Repainting a Tortillard du Saint-Laurent Generator Car

Tortillard du Saint-Laurent was a passenger tourist train operating in the mid-1980s with GO Transit bilevel coached and a GP9RM freight locomotive. As expected, this engine couldn't handle all the needs of the coach and an old CN baggage car #8085 was converted as a generator car. This rolling stock equipment was painted in white and green to match the GO Transit coaches and equipped with a Faguy diesel generator.

Old Tortillard postcard

If we can take the sponsors name painted on the car side as indicators, it seems to mean that Ultramar provided the fuel and CN the crew and motive power. The old baggage car was from the old Super Continental lightweight cars that CN had ordered in the 1950s and as such, a Rapido one could provide a good starting point. Indeed, given Rapido already made the GP9RM and the bilevel coaches, it was fitting to repaint a baggage car.

The generator car shot from the side (credit: Pierre Rochette)

In some way, it would be a very straightforward project... just repaint isn't it? Well, first, I had to design the lettering by using the very few good pictures available to figure out the logos. On some poor quality pictures or under glancing sunlight, they disappeared and one could believe they weren't there at all. In the beginning, it really fooled me because I thought no logo were visible in 1984 and they were added in 1985. Most likely, they were always there as later evidence surfaced.

When the decals were done and en route for printing by Bill Brillinger, I started to disassemble the car. This being an early Rapido run, it had some quirks, but I was finally able to get it in parts for ease of painting. The first thing I did was to remove the lettering with Solvaset and a wet fine grit sandpaper. I also used the same trick to smooth the paint lines between the black and white part. If you have painted a car that had some artwork still applied, you know too well that these demarcation lines always show up. So sanding them done was the order of the day because I didn't want to dip the model into the ultrasonic bath and mess things up.

I also reassembled the doors in open position and glued them permanently. The Tortillard always left them open to bring air to the generator and provide a way for fumes to exhaust.

Finding the exact GO Transit green color was a little tricky. Tru-Color Paint do have shades of GO Transit greens, but these are the modern ones and not the early green. An old bottle of a discontinued green made by Citadel was a perfect match, but I ran out of it quickly and it was too thick to give a smooth finish.

I went to the wargaming shop with a Rapido GO Transit coach and started to look at their different green until I found a decent match. It was Vallejo Deep Green 70.970. While testing the color on a piece of styrene, it became clear that color was somewhat too dark. So I started to create custom mixes until I found a decent recipe. It was 5 drop of Deep Green, 1 drop of AK Deep Yellow and 1 drop of White. I couldn't ask for a better match.

Now I had to decide where the white line should be painted on the car. I did the old trick that railways used. You measure the stripe from the rail head. Using a caliper, I measured the bottom and top of the white line on a Rapido bilevel coach, then transferred this data to another baggage car (I own several ones and didn't want to reassemble the model I had already put apart). When the white stripe location was known, I masked the car and sprayed the green paint.

A few coat of gloss were then airbrushed to provide a neat surface for decals. In hindsight, I should have been more careful and removed the Citadel paint early coat instead of painting over it. Laziness  is too often the mother of all sins isn't it!

Scratchbuilding a diesel generator...

While the varnish was drying, I decided to build a Faguy generator to decorate the interior of the car. A few pictures online provide references about a Faguy mid-1980s diesel generator. They were painted in turquoise and were mounted on metal skid. Which styrene pieces, sprues and some remnants of Tichy roofwalks, I was able to cobble together a decent generator.

A good coat of paint, some drybrushing and hand painting warning labels and Faguy nameplate on it made it somewhat plausible. A wash of AK Kerosene and Oil brought it to life. It was time to finish the car!

Painted and weathered

Decals were applied according to pictures and I feared, for a while, there wouldn't be enough place on the letterboard for the "Tortillard" moniker to fit. Fortunately, my measures were indeed right and everything fitted as intended.

