Model Railroad Blog

The National Cold Storage structure is now complete and on the layout. That wraps up the big projects that I’ll focus on this year as I move towards detailing and tuning what I’ve done thus far.

Next up are the distinctive cigar band banners. The artwork was created in MS Word using a dark gray background (as opposed to black). I set my HP printer on “Other Glossy Inkjet Papers” and ran MicroMark white decal paper through. I did this mid-week and allowed it to dry until the weekend. A few liberal coats of Glosscote sealed the surface.

Finally, a thin film of Micro Set was applied to the face of the structure and the decals were applied.

Painting the structure gives a better sense for what it will look like. First, the roof was painted, weathered, and masked off. Next up was a base coat of Rustoleum Light Gray primer. Finally, I dusted on a very pale gray.

Next on the list is creating the artwork for the distinctive cigar band banner and printing out my own decals.

More work this weekend on NCS. Finished roughing out the Atlas Middlesex structure on the right. Added an elevator shaft and smokestack. Added Tichy architectural details.

The primary center structure of National Cold Storage is fairly straightforward to build being essentially an exercise in creating a sheet and strip styrene cube. I have to give some more thought to what I want to do with the shorter brick structures that flank it on each side. In the mock up it’s taking on a larger footprint than I might want.