CN Woodchip Cars - Bringing Them to Life

I've been working on-off on this project since 2014. Thanks to fellow modellers Taylor Main, Justin Babcock and Julien Boily, I was able to acquire precise data to refine my models. As of now, both 878000-series and 879000 series are replicated in 3D using SketchUp.

I know there is a lot of interest in this project from many people, both in HO and N scales and I'm eager to finally bring these ubiquitous cars to people who needs them.

If some peoples are interested, I can make the model available on Shapeways. I don't guarantee the printing with be perfect since I did only print my first prototype a few years ago. However, the model respect Shapewars Fine Detail Plastic design guideline and should be OK. Be aware the cost is prohibitive. About $130 per car which is completely absurd if you want to model a fleet. If there is no demand, I won't bother posting the model on Shapeways marketplace.

Toward a Real Product

Having poured countless hours on this project, I must admit I'd like it to go somewhere instead of being buried in my computer files.

Following a discussion on Canadian Railway Modellers Facebook page yesterday, it was evident these cars could be produced efficiently as resin flats to be glued together. Their simplicity makes them ideal choice for an affordable and easy to build kit.

From now on, I'll try to find someone who is interested in producing this line of woodchip cars. I have no idea about the final cost, but if a kit (without couplers and trucks) could be sold at the same price of a quality current RTR model, including decals, it would be acceptable.

Interest?

If you are interested in acquiring these cars, let me know in the comments.

Motive Power Lashup

Slowly the CFC locomotive lashup is taking shape. This roster of engines was used between 2002 and 2011 until freight service was definitely put on hiatus.

So far, GP40-2W is completely done while LLPX 1509 has decoder installed and weathering almost completed (still have to install rock lights). LLPX 1510 will soon receive its decoder and once done, layout operation will resume.

I'm quite satisfied with LLPX1509 weathering. While I believe I went somewhat too far with color shitfing, I believe the level of dirty and paint defects is consistent with the prototype. Drawing the grafitti was a little bit tedious because I wanted it to be an exact replica. Later, when I weathered over it, it almost disappeared and it was required to redraw it yet again. Live and learn!

Clermont - Yet Again Terraforming

I apologize in advance for my lack of regularity in posting. As stated earlier this year, various reasons have conspired to shrink my hobby time and I can't foresee this situation changing in the course of the next few months. Last winter was quite tough and it took a toll on my old house so budget money will be redirected toward more pressing issues.

With that said, we continue to meet each week (or at least try) and work on the layout. Shaping Clermont is taking much more time than we expected and we often have to redo job done the previous week. Yes, errors are normal and trying to fix them is also a good way to be better modellers. Our mindset is toward quality and not quantity.

You probably recall I recently said I wasn't satisfied with the hills profile. Well, it has been taken care of. A layer of foam was removed and we widened the hill to get a more gentle slope toward the summit. The results are much better and it makes a difference. Interestingly enough, florist foam is a nice material that can be sanded down and smoothed in such a way you can create nicely flowing landforms.

In some area, it wasn't possible to widen the hills because it would interfere with the small creek. Thus, we elected to reuse old rock faces from the previous scenery. These faces are installed in a vertical position, giving more latitude for us to create a rounded top with less material.

While rock faces are somewhat ubiquitous in Charlevoix, they aren't in Clermont. For this reason, we buried them in floral foam to create the illusion of a gentler topography. When covered in dead leaves, twigs and trees, they should be barely noticeable while providing a practical mean to handle ingrate landforms.

We also started to create the creek, which cut its course through sediments in a flat and marshy valley. I'm not that much satisfied with the results. The creek is far to wide to be credible and we will probably have redo the job once again until we feel it is right.

This creek is too wide for its own good.

The lesson of the week is simple. When dealing with aesthetics and arts, you got to work again and again on your subject matter. Taking pauses as one moves forward is the best way to ensure you are indeed controlling your work and making sure it fits your vision. Rushing does no good.

Cheap Trees Are Made of This

The following blog post isn’t about a specific recipe or a short cut to make el cheapo trees but rather a proof of concept. The idea was to create a quick Eastern pine tree and see how it could fit in various scenes and environment. In this regard, my goal was to replicate the shape of the tree and not the correct texture or color.

Not bad when seen from afar...

  

The tree itself was built in about 10 minutes using a wood skewer (not bamboo), small twigs and pre-flocked netting found at a local gardening supplier. I used the true and tried method of drilling holes into the skewer and inserting branches in it. As previously stated, I cared much more about getting the shape right than the colors.

Making this tree proved me a few things I didn’t expect. First, modelling conifers such as pine is indeed as fun as building a structure or a freight car, with a certain dose of artistic freedom. Second, when you get the basics right, using finer texturing methods, improving branches and needles and coloration aren’t that hard.