Fitting the huge generator inside the car

I then sealed the decals, added the grabirons and retouched some overspray areas on black parts. The Faguy generator was cemented with canopy glue inside the car... and it became almost instantly invisible... all that work for almost nothing! Classic!

Can you see the generator?

The roof was added and I worked hard to fit the underframe. It was hard at the beginning until I found out bits of sprue gates hadn't been sanded down at the factory and interfere with the underframe. Once cut, everything fitted together and the car was assembled once for all.

I'm quite pleased with the result, except for the fact the roof doesn't fit tighly on the shel.. Some manufacturing issues it seems. Maybe I'll try to address the problem in a month when the paint will be fully cured. I also feel bad for not bringing the car to NMRA standards when I still had access inside. It's still doable, but less practical. 

With that said, I' proud to announce that after 27-28 years, I've finally been able to assemble a prototypically accurate Tortillard consist! Incredibly enough, without Rapido, this would have been a serious nightmare too! When I find the inspiration, I will probably replicate the banners hanging from the locomotive handrails and seen on many pictures, including the large "Bonjour!" at the front. I have yet to find out which type of paper would have the right look to create the folds.

Now, the next logical step would be to build the 1995-1996 Tortillard that was inspired by CN 1950s classic passenger trains. After the bankruptcy, this train ended up on the Waterloo and St. Jacobs were it was operated for a number of years until the F-units were sold to Ontario Southern Railway and lost their paint scheme.

While a little bit too late for our era, I expect the 1984 Tortillard to run from time to time on the Murray Subdivision!

Rapido GARX Meat Reefers - Custom Paint

Many years ago Rapido produced a very neat series of General American design 37' wood meat reefers. These were beautiful... and expensive. However, they would be useful for the Harlem Station layout and I waiting with patience. At some point, many of them ended up in the bargain bin because their only sin was to be either undecorated kits or unlettered assembled cars in the RTR era. I picked 2 kits and two unlettered ones for at a significant discount, thinking I could slap a paint job on them easily and for a few pennies. I started these projects, only to let them gather dust in my cupboard for many years, almost completed.

As usual, Rapido did an excellent job with this car but building their kits is always a not so fun challenge because they lack basic instruction. However, I soldiered on even if the plastic they used for this kit isn't great to work with.

It looks good... but that canary yellow won't do!

The first kit was painted in the GARX yellow reefer scheme and lettered using Clover House dry transfers. I tried to modernize the paint scheme to better reflect the early 1950s. However, I believe the word "Refrigerator" should be spelled in gothic font but I couldn't find any useful photographic evidence. Unfortunately, when painting it, I used Model Master Reefer Yellow which is almost canary yellow... It felt wrong, but I only measured the mistake fully when I put it together with a factory painted car. The difference is striking and I'm seriously thinking about removing the lettering and repainting the yellow with a better shade of it. That bright yellow would be a better fit for Fruit Growers Express reefers with a bit of white and buff  in it to tone it down.

Hard to believe dry transfers and old decals can look good!

The second reefer was painted in the attractive early 1950s Swift all-red paint scheme. Unfortunately, I found out the Clover House dry transfer I had was made for the 1954-built steel reefer. Since Harlem Station was set in 1952, it's too late for my era, thus I ordered a a suitable set of Champ decals. Thus, the lettering job is a mix of decals and dry transfer to better fit the prototype. I also limited as much as possible the use of Champ decals which suffer from thick carrier decal film. At the end of the day, I was really pleased with the results.

Unlettered cars with custom decals (for half the price!)

The two other reefers were already assembled and painted. I designed and printed custom decals which were installed on a coat of gloss varnish. They turned out very well and I will print other custom GARX decals to redo my old Varney/Life-Like kitbashed reefers and the Rapido kit I mentioned earlier.

Model Master Reefer Yellow (left) VS Rapido factory paint (right)

It was great to see these projects come to fruition. They are nice, classics and will fit any trains from the 1950s. No regret buying kits and unlettered cars. They provided their share of joy!

