Model Railroad Blog

Storm Chasers

Railfanning can be a lot like storm chasing. Lot’s of whiffs, dry holes, and hours of getting nothing. Then, a window of opportunity opens up, often for just a few seconds, making the entire outing worth it. Canton SW1500 number 1501 blasts a column of exhaust skyward as it blocks recently pulled cars in Penn Mary Yard.

Nothing increases my enjoyment of modeling more than railfanning.  Without it, I drift into feeling like I’m ‘pushing plastic’ across a tabletop. I forget about what I’m representing in miniature.  It can be exhilarating, frustrating, and humbling.  At times the railroads and/or the weather are wholely uncooperative.  It can be addictive. You have those days where after hours of “nothing” you feel it’s been a complete waste of time. Then, without warning, the gods serve up a money shot for the ages…just to keep you coming back for more so they can dormant you again on a future date. I believe the technical term is “intermittent reinforcement”.

While you can’t control what the railroads will be doing on any given day, you can increase your chances of success by a) going on business days not weekends and b) having a sense for what time a specific railroad usually does their work.  (In Baltimore they start early, i.e. 6am, and wrap up by early afternoon.)

That leaves the weather.  A sunny day determines whether you’ll have high contrast brilliant colors or drab, low contrast, uninspiring junk.  I was thinking about how I’d been planning my railfan outings and it dawned on me that I bring any weather-related misery entirely on myself.  I’d look at my calendar, and pick a day.  When that day arrived, come hell or high water, I’d go even if the weather totally sucked.  That’s nuts, especially if plane tickets are involved. 

I now take the totally opposite approach. I let weather drive my planning, not my calendar, sort of like storm chasers. I no longer make firm trip plans. I watch the weather and if the next day is going to be a perfect ten, then I go.  I also pay attention to where I set up for shooting at any given time of day and location.  You need the sun to your back.  So, shots facing west are best taken in the morning, those facing east are best taken after lunch.

Off to Canton!

This past Wednesday, the news headlines were all about what spectacular weather we’d be having the next day.  Seventy degrees and cloudless skies.  Go Time.  Canton Railroad. My primary goal was trying to catch them switching Terminal H, home of those massive Cryo reefers I love so much.

The day is NOT off to a good start. As usual, I got to Penn Mary Yard a little after 8am expecting to catch the switcher doing some blocking. Today? No switcher. That means he’s already gone out into the field to start working.

When railfanning The Canton Railroad, I always start at Penn Mary Yard.  In the past when I got there around 8:15 or so, the local is making up it’s train so I set that as my arrival time.  I arrived early.  No switcher.  Not good.  I go into the office and ask if they’d be working terminal H today.  “Nope.” Damn.  The guy added, “Right now they’re switching Ruckert Terminals.”  (Rukert is a a labyrinth of weathered warehouses on the bank of the Patapsco River about a half mile from Penn Mary).

Well, catching them switching Rukert could be just as good!  Then he added, “They’ve been there all morning.” Back to “not good.”  Rukert isn’t that big and if they’ve been there a while they’re either done or close to it.  It’s not that far from the yard…as the crow flies but I can’t fly so getting over there in rush hour traffic took a good ten minutes.  North up Newkirk, west down Boston, then left and south on S. Clinton. I’m scanning the horizon as I drive down Clinton towards Rukert.  Nothing.  No movement.  They have to be here somewhere.  Then I see a boxcar….then a conductor walking…..Damn, the unmistakable sound of a 1500 revving up.  I knew I was screwed.  He’d just finished and was heading back to the yard…the exact place I’d just come from!  The law of the jungle. Railfanning can be frustrating and humbling.

From experience, I knew I’d missed my opportunity to see them switching in the field. He’d be blocking in the yard the rest of the morning so no rush to get back there. I decided to poke around the various terminals to see what had been spotted. The Rukert warehouses are all labeled. Today they worked R, M, 12 and 42.

Looking west towards the Patapsco River. Building 42 is on a pier. Warehouse M is on the other side of Clinton Street.

A rolling stone gathers no moss. These two cars had just been spotted at warehouse M less than an hour ago and they’ve already started loading them with outgoing product. Note the ramp between the loading dock and car.

Building R is one of the more active locations and handles rail-to-ship. The way the fencing is laid out, it’s hard to see from Clinton Street. I took this shot last year from Fort McHenry, facing east across the river.

Rukert “Building 12”. I did a hard u-turn when I saw this. For as long as I can remember this spur had been engulfed in chest-high weeds. I was surprised to see that it’s now active. I’m not sure what the offspot car in the distance is.

