Thanks everyone! Gary, Sandro (Mr. CP himself!! :tb-biggrin showed me that the handrails on CP AC4400's are black, not red as on the Kato models. His comment is actually on an earlier post in this thread. I went back and hit the rails with weathered black. As for the undercarraige, you are so correct about nasty CP undercarraiges, this are two of the units I worked off of: As for the inside of the gons, on the CP northeast corridor (D&H) they are used for scrap in the New York/ New Jersey area, and on plate steel runs from Philadelphia, so I wanted to weather them accordingly. This is the picture I mostly worked from: I started with airbrushed polly "earth" mixed @ 50/50 with distilled water, than brushed on nearly drybrush (meaning I mixed the acrylic with nothing and kept very little on the brush) acrylic transparent white on the floor and up the sides of the interior, than dry-brushed on burnt sienna acrylic very lightly on the top portion of the inside walls with incomplete brush coverage so it would not be a smooth line and on the top rim. Next was a bit of acrylic mars black in circular motions with again- a nearly dry brush, and worked a bit on parts of the walls and on the floor and some spots of bare aluminum paint dabbed on the black and that was that. I varied them, some got heavy transparent white on the floor, others a mild treatment. I'll see when I can get some interior closeups for you I agree that these Atlas Thrall gons are real nice, a mainstay on the D&H running from Newark over to Scranton so I was very happy to see something similar. Great picture Gary! Gonna use that one. Great shots of the inside of the gons. thanks for all the encouragement, my best, Jan
Hiya T-Bone, nice to hear from you and hope all is well for ya, the last Atlas Gon in my post is a Joseph Transportation Corp. (DJLX) gondola, and the logo in the middle is a green "Joseph" logo, kind of like a green wave. DJLX is a rail leasing arm of Joseph, which is a scrap metal and recycling company. my best, Jan
jan some exeptional weathering there ! especially on the new atlas gondolas. i don't think they need more. don't you think the painted handrails on the ac4400 look better than before ? thanks for calling me 'mr cp' . i wish i would live closer to any cp rail track.
Sandro, thanks for your compliments, and I agree the Atlas gons don't need any further exterior weathering, but the insides need a coating of dust to dull out some of the steel color dabs. I agree that the AC4400's look much better now-- thanks to your advice!! You have certainly earned your "Mr. CP title" your CP forum is great as are your photos as well as your number of modeled, renumbered AC4400's! As for proximity, I too am far- roughly a thousand miles to the southernmost point of CP operations (Philadelphia) but I guess thats better than having an ocean to cross... If you can get your hands on copies of Railpace magazine there are usually many nice pictures of CP operations in Eastern Canada and the Northeastern United States and its a great source of info. my best, Jan
Excellent weathering job Jan, I particularly like that Sd-40-2. I weatherd some rolling stock but so far didn't have the guts to weather any engine. Soon I'll have to disassemble my Atlas CPR GP-9 ( not DCC ready ) to add a decoder, so I think that'll be a good oportunity to weather it. Jacques
Thanks for the details on the gon weathering - I'd definitely love to see an interior close-up some time. Glad to hear the handrails don't need to be cut up... I had actually been wondering about the color though. It's surprisingly hard to tell from most photos I've seen what they were supposed to be, e.g.: This pretty clearly shows black rails, but I could almost convince myself that the red paint was just worn off to reveal dark steel underneath. And the stanchions are pretty ambiguous too... I think when I go to weather mine, I'll just try to generally tone them down. Cheers, Gary P.S. Put together a nice stack train behind those AC's and take a shot for Trackside Photos, or the MR photo contest. :thumbs_up:
this image shows cleary that the horizontal part of the handrails are painted black ... or this ... since i occasionally do some custom painting i take detailed pictures whenever i have a chance to come close to a cp rail unit.
Aha, those pictures certainly leave no doubt! Thanks for posting them Sandro. By the way, I never doubted you or Jan. I just happen to be working on the same CP 4400 Jan posted and had been looking at photos to see what the rails typically look like after 10 years on the road. I think when I weather mine, I'm going to try darkening the stanchions as well as paint the rails. Hopefully, as a by-product, this makes their thickness a little less conspicuous. Cheers, Gary
Gary, I had the same issue, it was really hard to tell the actual color until Sandro showed me his close-ups. Between sun, glare, and weathering it was terrificly hard to tell the color. I wholeheartedly agree that you could do some weathering on the stanchions and rails which seem to get rather nasty and have significant paint chipping. The AC4400's have seen significant hard use in a tough climate so you can see some pretty battered units. I'll get some more photos of the inside of the gons this weekend for you, and see what kind of nice stack train photos I can come up with:tb-embarrassed: hope your well, my best, Jan
This one: Before you send it to MR though, I think you need to back the train up about an inch to pull the nose out from behind the bush. There's also something funny about the double stacks: are they leaning a bit, or is that a lens fisheye? Oh, and straighten out that tree behind the stack on the lead unit (you'll thank me when the shot shows up on the cover). You got some good depth of field on this shot too. :thumbs_up::thumbs_up: Thanks for the gon photos - I'll be giving that a try. Best, Gary P.S. Nice job on the container door hardware.
Jan: Are you still shooting outside? If so, maybe try to get the above shot with full sun, like this one: but maybe front-lit instead of back-lit. This really shows off your outstanding work.
Gary, thanks so much for the input, I'll see if I can catch a good one tommorow. I was shooting outside today but we had clouds all day, I'll have to see if we can get some early a.m. sun. As for container lean, yes! I was having a problem there and replaced that unit for follow on photos with one of my Thrall 40' cutdown wells. I'll straighten that tree also:tb-embarrassed:! LOL! So we'll see if I can perfect this shot tommorow! Until then, my best, Jan
Id submit them all to tell you the truth.Very crisp shots you have here. am amazed at the detailing and the weathering.Good luck.
I like this one the best.If you get it in Model Railroader I will send it to you for an autograph.LOL...:thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