Monk Subdivision - Rebuilding the Staging

As I alluded to late in 2024, I had to revise my plans for Monk Subdivision and the staging area. With the upper level gone, a big choice had to be made and I decided to raise the track level to 50" from the floor. It meant I had to raise all the current staging benchwork too which, fortunately, went smoothly and only took a few hours.

To do this, I removed the Kato Unitrak loop and its shelf. The Kato track will serve its purpose elsewhere. It was a short but useful piece of track that helped me moved forward. When gone, I discovered the current staging wasn't level at all, which is quite the big issue when storing cars! So everything was levelled up during the raising process.

The shelf bracket holes in the walls were patched up and a new coat of paint was applied. Then, the fiberboard was reinstalled and painted with a beige color we use on Murray Bay subidivision for the fascia. It's a neutral and bright tone that blends well with anything. Sealing fiberboard really helps to reduce the dust on the layout.

Then, I started to lay the track, assembling several turnouts to create the yard throat and check the geometry. As I feared, the Walthers 28"/24" curved turnouts didn't perform as expected. Large steamed such as 2-10-2 experienced drivers binding when running over the points. This is unacceptable and some solution had to be found.

First, let's address the elephant in the room. Walthers new turnouts aren't good. Not because they are inherently poor quality, which isn't true, but because their geometry is based on the old Shinohara line of products. These turnouts have all have very drastic diverging routes. It's a sharp angle, then the track continue. This sharp angle is a nightmare for models even if prototype do have angled transition. The thing is prototypes use very, very long turnouts... not #6 or #8 and it makes a huge difference. If you look at PECO turnouts, the diverging route is a smooth curve that provides better tracking. Sure, unprototypical, but your trains don't derail.

The Walthers turnout issue is less of a problem with straight turnouts, but the moment you make them curved, it's a nightmare. And by the way, the interior radius at the points isn't 24" as advertised, but much sharper. To test that theory, I laid a Walthers turnout over the Fast Tracks template. Both are 24"/28"... but clearly, one isn't by a large margin.

Walthers VS Fast Tracks

So out of the window with the Walthers curved turnouts which are reliable with diesels of all kind and small steamers, but don't like large steam locomotives.

It seems the handlaid solution is the only way out. So I went to Fast Tracks and printed two templates. The first one was for a #10 28"/24". Following the advice of Chris Mears, I laid a flextrack over the diverging route and tested my large steamers. The IHC 2-10-2 didn't have issues, the Bachmann QJ 2-10-2's drivers binded a bit and the Bachmann USRA 2-10-2's speed slowed down by half while travelling the points due to serious binding. I also tested my BLI USRA Mikado 2-8-2 and it had no issues at all. So we can rule out the 24"/28" turnout.

A little bit tight, but IHC 2-10-2 can run over a 24"/28"

The next one was their #10 27"/30" curved turnout. I laid again my track over it and tested the locomotives again. As expected, the IHC performed well, it was flawless with the QJ and finally, the USRA 2-10-2 travelled the diverging route with flying colors! We have a solution... but will it works within the available space?

The USRA binding at the point of a 24"/28"

Well, theoritically, no... But, when you slightly adjust the connection angle between each turnouts, it do works. This is about a 1/4" variation over 15" long. I did some verification with the Walthers turnouts and it's not enough to induce a noticeable kink that could cause havoc later down the road. To be honest, this is well within the tolerance when laying tracks.

The revised yard throat... I'm happy with it, and my locos too!

Another nice thing is that I've also been able to greatly streamline and simplify the yard geometry to, which will make operation much easier. All in all, these turnouts issues wet me back of a few weeks, but at the end of the day, I'm closer to the goals I set for myself. Now, it's time to build custom turnouts.

