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!