Custom Paint and Staging

Worked on a few small projects today, turning an Undecorated Kato SD40-2 into a GATX Leased Loco, and roadbed on the St. Louis Staging yard.  They seemed to work well together, while waiting for paint to dry I could get some cork road bed down.... until I ran out, time for a trip to the hobby store.

St. Louis Staging --

It was a recent change to the layout to add a lower level staging yard, originally the lower level was planned as a continuous loop so that when my niece was over she could run a train in a large circle without really anyone having to pay close attention. We have changed the layout instead to a point to point by simply removing part of the loop at one end and moving some track around.  By doing so we have added a lift out section in front of a window that will be the start of a staging yard, with the rest being on top of a storage unit on the other side of the window.

The Project was going really well and seemed to be getting a lot accomplished, until I reached for that next section of Midwest Products cork roadbed but instead found and empty box, fail.  A trip to the hobby store clearly in my near future.





GATX Locomotive (SD40-2) --

I have a few undecorated Kato Diesels that have been sitting on the shelf for the better part of a year with no plan ahead of them, until today.  On a recent trip I had seen a few freshly painted GATX locomotives and while thinking about the undecorated locos today I have decided that they could pair nicely.  I found some GATX decal sets from Microscale and have got them order.  While I wait for the decals to arrive I went ahead and got some paint on the shell.  There is still some detail work todo before the decals get placed, and then once I get the decals on there, I can make the loco look as it it hasn't freshly rolled out of the paint shop.

Freshly out of the Paint Booth with out a flash, just fluorescent lighting from the ceiling fixtures, while the picture below was taken with a flash