My Inspiration

Hi Guy's

I haven't much to show over the last couple of months on the modeling scene. I just thought to share some of my old slides that are from the period that I like to model. Around this time of 1992/93, I had just finished high school and I had lots of time on my hands, fuel was cheap and I really did enjoy this time as I travelled many miles around the countryside.

The North Coast Line was quite uneek around this time as well. There was basically 3 classes of loco running trains up here at that time. All Alco and the youngest would be 20 years old. There was no air conditioners for the crews unless you were on the countrylink roster. Most trains were loaded up to there max so it was a good place to see alco's at work.

Just a side note. These copies of my slides were made simply by photographing them with my 100mm macro lens on my digital camera while sitting on my light box. The quality is OK for the purpose here but not much else.

This shot was taken in 1993 on 44238/44214 on 6290 frieght crossing Dead Dog Creek between Taree and Wingham. This was mostly a load of shipping containers heading for Cooks River. Most of the time this train would be 50% Contrans/TNT, but on this day it was 100% shippers. This train was tabled to run up to 700m long and I have no doubt that on this day it would of been a max load for these Jumbo's of between 2000/2100 tonnes.

Here we have 6382 freight with 4466/4486/4483 on the head as it approaches Mt George in 1993. This train was tabled to run up to 700m long as was in most cases empty Steel wagons.

Here is 6303 as it departs Taree with 4473/4454 leading. This train was mostly shipping but could some days be a real mix of containers and Louvers. It was usually a hand full for it's loco's mostly requiring 3 loco's but on this day was 1950 tonnes and 645m long.

This Train is 6184 on a Monday with 44100/44217. Usually this train is the return of 6269 pickup but as 6116 didn't run on a Monday it finished up having some louvers on it as well as some of it's usual pick up loading. At this time Jumbo's were not allowed to lead number 2 end leading due to Union Bans accounting most likely for the 44 leading and I would say it wouldn't usually get any longer that 400m unless there was lots of loading at Taree.

Here is 6269 pickup freight with 4475/4483 leading up to Wingham. This being a pickup, the first wagon would be for the wingham meat works. The Milk and opens and the 2 NLJX wagons would be for Taree where 4483 would of been left as the Taree Yard Shunter for the Day and returned on 6184 later that day. The next Milk wagon would most likely be for Wauchope and the following containers for Kempsey. The rest I am not sure. It was usual for interstate wagons to be on this train. This train could be on some day quite large until Taree but be less than 400m north after.

6395 was the Steel Train and around this time in late 1993 was starting to get a monster of a train up to 4000t. On this day it had a 44/45/45/44 combo lead by 4482 as it is seen departing Telegraph Point. It had 3469 tonnes on 48 wagons so they were working. today this train is usually around 72 wagons and weighing up to 6000t hauled effortlessly by 3 NR class loco's.

Anyway that is a bit of a look at the trains that inspire my modeling

Cheers Justin Moy

Weathering Progress

Hi Guy's

Just been stuffing around with these Auscision Opens and Vans. As I have said before I like to take photo's of the progress so I can take stock of where I am at with the weathering. The Base coat has gone on and I am just starting to muck around with washes using a paint brush. Anyway I will do a little more and then look at any other colours that can be applied with the Air Brush. Here is some progress shots

This one has had the most work done and looks mostly complete at this stage. This is the only AOOX that will have a green interia. All the others will remain in the original Red. The Base colour for the green is Floquil Burlington Northern Green. The washes mostly between the ribs are done with a brush using Floquil Rust with it darkened with Floquil Grimy Black.

This AKJY still needs the interia painted. I will hit it will a good coat of rust.

This AOOX has had the base coats only. I am not sure about the red interia as yet. I may lighten it a little before I continue.

This one will end up having a panel missing off the side. I have replaced the exchange panels on this one with smaller ones. I just need to remask the exchange panels and the area of the missing panel and go over with some more green.

I started playing with this ABFX applying some washes and I am not happy with it at this stage. I will most likely air brush over this and start again. I needed to let the faded coat dry for a few days so that it holds up to some washes over it.

I swapped one of my green vans for an ANR Red one. I have painted the top door runner yellow as I have shots of some of the Red Vans done this way which was common in the AN era. I still need to clean up the work a little. I have used Floquil Zinc Chrome Primer with just a little bit of Floquil UP Harbor Mist Gray as the base colour for the Van. You can see the difference if you look at the ANR panel that was masked up for this first stage of weathering.

Anyway all have a good long weekend, I hope to make it to the Epping show over the weekend some time, so if you see me there say HI

Cheers Justin Moy  

  

Masking

Hi Guy's

As I promised a while back, My Blog is going to follow the weathering work on my Auscision AOOX/ABFX wagons. Here is some shots of the way that I go about masking in readiness for weathering. The aim of this masking is to give the wagons a coat of a faded green as the base for all the weathering. The Paint work on the real wagons faded over time and most AN green painted wagons really showed this. So basically I am masking up anything that is not to be green. Hand rails and steps are easy to repaint after ward so I don't bother to cover them up.

I work on a piece of glass. I lay out Tamiya Masking tape out and use a razor blade to cut out the sizes and shapes that I need. I then use the razor blade to lift up one corner of the tape and then transfer it to the model using the blade. I then place it in position and bring in a finger from my other hand to put pressure on the tape so I can remove the blade. I can manage to do some really fine masking with this method so even the fine print on the sides of the wagon can be masked. I will remove the masking at some point during the whole process so that the code boards and what ever else involved can be weathered.

Anyway here is a heap of photo's of the process which may explain the masking process a bit better than what I can write;

Anyway I hope these photo's show the work as it was. Off to the paint shops so some more photo's soon.

Cheers Justin Moy