pipe I'll use.

I also painted the track using Espresso - not the coffee, the paint color by Rustoleum.  I like their UltraCover Paint + Primer.  It claims to cover wood, metal, plastic and more; ideal for track.  The finish should be 'Satin', but appears glossier than that to my eye.  That's okay, as it will be dulled down with further color applications.  Ties will be painted with various shades of brown and gray, then washed and dry-brushed, before rail and tie plates receive a coat of rust color and grime.  I may take one section all the way through ballasting to see how it looks.  We'll see.

Scenic Start

With the tombstone project out of the way until warmer weather arrives, I turned my attention back to the railroad.  The paper mache' clay I use for the stones is very similar to Sculptamold or Celluclay.  Not wanting to waste it, I decided to install the terrain along the creek.  The leftover clay is wrapped in two layers of plastic wrap in the first picture.  By this time it is a few weeks old, going on a month.  With the no-flour recipe I use there's very little to mold or turn sour.  Not sure how long it would stay workable but I didn't use it all on this project so I've wrapped up the rest and will check periodically to see how it looks.  Anyway, I used a block of floral foam as a substrate and applied the clay over that.  It takes a while to harden but I'm in no hurry.  Once it is good and dry I'll rout out the bottom of the creek a little deeper before applying additional texture.

Tombstones Update

Here's an update on the two tombstones my son and I built for our Golden Cedars Garden of Rest Pet Cemetery.  Since the last post we applied a layer of paper mache' clay to the sides, backs and bases of the stones and in the case of the smaller stone, to the front, shaping it to match the existing border across the top.  Once that had ample time to dry, both received a coat of black paint followed by a drybrushing of white.  That's it - the drybrushing produces a very realistic stone appearance relying on the texture of the surface to create tonal variation. 

The black is an indoor latex while the white is Kilz primer.  Indoor vs. outdoor paint matters less since it will receive a coat of urethane spar varnish to protect it from the elements.  However, I won't apply that until later this summer when I can do that work outdoors.  That varnish gives me a headache so a respirator and good ventilation is absolutely necessary.  The varnish gives the stones a slight yellowed tint, but for these two I may also apply a color filter to imply a different type of stone, for variety.

The Main Thing

No retrospective this year, nor a hopeful look forward with grand dreams and visions of what might be.  Sorry, I'm just not in that state of mind this time around.  Maybe its the pandemic, or maybe our impending extinction weighs heavily on my soul.  Who knows.  The important thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, even with our hobbies.

"Some folks build a railroad systematically; some folks don't.  The main thing is, enjoy it."

- Malcolm Furlow.

I'm sure glad I have my health, my family, a roof over our heads and loving, furry companions.  But I'm also glad I have a terrific hobby and this platform from which I can share it.  More to the point of Malcolm's quote, I have noticed a shift in how I enjoy this hobby.  In years past, both at work and at leisure, I've been happy to have deadlines, goals and challenges.  But recently I've decided I'd rather not, at least not grand, far-reaching goals.  At the moment I'm happier with vague ideas of what I might want to do, perhaps.

500 pieces of enjoyment, a.k.a. FUN!

Oh, there are still deadlines in my life, and daily tasks that need doing, and I derive great satisfaction from a cleaned kitchen, folded laundry and vacuumed carpet.  But with the challenges we all face in the world today and the restrictions in place to try and keep us safe, I don't see the need for any additional burden.  

Will I continue to build my railroad systematically?  Not for the time being.  A few short years ago I had great hopes of following a schedule and making rapid progress, yada yada yada.  That fell by the wayside, but it was still helpful to have the goals and targets and stick to the sequence I had laid out in the schedule.  That just isn't fun anymore.  

So if there's one resolution for 2022 it's this: enjoy building the railroad.  That's the main thing.