Wow that’s great news about the undec boxcars. Wish they weren’t “contact dealer” listings. Hopefully they go to regular sales soon. And thanks for the compliments on the layout. I’ll have another small scenery update in a day or two. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is interesting to me because I live in Prince William County … and there is a public beach near Aquia Landing (in Stafford County) that we go to frequently. I have not yet made the trek into the woods to see the remnants on the railway, but I'm sure I will eventually. Respectfully, Bob S.
Geez, time really got away from me. School and football started up and suddenly it’s October. Anyway, here’s a quick landscape update. One more corner done. A little grove and a bunch of ground cover. Need more trees though. Pines would be good. And I managed to get my hands on eight (!) of those undecorated MTL boxcars. I painted four so far w a rust color. Hand painting, not spraying. I figure the real things weren’t sprayed so this would work out. The first coat looks so good I may not do a second. Will need to order decals. Also, I’m debating what color to do the second set of four. I think the slate gray is generic enough for this period that it could work with almost any line.
The blue-gray color looks pretty nice on the boxcars. Adds some needed variety to the roster. The rust color on the other boxcars almost looks like the iron boxcars used by the B&O during this era. Now I just need to find some stock cars or other kind of ventilated boxcars. I haven't ordered decals yet, so they remain plain. I forgot to paint and install the brake wheels to each of the new boxcars. Have to get around to that, too. But the biggest news on the scenery front is that I finally got around to the water. It was scary going in, since I've never done anything like this before. But now I'm really happy with how it turned out. Used rocks from the back yard to make the banks and shore line. Once I finally break down and buy some dam trees (they really add up $$) the whole center of the layout will be pretty impressive.
The Roundhouse cars look to be 36 feet. Too long for my purposes. But I just found out about these 3D-printed ventilated boxcars. They would appear to be exactly what I'm looking for...
Cue the Hallelujah Chorus, folks! Presenting the biggest event in N Scale Civil War trains since the original Atlas/MTL run. Eric Cox of Panamint Models has posted his 3D printed Smokestacks and Cowcatchers for Civil War era locomotives. This all came from me asking him if he would work up some designs. Turned out he had some already but never put them out because the print quality back then wasn't what it was now. I got to order the first public printing, and I got to tell you, they're friggin' incredible! It completely changes the look and feel of the Atlas engines, which suffered from the blatant "this 1870s engine is good enough for Civil War modeling." Now, not only with the variety of balloon stacks from Eric, but the horizontal cowcatchers, these locomotives scream "1860." You can check out each of them below. In general, they're based on Rogers smokestacks, but will look great as Mason or Cooke engines, too. You can see there's some rough spots on the smokestacks. It's in the same area on every one. But I've asked Eric for advice on the best way to approach that. Once I get to painting them, I'll post more photos. But I'm not sure if I'll have time until after this weekend.
Just a heads up, I'll be posting most of my updates on a blog I started last year but never kept going. I love the attention over here, but I don't want to clog up the board with all these updates. Check out the blog at civilwartrains.blogspot.com Here's my latest video update showing off a set of the new smokestacks and cowcatchers.
Please do keep posting here, I started after you, have 5 pages, and no layout! Really enjoyed reading the blog, but I know I’ll forget to check it later. (Oh and DCC is cheap if you do DCC++ off a laptop... or even a Pi. That’s all a sprog is anyway, a pi with a DCC hat.)
Loving this. I’m modeling 1880s-1900 so its great to see what you’re doing! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I replaced the clerestory roofs with arched roofs on my old Arnold coaches to resemble those shown in the photo above. Did the same on the little Overton baggage car where the DCC decoder for the locomotive lives.
Update for April 8: Decals on Boxcars. Took a little while to get used to working with such tiny decals, but overall worked out well. Here's a nice shot of the evening freight rolling into the depot.
