Grand Trunk Work Cars

For the last few months I've been collecting kits and detail parts to construct a typical 1960's era Grand Trunk Work Train.  From the information I gathered, a typical Work Train would consist of the following:

Caboose
Bunk or Camp Car
Tool Car
Several, 40' Flat Cars
Small Crane
Hopper or Side Dump Car
Jordan Spreader

Here is a picture of the first car completed.

  The kit is a Tichy 40' Flat car.  The Grand Trunk owned very similar flat cars to which the Tichy kit represents.  The main difference being the type of stake pockets.  The kit is supplied with cast style stake pockets, with three ribs cast into them, on the sides and face of the pocket.  The prototype cars had stamped steel stake pockets, with only one dart centered on either side of the pocket.  To accomplish the conversion to a stamped pocket, I sand the face of each Tichy stake pocket and then carve off the four left over ribs on the top and bottom leaving only the center two ribs on either side.  This conversion takes about an hour to do all 24 stake pockets.  The GT flat cars also only have 11 stake pocket but changing this is more involved an not worth the effort in my opinion.

  I also added cut levers and air hoses, wood side stakes and wood boards on the B end,  but other than that it's built straight from the kit instructions.  After reviewing a prototype photo I can see that the sill steps are to short, and need to be replaced with longer ones, as this is a typical feature of the Canadian built version of these flat cars.  I painted the car with True Colour CN Freight Car Red #11.  Decals came from an old Herald King GTW Set, Black Cat 40' flat car set and a Microscale number set.

  I detailed the car with drums, a scratch built tool box(with pic axes, hammers, crow bars), ties, torch and a welder.  A quick Google search led to some great photos of welders from the 1960's, yielding what colours to paint it.

  The car still needs a coat of clear flat and weathering, but I am gong to wait until the other cars are done so I can make the weathering similar on all the cars using the same colour palette.

  I think the deck turned out great. I used my own spin on the Tichy Method.  Here's the steps if you want to try yourself.

  First I paint the deck with an earth coloured paint.  I used Polyscale Rail Tie Brown thinned 30% with water.  Don't worry so much about using Polycale just get something close.

  Second I thinned some Polyscale Concrete and Valleo Model Air Medium Grey about 50% with water and painted individual boards.

  Third, I thinned the Rail Tie Brown about 80% with water to make a really thin wash and painted everything again.

Fourth I lightly rubbed the whole deck with fine steel wool.

  The final step was to flood the deck with Hunterline Creasote stain.  I use a wide fan brush for this so I can apply it very quickly and evenly across the deck, as it dries quickly.

I have some other stuff on my bench that I need to finish up but then its back to these Work Train Cars.

Board Fencing

While most of my modelling efforts of late are focused on building rolling stock for my future GT layout, work on the Algonquin continues.  I've decided to add a fence to the yard scene in the town of Whitney.  I want it to frame an area where the railroad stores things like ties, tie plates, rail etc. next to the MoW shed.

At first I considered buying strip wood and making it myself, but after comparing the cost of the strip wood, to the cost of a Blair Line laser cut fence kit I quickly bought the kit.  The strip wood, would've cost about a third more and I'd have to cut it all myself on the chopper.

I assembled the fencing in sections, with the posts spaced so they would be evenly spaced after installation on the layout.  I stained them with a Hunterline Red stain.  I wasn't pleased with the look, so I tried the kits instructions instead. The kit says to prime with grey (I used a rattle can) and then brush paint the colour of your choice.  I think they came out great.  I dry brushed the top coat to give a weathered look.

Next up is to install the fence and take a few photos.