This is where the “storm chasing” approach finally paves off. Early morning sun to my back and blue skies. High contrast. Brilliant colors. Pay day! The yard throat crosses Holabird Avenue meaning that any motorists that are new to the area quickly learn they are going to be behind those crossing dates for….quite…some….time! You don’t just hear that 645 prime mover, you feel it. It’s like somebody is grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you.

Ahhhh…..the difficult life of a railfan…so much stress! After a morning of photography I decided I’d earned coffee and a cranberry muffin at Pitango Bakery & Cafe on the Fells Point waterfront. The lesson learned from this trip? Next time, get up there an hour earlier.

Weathering A Santa Fe Hopper

There are a number of annotated maps circling in the LAJ community calling out which industries received what type of cars, where they were spotted etc. I believe most of this information came from retired employees. One note that stood out was a business on The Horn Lead called Western Cleanser. The notes state they received “two bay hoppers at spot 3, and a boxcar at spot 1”. I thought this could be a good industry for the layout so I picked up a Kadee PS-2 hopper complete with scale couplers. It’s truly an exceptional model.

Start With Studying a Photo

The next step was to study photos of similarly colored prototypes and that’s where things got tricky. The signature feature of the car sides was a color pattern that was clearly not uniform but in the most subtle of ways. These subdued patterns can be the most difficult to model. Here’s a breakdown of how I did things.

The Car Sides

Let’s start with the car sides. The central theme being to use the lightest of touches.

-It’s important to note that I did not apply Dullcote until the last step.

-I created a very thin wash of Tamiya XF-20 “Medium Grey” (about four drops of paint in an airbrush cup full of thinner). I loaded a “fine tip” in my airbrush (Paache Model H). Before moving to the model, I did a test spray on simarly colored scrap. Satisfied the wash wasn’t too dark, I sprayed the car sides using vertical strokes on the panels and tried to stay off the ribs as much as possible. Let this dry for an hour or so.

-Next was a wash of Burnt Umber artists oils. Pour some mineral spits in an old metal lid. Put a dab of paint on a scrap of styrene. Tap a half inch wide, soft, square-tipped brush in the paint and then dip the brush in the mineral spirits. Draw the brush vertically down across the car sides. You want the mix to be very thin. Keep an eye on your work for fifteen minutes or so to see if any odd pools or swirls shoe up. If they do, wick them up by lightly tapping the area with a clean brush. Let everything dry for three days or so.

-Finally, we need contrast along the ribs. Take a black artists pencil, give it a super sharp point, and draw ultra-thin lines along the ribs.

-Seal with Dullcote

The Roof

-Take a tiny, ragged, brush and dip it inBragdon “Soot Black” weathering powder. Tap your chalk-laden brush on a paper towel to knock most of the black off and then lightly work some of the weathering powder around the hinges.

-Using your black artists pencil, and a straight edge, lightly draw over the weld seams

-The fade was created by the frosting chemical reaction of alcohol and Dullcote. Spray the roof with Dullcote and let it dry for fifteen minutes or so. Tap a small, square tipped brush in rubbing alcohol and draw it across the roof. As it dries, you’ll see the frosting appear. If you don’t like your result apply more Dullcote and the frosting will disappear.

Trucks

Using an airbrush, I gave them a base coat of Model Master “Dark Earth”. Any earth tone will work though. When that dried, I took a ratty brush and worked in Bragdon Soot Black to create shadows.

Hopper Doors

It’s not clear from the photo but the hopper doors have a more prounced, slightly orangish look. I created a small 50/50 mix of Bragdon “Weathered Brown” and “Medium Rust” and applied it with an old brush using a stabbing motion.

Wrapping Up

The central theme for creating this look is to use the lightest of touches and washes. You can always bring an effect up if it’s not noticeable but if you go too far, there’s no turning back and you can end up with a ruined model.

“Have” A Layout or “Build” A Layout?

A view of the LAJ layout room. The new extension module is on the far right. I didn’t realize until after the fact how much of a role ergonomics plays in my enjoyment of the railroad. Having an open, cleanly finished presentation on the main floor of the house is very inviting and contributes to my running more often.

Some of the more significant planning issues can be hidden in plain sight. Not seeing them ahead of time can lead to unexpected but necessary periods of reassessing our approach to the hobby. Tony Koester wrote a particularly thought-provoking piece in the April issue of MR.

