GATX SD40-2

Well it has been a few weeks since I have posted anything, but lucking this was because at least a week of it was a nice vacation.  

We have managed to get a few things done with the layout and this undecorated Kato SD40-2.  The paint job is completed, as I have been handeling the hand rails some of the blue has been flaking back off of them, this seems to be normal and after im done with all of the decals I will touch up the handrails before a clear coat.  The larger decals have gone on the loco and a lot more smaller decals to go.

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

Airbrush Booth

     Today we got in an airbrush spray booth from Paasche.  A few months ago at an estate auction we purchased near 200 undecorated rolling stock and hadn't really done anything with them other than move them into a drawer.  With wanting to get some more rolling stock completed, today I began getting some paint on some of these Micro-Trains undecorated boxcars.

The spray booth is the Paasche Model HB-16-13, and it works great.   I painted these rolling stock for about 45 minutes with no fumes in the room at all.   While eventually we will add venting from the fan to the outside, for the time being we are just allowing the filter to clean the air.

All of the undecorated rolling stock is from Micro-Trains and it looks great.  Hopefully after some paint, decals, and weathering we will have some great looking box cars for the layout.