BC Rail for the triple…

As this boxcar sits before me it completes a long held desire to represent the three main railways extant when I visited the Dominion in 1989, 1999 and 2001 on my H0 scale layout, Beaverbrook...

I've collected together a hotch potch of 50ft box cars and cylindrical hoppers. Rather wonderfully some are from childhood, others secondhand and still more purchased new. Where previously I've shared a CP Rail cylindrical hopper as well as a couple of CN examples, in the case of BC Rail a box car seemed the most likely visitor to Beaverbrook. This example was bought second hand and is an Atlas 'Master-line' model, nicely finished in the British Columbia Railway livery I decided to give it two faces and switched out the Dogwood placard for a later BC Rail graphic on one side. A few details needed repair, and some missing ones added. Replacement drop steps and cut bars in brass along with Kadee air hoses the more obvious.

Reviewing prototype photos the model was far too dark. I'm sure Atlas matched the colour but by my preferred period these cars had not been painted for some time and the Canadian weather had taken it's toll, fading the colour, making it appear lighter and a touch more yellow. As an experiment I tried a few things on this car. First of all I pin washed the sides in Humbrol Matt 30, quite a nice contrast to the dark green on the model. Once dry I airbrushed a mist of the same colour over the car to soften the edges of the wash, as well as fading the panels too before using my usual techniques of Humbrol 98 and 33 mixed to a custom wash to blend in the underframe, add some dirt to the roof and gunge on the sides along with some rust patches on the bodywork. Finally, a dry brush of some gun metal brought the edges to life, and lifted the overall finish.

The result compares well with the brand new Rapido car that cost me twice as much - and some of the modifications can be retro fitted to a few of my older cars including the nostalgic but poorly detailed Walthers waffle cars in light grey CP livery. I do enjoy this sort of work, taking one car at a time through the weathering process I have amassed a workable collection of stock now allowing me to not only switch out the motive power on Beaverbrook as the mood takes but also ring the changes in the switching of the industries along Beaverbrook. Until next time more soon...

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