His point in the column was that, despite what we “think” we know about ourselves, most of us are driven by the satisfaction of building stuff (as opposed to having a finished model railroad used solely for operations). Most of us don’t look ahead to what happens when we finish our railroads, and there are no more projects. I certainly didn’t. Logically, we know that’s out there, but it really doesn’t sink in.

If a layout is even medium-large, that “stick-a-fork-in-it/completely finished” date seems so far in the future. It can sneak up on you, though, because if you are consistent with your building, that day will come. Then what? In his editorial, Tony gives numerous examples of folks who don’t miss a beat. They seamlessly transition to the next layout. Out with the old, in with the new. On to the next adventure! Sometimes that makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t, even for the same person.

A problem arises when you enjoy the building process, finish the layout, but are still just as captivated by your theme as when you started. That happened with East Rail 2, The Downtown Spur, and LAJ layouts. It was a “now what, didn’t see that coming” moment that I wasn’t prepared for.

I did consider tearing down one of the other layouts and starting a new one, but just couldn’t do it. There were too many fond memories, and I still really liked what I had in front of me. I have the space above my shop for a fairly large fourth layout and was seriously considering that. I ran it by close friend Tom Klimoski, who gave the unfiltered feedback of “Are you nuts? That’s a terrible idea! It’s just too much”. I came to my senses on that and abandoned the idea….for now.

The solution came to me slowly and entailed an entirely different approach to the hobby than anything I’d done before. I’ve had to shift from being so go, go, go, goal-oriented to enjoying the ride, enjoying the process. The objective is no longer one of checking a box off on a “to-do” list and moving on to the next task. That shift takes some major, major getting used to!

Now it’s not about getting things done but savoring the experience. Experience being defined as small projects, research, operations, and simply looking at the layout and feeling transported. How long even the smallest task takes me is meaningless. I’ll say it again, that’s been a mental shift for me that has taken some serious adjusting to.

So far, it’s working. Lately, I find myself spending far more time actively engaged with my layout. I’ve also been getting far, far less done! As crazy as that sounds, as counterintuitive as it feels to me, the slow progress is intentional. If I want to spend an evening or weekend putting new trucks and couplers on a car, so what? The process is relaxing. If I go back to my old ways, I’ll simply work myself out of a job.

As part of this adjustment process, here are some things I’ve done:

-I built a short extension module on the LAJ layout to expand operations and give me more things to build on a layout which, previously, I’d considered totally done.

-I switched era’s to the early 1960s as it was a period with more active industries and intense operations.

-I find myself spending more time on research.

-I’m more focused on rolling stock. Since I don’t need that many cars, I have the luxury of spending more time on each one singularly.

-Try to do better work. The “good enough approach” championed by Tony is entirely pragmatic and applies to a ton of situations. For smaller layouts, you have the luxury of spending a lot more time on upper-tier craftsmanship and more scenery layers.

-More details. They have to be intelligently chosen details that fit your scene and enhance it, not “detail dumping” a ton of crude cast metal soap carvings. My buddy Tom Johnson is a master of this, and I follow his Cass County Facebook page closely not so much for the details themselves but his strategy for stretching hobby time and enjoying the ride.

-I spend more time researching, selecting and detailing automobiles. What color and type existed in my era and in what percentage? What types of license plates?

-Part of the research I’ve been doing relates to how the prototype did things operationally during that era. Retired rails on the forums have been very generous in that regard.

I do have one caveat. This “stop and smell the roses” approach works better if you do have at least a portion of your layout done. You do need some critical mass. It’s like a jet on takeoff, you go like hell to launch and then throttle back when you hit cruising attitude.

All of this falls into the category of a first-world problem. It’s an approach that I find satisfying for now. If I eventually tire of the existing layouts, I can always start something new if and when that day comes.

A view of the LAJ layout room facing the other direction, with the layout to my back. The alcove holds a small library of books and reference magazines I refer to most frequently. I have more shelves in the basement for the remainder of my resources. I like spending time in the room and just enjoying the experience of having the the 1960s LA scene wrap around me.

LAJ Update. March 24

Since the last update, I’ve been working on the final details on the far left side of the extension model. Above, we have a scratch-built tree placed to slightly screen the view where the primary roadway meets the “T” intersection. I also scratch-built a crossbuck using Tichy parts, stripwood for the post, and NBW castings.

Looking at the back of the structure, we see: a transformer pole, added vegetation, pallets, drums, and light debris.

Here’s another view down the street taken from a more perpendicular perspective.