Ciment St-Laurent - GE 4Switcher

Ready to work!

After a long hiatus from proper prototype modelling, I'm back with the latest motive power addition to the layout, which is a Rapido DCC sound equipped GE 44-Ton locomotive. You have probably seen it more than once on previous post, sporting a factory painted blue livery that wasn't the most attractive. The big challenge would be to repaint the model in Ciment St-Laurent white and dark blue paint scheme as it appeared in the 1980s and 1990s.

The shell is easy to disassemble

First of all, let's talk about the Rapido model. Like many modellers, I'm wary of that brand and have virtually no trust in their quality control. The models are generally beautiful, but reliability may be an issue from loco to loco. However, I've been looking at this particular GE model development for years, starting with a visit at Amherst train show where I saw the preproduction models in operation and could take a look at the motorization. Let's just say it was promising given the crudeness of the Bachmann drive.

Remove 4 screws and you can remove the motorization easily

Fortunately for us, Rapido has done its homework and the new 44-tonner is cleverly designed. The snap-on motorized trucks are a clever design, the way the decoder and electronics are implemented too. 

The snap-on tracks are a very practical feature

As for disassembly, even if the instruction manual is full of poor taste humour, it is easy to do. Honestly, just that makes it a joint to repaint. Using a cotton bud (Q-tip), I was able to push the window glazing out of the frame without breaking anything prior to priming, masking and painting.

Remove the glazing with a light push with a Q-tip

However, let's address the elephant in the room. CSL had a GE 45-ton switcher, which is a smaller one. As I said in other blog post, we tried to use a Bachmann one and we felt it was unsatisfactory. Not a bad locomotive, but far too puny for our industrial needs.

The real CSL switcher was a later phase GE 45-tonner

Also, adding sound, DCC and sufficient weight in it was a fool's errand. Add to that Bachmann produce an earlier version. CSL switcher was a later design without side rods and with smoke stacks that were identical to a 44-tonner. Make what you want out of it, but it means that a 44-tonner was under certain circumstances, closer to the real locomotive than a 45-tonner.

Masking the blue stripe at the hood and cab bottom

Weathering process... in progress with lots of streaking

Before committing to paint, I designed custom decals for the cab. On prototype pictures, the locomotive was very dirty while the logo was on a clean white square. My understanding is they repainted the area many years later when CSL was upgraded in the early 1980s.

A tiny micro decoder with barely any space for auxiliary functions

I first disassembled the model completely, including the interior. Wheels were masked off and I primed the entire locomotive before applying a coat of Tamiya primer. A generous coat of Tru-Color Paint white was sprayed while the frame and trucks got a coat of dark blue. Window gaskets were painted black with a Sharpie oil paint marker. After dullcoating, the model was heavily weathered with oil paint washes and Pan Pastel.

The light pipe goes through the roof

A gloss coat was added on the cab side to apply the clean decals over the messy paint. At that point, I had to decided if I would have a cosmetic or functioning rotating beacon. I really like the one on Donohue's switcher, but soldering wires to the tiny decoder was a nerve wrecking decision. After consulting with Louis-Marie and Jérôme, it was decided to not add a LED. The beacon has a tiny plastic light pipe going through the cab, so if we ever feel like adding this feature, it ill be possible.

The new switcher really capture the prototype feel

At that point, the model was sealed with a last coat of AK ultra matte varnish, let to dry and assembled. If you ask me, after seeing the finished model on the layout, I have no regret using a 44-tonner instead of a 45-tonner. Since I took care to protect the wipers, the wheels and other electrical components, it still perform beautiful and I think it is bound to become a fan favorite on the layout given how Jérôme has taken a liking to it!

A hard working locomotive in Villeneuve yard

Tales of Modern PFE Reefers - Part 3

The last installment in that series covers an old Bachmann ribbed 50ft mechanical reefer. Of the lot, this was both the most promising and the most deceptive. Not surprising given this car tooling dates back to 1972. Around the same era, Athearn issued its own version of this car which was nominally better. Both were based on a series of PFE 50ft mechanical reefers with ribbed sides . My knowledge of this subject being limited, the series are R-70-11 to R-70-12. Many would later be repainted in Union Pacific Armour Yellow when PFE was dissolved later in the 1970s.

A little bit crude, but not too bad for a 1972 tooling

The Bachmann tooling is promising because the car sides, for a toy, are rather nice and match the prototype pictures. The tooling is crisp and most details are well-rendered, particularly when you strip the thick factory paint. Unfortunately, the praise stop there as we look at the roof and ends. At that moment, we discover the old trick that manufacturers loved to use until the 2000s: modular tooling.