...but it doesn't hold up under closer scrutiny.

While making this tree was quite fast and yielded surprisingly decent results, it is evident ones would be better off making them with more care. The pre-flocked netting saves a lot of time (applying needles and painting) but the results is not that much realistic and if you start airbrushing more realistic colors, it defeats the gain in speed you are going after. It must also be noted pre-flocked netting isn’t the most geometrically realistic material to use to replicate branches.

Another word of caution is the tree looks quite good on pictures, but is not that great upon closer inspection.  It means depending on your available time and the context of your work, such tree could indeed be a solution. But in most of the cases, taking a few hours working on maybe a half-dozen well done trees would be much meaning in the long term.

Tapered trunk, bark texture, more realistic branches and colors are a few areas that would significantly benefit from improvement. Also, looking at real Eastern pine growing in a nearby park, I found out most of them didn't have a perfect trunk but were a quite asymetrical.

However, given I’ll have to create a very dense forest on the layout, small trees made of netting that are to be hidden and embedded within the vegetation without protruding over the canopy could be a solution to bring some colors among leafless deciduous trees.

OK for background use? Not so sure...

Anyway, point in case, modelling trees is much more interesting than I thought and relaxing too. Given I’ll probably have to create about a dozen of pine maximum; I’m ready to do a better job than trumpet about a half-baked solution.

Clermont: Terraforming... again

It seems to me not so long ago I wrote about terraforming Clermont... both here we are again, doing it for a second time.

The tree ridge is about the hill's planned final height

This time, it is going quite faster since we know what we are doing and all club members are actively participating in a manner or another in the process.

Some subtle landforms sloping down toward the valley

As you can surmise, last Saturday, we started the day by studying photographs taken last year and from there, we were able to draw on the plywood the various landform to replicate. We were quite bold in determining the size of the small valley and I'm curious to see how it will turn out. However, I believe the scene unusual depth in this part of the layout won't be bad at all.

Hiding cars and tracks on the other side of the peninsula is challenging!

While I'd like to make you believe this process is going straitghforward, I prefer to tell the truth behind this process. After a long day of work, we took a step back and tried to assess our progress. While some parts are genuinely close to the prototype, it became quickly clear our hillside profile was somewhat wrong. After a few inches of height, the slope should start to become gentler (about 35 degrees) until it reaches the summit. Unfortunately for us, we made the hill ridge a little bit shallow which means we will have to enlarge it of a few inches more if we want our summit to stay at the same height. No big deal, but we feel it must be addressed before moving forward with scenery.

The summit height has also a big implication on how we perceive the scenes together. The previous mountain was high enough to hide the tracks on the other side of the peninsula. However, this is no longer the case with a 6" summit (about 40ft in real life) and we will have to rely on vegetation to get another 6 inches in height.

A proof of concept for a decent "opaque" forest

To make sure it would work, we created a mockup forest reusing old twigs and supertrees from the previous scene. However, this time we tried - as best as we could - to get the tree density right. On most layout, this is overlooked quite a bit because trees have leaves. In our case, we need an opaque screen of leafless branches.

To get the effect right, we played on several parameters. First, the tree density which is a 3/8" (3 feet) spacing between trunks. It may seems overkill, but dead twigs are free and plenty. When painted the right color, they can help to fill a lot of ground.

Second, a few supertrees are mixed within the forest to create a denser core of branches. Supertrees' fine branches work wonders in that regard, including bushes and smaller growth. When planting trees, we will have to create several layers of various types of trees and it will be important to make sure they are planted in a realistic manner.

Third, depth. By depth litterally mean scene depth. Our mockup is about 4 inches deep and is already almost opaque. This means tree density will vary depending on location. Basically, vegetation on the ridged (where the forest depth is shallow) will be quite dense, but in the valley, it will be significantly reduced.

Fourth is color. Some twigs were already painted light gray while others were plain natural brown. Brown looks unrealistic for tree bark while gray looks far better, idem for supertrees fine branches. Another interesting point is that light gray is a light color. It makes elements look bigger and denser because it scatters more light. Thus, this is a perfect color to create an optical illusion of density.

I'm well aware covering about 20 square feets with so many twigs is ridiculous, but as previously mentionned, we have many parameters to finetune the results without losing sanity. Also, it is quite a relief to think these trees requires on very limited preparation (some trimming, Modge Podge treatment, painting and planting).

However, as Jérôme rightfully remarked, a few very well done trees will still be required to make the forest pop up a little bit. It includes a few conifers (I'll show you in a future post how I made a quick and cheap Eastern pine tree mockup) and a few larger deciduous trees near the track. The goal is now to create a multicolored patchwork, but rather a subtle variation in colors and textures with some elements bringing life to the composition.