GTW Tichy Emergency War Gondola

Some projects are so straightforward you completely forget about them for years. It was the case of my Tichy War Emergency gondola which I had almost completely assembled and even had purchased the correct GTW decals. The poor thing was forgotten in a cupboard for years until I stumbled upon it during the holidays... sometimes, cleaning up is a great thing!

I quickly assembled the car, then painted, lettered and weathered it... It was a mix of pre-weathering and post-weathering. I used a large derelict paint brush to drybrush the wooden texture on the sides. Easy, fast and efficient. This is something I tried on the NYC stock car and which, I think, gives that neat wooden appearance without overdoing the effect. I also used again AK Interactive wood wash to enhance the interior unpainted wood effect. It must be noted that I distressed the wood planks with a razor saw and coarse sandpaper prior to painting the car as I always do! At this point I was really glad... then a disaster happened.

One thing is sure, this car is criminally lightweight and will require a permanent load to compensate since its open underframe can't conceal more weight.

While searching for pictures of the car, I found out National Scale Car once produced a conversion mini-kit to replace the ends and brake gear. As it happens, GTW cars had different ends than the original design. As always, expect CN to always do things differently!

The problem is that mini-kit is no longer available. Maybe I'll find one on the used market if I dare to ask someone... Until then, I'll keep the car as is, even if it now bothers me to know it's quite non prototypical! The curse of knowing too much isn't it!

Anyway, let's move on... I've got several projects to complete on the workbench!

With a Little Help From My Friends

Today, Louis-Marie and I went to St-Stanislas, QC, to visit our good old friend Yvan Déry and pay a New Year visit. It was an occasion to chat and also see how he was doing with his layout updates. Yvan models the North Shore section of National Transcontinental between Donnacona and Rivière-du-Milieu circa 1948, including Hervey-Junction, Garneau and several rural towns along the line.

Yvan is currently redoing the main line and junctions at his Garneau yard after years of tweaking old #4 and #5 turnouts. As he said to me a few weeks ago, he wanted to upgrade the trackage with code 83 track and #6 electrofrog turnouts. So we decided to give him some help to turn what could be a nightmare into something much achievable.

At first glance, it was clear the old fiberboard roadbed had to go. It was in poor shape and uneven due to track and ballast removal. There was also an important vertical misalignment of about 1/8" between two different plywood sheets of different height. We managed to convince Yvan the best course of action was to start from scratch with a new roadbed and with a level plywood benchwork. His original plan was to work around the issue, but with three of us, the manpower required was assembled to tackle quickly and efficiently the challenge. It would make Yvan's life much easier when laying track later this winter. Fortunately, he had all the required material on hand and he agreed with out plan.

Louis-Marie removing old fiberboard

Removing the old fiberboard was the biggest challenge because we ran out quickly of fresh cutter blade, but by lunch time, it was all gone and Louis-Marie had managed to remove the vertical gap. Sure, the track would never be perfectly level in the area, but it was now so smooth that you can barely notice it if you don't use a long metal ruler to check it up.

While Louis-Marie worked on the benchwork, I was at the workbench fitting together the new turnouts. I had to shorten them so they could fit the existing trackwork that would be kept, including the small yard and the junction track. Yvan's original plan was to keep the yard turnouts intact, but we managed to replace one with a #6, which greatly improved the appearance and functionality.

The new mainline roadbed starting to take shape

By 2 P.M., the new fiberboard was in place and we started to draw the new track centerlines using the set of assembled Peco turnouts as a guide. To make sure Yvan would have all the correct alignments for his new track, we laid one strip of cork roadbed for the mainline. That way, he will only need to add the other roadbed using the same alignment.

At 3 P.M., we had reached the goals we had set for ourselves. From that point, it Yvan will lay the track by himself and it's clear the new mainline will look much better than the original one.

Finally, I stopped at BV Hobby on the return trip to get a few pre-owned cars I had seen a few days before and which will serve as starting point for future modelling project. Expect more flat cars, hoppers and reefers in the future!