It was common, to reduce the cost of tooling, to recycle similar parts from existing cars in the manufacturer lineup. The easiest things to reuse were the underframe, trucks, roofs and ends. Sides would be replaced by newer ones to match the prototype. Most of the time, it was a decent solution. Athearn and Roundhouse pulled that off quite a bit with their 40ft covered cars. Trains Miniatures was quite infamous for pushing the gimmick to the extreme. Sometimes, it worked, but only for a limited number of prototype such as Athearn recycling their ends/roof steel ice tooling on their wooden reefer cars.

As long as the car length and height was about the same, the trick was somewhat acceptable given the era's limitations. But things started to look weird when a car side had to be stretched or compressed to fit the tooling size. This was particularly apparent with Roundhouse single-sheathed boxcar which has nice car sides with hat-section steel members but was made taller by adding filler to fit the 40ft steel boxcar ends. That's why if you want to make that car prototypical, you have to remove almost everything except the modified sides. Even the width is wrong!

That brings us back to our Bachmann car. The roof was your typical Bachmann 51ft plug door diagonal panel roof with molded roofwalk. Using this part set the car length to be shorter than the prototype. Then, add to that the car ends that were also recycled from the same plug door cars. They are, by any standards, not looking great with their shallow flat ribs. The big issue with the roof is the prototype one merged with the car sides with a sheet gently curving, giving it a monolithic appearance. The Bachmann roof has that step on top of the eaves which doesn't fit the real car. As for the car ends, let's just say they are a goofy approximation and worst, the brake end was molded on the from end! Someone inverted it when preparing the tooling.

Painting the molded details black and adding a Tichy running board

I was at the crossroad and needed to decided how far I was going to go with this one. The molded roofwalk had to go. I tried to keep it by adding a shadow line on its side to create the illusion of a separate part and adding a Tichy one on top of it but it was a fool's errand. So I took upon myself to carve out the running board and scribe the diagonal roof pattern by hand. It took about two evening to get a satisfying results and it was less frustrating that I thought. I won't lie, I was about to remove completely the roof and replace it with a Branchline ones, but it was too long for the car due to the discrepancies I mentioned earlier.

Carving out the running board, one panel at a time...

If I didn't change the roof, changing the car ends was less attractive. I had to replacement parts that would be a decent match for a PFE R-70-12. So I made the trade off to accept the brake wheel was at the wrong end. At that point, I new this car was just a big compromise. If my goal was prototype accuracy, I would have simply binned the car without a second thought. At the end of the day, you are better off using an old Athearn Blue Box car is you want to model that car using old tooling. At least, they got a few things better than Bachmann half-baked effort.

The "wrong" car end with improve brake platform

After making these decisions, a new modified Tichy steel running board was glued in place and I filed down the stirrups to make them appear thinner. All grab irons were replaced with wire ones and some extra details were added to the brake platform. A lot of filing work was required to bring the underframe to the correct height. Bolsters were filed down and coupler boxes replaced altogether. New fuel tanks were scratchbuilt and the brake apparatus was minimally improved with parts from the spare bin. I think the moment I discovered replacing the roof and ends would basically mean a full reconstruction, I lost my appetite to improve that car.

This time, decalling went perfectly!

As I said in  Part 1, getting the silhouette and the colors right is the least we can do and sure, I made my best effort to capture the right vibe about a PFE welded mechanical reefer. This time, I didn't need to fudge with decals because the Microscale set was perfect for ribbed cars.

In hindsight, I should have replaced the stirrups...

At the end of the day, I have mixed thoughts about this car. I know its limitations, which are many. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are crippling or distracting in the middle of a fleet, but this is indeed just an approximation. I wish Bachmann didn't swap the car ends by mistake. For many of these reasons, I would recommend doing that project with an Athearn car. Sure, it won't be state of the art, but at least, things will be in the right place. A fellow modeller has already given some clues how to improve one.

With these 3 cars completed, I think we can move on and go back to regular modelling with higher standards!

Tales of Modern PFE Reefers - Part 2

The next victim in the PFE marathon was an old Athearn 50ft mechanical reefer in Santa Fe scheme. Basically, the same car I used for my CN 50ft reefers a few weeks ago. Now, my idea was to try to make something closer to prototype and thus, Pacific Fruit Express imposed itself upon me. As with many older cars, I was well aware of certain detail and dimensional discrepancies. You have to live with them but as always, it's a way to learn more about the real history of freight cars.

The Athearn tooling isn't that bad, but as always, I remove the roofwalk in a heart beat and replace it with a custom length Tichy one. Grabirons were also completely replaced with metal ones but this time, I decided to keep the molded plastic stirrups for many reasons.

With some work, molded plastic stirrups can look good

Plastic stirrups generally are the biggest offenders since they spoil the car silhouette. However, you probably recall my experiment with Athearn 40ft boxcars 2 years or so ago. The idea was to keep them and thin them down with a hobby knife blade and files. It you are careful, you can remove quite a lot of material. You can also file the back corners at 45 degrees to make them appear shallow will keeping them sturdy.

Beside these pragmatic reasons, I also had other aesthetical reason to keep the stirrups. Indeed, the center stirrup ladder as a specific design. I could have replaced it with an Accurail one which is much thinner, but I didn't go that route because they are made of Delrin plastic. The previous PFE car was equipment with them and I found they were flimsy and paint chipped. Indeed, they are located where our fingers go to grab a car. So, I decided to not redo it. Since I was keeping the central ladder, I thought it would look better to keep them all. Mixing metal and plastic stirrups wouldn't have looked good.

The Athearn reefer framed by his two relatives

Another thing that was in the back of my mind was the fact that PFE bright orange stirrups generally weather to an almost black color which helps to make them appear much thinner than they actually are. So, that was just another reason to keep them.

Other details that I added were the end platform, a Kadee brake wheel and scratchbuilt fuel tank under the car. The reefer was painted in SP Daylight Orange with a few drop of Reefer Yellow, once again using Tru-Color paints.

Decals were easier to figure out than the 40ft ice reefer, but I still had to fudge the Pacific Fruit Express lettering to fit a non-ribbed car. When done, everything was sealed and the car was a done deal. It's certainly not a great model, but it now blends within the fleet and that attractive paint scheme really do the job. Next time, we will cover the last reefer in that series... and prepare yourself for a good laugh!

Tales of Modern PFE Reefers - Part 1

One of the most ubiquitous thing in railroading aside from that 50ft Illinois Central boxcar that pop up on so many historical pictures, is Pacific Fruit Express reefers. It shouldn't come as a surprise because PFE used to be the largest refrigerator car operator in the world. Started in 1906 as an Harriman business venture shared by Southern Pacific and Union Pacific, it would become so iconic that you would be hard pressed to have no need for one of these cars on your layout if you model 20th century in North America.

Like any modeller, I've acquired my share of kits and assembled models of PFE but something I never tried was to model the more modern stuff when the paint scheme was simplified in the 1960s and the large PFE name was spelled in bold sans serif black font. I always loved that scheme with it's bright orange and that "In Your Face" style of advertising to typical of the 1960s when subtility was no longer the norm.

However, that project of mine would involve tinkering with orphan models I had no use for. The goal was to follow a discussion with Chris Mears about how much details you have to change on a cheap train to make it look good. Our theory has evolved around the idea that a few elements must coalesces before prototypically accurate details start mattering. In short order, I would say the following must be respected to make sure the suspension of disbelief holds. After all, it's about tricking the mind.

1. Accurate colors (here, I mean not only having the right shade but also a realistic approach to weathering): this is the first thing our eye recognize.
2. Crisp color application and sharp decals: no fuzzy lines, no blurry lettering, no small defects that break the illusion.
3. Decent proportions: overall, nothing seems out of place.
4. Credible silhouette: this is were fine details matter. It doesn't mean the details are accurate, but that they are believeable and fine enough to not scream enough: protuding details will matter more because they detach themselves from the background: brake wheels, runningboard, roof grabirons, stirrups.

If you get these four things down, it's half the battle won... 

The first car I used was an old Athearn 40ft ice reefer. A classic car among the classics, it is based on a PFE R40-23. Sure, it's not perfect and that annoying way to fix the roof to the body is always bothering me, but the proportions are right, the car ends are correct and the rivet patterns are acceptable. The original pad printed PFE scheme by Athearn was fuzzy and crooked, so it had to go. This car will be fully repainted.

To improve the silhouette, I replaced the molded grabirons and stirrups with metal ones. A-Line for the ends, Accurail reefer stirrups for the ones under the door. The brake wheel was replaced with a neat Kadee one (they are the best in my opinion), the platform was made larger and supported with new brackets. Another big change was to replace the clunky stock running board with a nice Morton-style Kadee one. I gently cut the roofwalk end platforms since they aren't required on a reefer. Once again, Kadee parts prove their incredible usefulness. For the price, they look fantastic and require almost no painful work to install.

Kadee roofwalk really improves the overall look

Paint had to be accurate and I decided to use Tru-Color SP Daylight Orange TCP-107. I added a few drops of Yellow Reefer into it to fade it a little bit since I'll weather the car in the future.

As for the lettering, I used Microscale 87-1341 sheet for modern PFE reefer. In hindsight, it was a mistake and I should have used their 87-1340 set which is designed for ice reefers. I say that because the Pacific Fruit Express lettering as a different spacing on non-ribbed cars than ribbed cars. I had to fudge a little bit with the lettering and it isn't 100% prototypical though it's not noticeable without really looking into it. It was a matter of using what I had and what I could source from local shops.

The finished car is indeed a blue box car, but most of the sins have been corrected. While I took pictures of it on the diorama, I felt the underframe looked empty, thus breaking my rule about a credible silhouette. I will probably glue an Accurail brake rigging in place to address that issue. Also, while not a big issue, I think that next time I work on an Athearn ice reefer, I will rebuild or modify the bothersome line of rivets over the doors. The shadow between the separate parts breaks the illusion. Otherwise, I think these simple modifications are good enough for building a fleet on the cheap. A lesson is that it is always easier to find the real prototype behind an older car and try to improve.

At the end of the day, the modification cost make only sense if you get the car for cheap and derive a lot of fun doing the modification work. The average cost is about $4 for the metal wheels, a few cents for the stirrups and grabirons, about $0.50 for the brake wheel, $5 for the running board, $3 for the decals and about $1 for the paint, so about $15. The total cost including the car is thus $25. On the positive note, this kitbash helped me to learn more about R40-23 reefers, PFE paint scheme evolution and about the fleet history. Buying a RTR car or a prepainted kit wouldn't have provided any additional knowledge or appreciation for what PFE used to be and why it is so important and ubiquitous.

Repainting an Athearn Genesis PS 2600 CuFt GTW Covered Hopper

The last covered hopper project that flowed from the Napierville Junction debacle was this GTW car. I had the decals and thought they would fit perfectly my old Roundhouse car... which wasn't the case. The Roundhouse covered hopper albeit crude, is suitable for an older phase of these cars and not the one owned by GTW. A quick glance at Nakina.net gave me the answer about what I needed, so here I went and purchased a pricey Athearn Genesis car... 

As with the Napierville Junction hopper, this one devolved into a weird saga. It should have been a two evening repaint project, but it didn't go smoothly.

First, I tried to remove the lettering with Solvaset soaked pieces of towel. At first, it worked well until I left it in place a few minutes longer due to a phone call. When I came back, it had attacked the factory paint badly. A litte bit disgusted at the idea of striping the paint from a fragile model, I decided to smooth the marred surface with a wet fine grit sandpaper. It did work to remove most defect. Having learned my lesson, the other side was done with the same fine sandpaper soaked in the less aggressive Microscale Microset solution. Not only it worked, but much faster and without altering the paint coat. Once again putting to rest that unreliable trick that continues to be peddled on forums online. I'm always fascinated to see people giving advices on things they have never tried themselves, as if their opinion had any value whatsover.

The second step was to repaint the car. I gave it a nice coat of Tamiya grey primer and decided to match the color on prototype pictures. Highball Graphic decal instruction sheet mentioned light grey, but on the picture it was quite dark and bluish. Probably the effect of color fading and ambient lighting. I guessed it wouldn't be far from CN Grey No.11, but it looked different. So I came up with a custom mix of CN Lettering Gray, White and Black. Oh boy, it didn't look great at all! Under my workbench light, it looked a weird beige that contrasted badly with the red lettering.

After asking a few questions online to knowledgeable CN fans, they advised me to use CN Grey No.11, which made perfect sense. Unfortunately, my bottle of True Line Paint was dry. I tried to match the color with a custom mix, but it wasn't conclusive. I looked at the local hobby shops but they no longer had that discontinued color on hand. I ended up online where I discovered Badger offered CN Grey No.11 in their ModelFlex line of paint. I was elated until I got the bottle. It was dark bluish grey, slightly darker than CN Grey No.12. What a letdown... the only reliable paint color is discontinued. More search online helped me to find an old bottle of True Line Paint in Ontario. I ordered it on a heartbeat and was able to paint the car. However, this is quite bad to have lost that precious color. In the long run, it won't bode well for modellers. It seems that Vallejo Deck Tan is really close and I think the next step will be to sift through military colors to find something close to CN Grey No.11. For the time, my TLT bottle will be preciously stored... I still need it for a few projects.

The last step was to use the Highball Graphic decals and while I had good experience with their decals, this set was poorly done. The red ink is brittle and flake off... worst, they use a white layer before printed the red and it isn't correctly aligned. Under close inspection, you will see it on the model. I won't complain too much, but I've reached the point where I can and will do my own decals for many upcoming projects. I'm tired of dealing with defective or half baked products. You work hard to replicate a car only to letter it with things that fail in a way or another. I've done well over 50 decal sets over the last few years and I've always got excellent results from the company printing them, in this case Bill Brillinger's PDC.

Anyway, the car is done, it looks great and I'm happy to have another CN subsidiary's covered hopper joining the roster. Both hoppers cost me much more than what I had imagined, but they are gorgeous and they will have a deserved place on the roster!