Model Railroading > Working on the Utah Belt..err..I mean Georgia Road

It took a while to sober up the master painter, but around here miracles do happen.  My bench is known as Stephens Railcar since it looks like a cross between a scrap yard and a junk pile.  To say I am organized is nothing more than wishful thinking.  My better half did buy some storage bins, so now at least the new projects seem to keep all their parts together....

This recent yarn involves a visit to the bare-naked plywood side of the benchwork.  For a modeler pressed for time and always on the go, a few pieces of flex track and a finshed car or two is always a welcome sight for sore eyes and exasperated nerves.  If you drive over the hill and down into the industrial section of The Magic City  (anyone remember that moniker) you find the armpit end of Stephens Railcar at the reclaim yard.  They try to be politically correct when it suits them to keep the NIMBY's at bay, since using the scrap word as in scrap yard is best left unsaid.  Honestly, I think they pile up projects just to stir up the locals who have decided this older part of town should have condos, coffee houses and boutiques insteal of industry.  Hey, the flowers around the corner or nice.  I caught the engineer out smelling them one afternoon---or was he relieving himself---I cannot be sure.  He did retreat to the cab of his SW post haste when I showed up.  The lady whose flowers he magnanimously "watered":swears there is conspiracy against her Dailias and Marigolds.  She thinks the vibration form the twice a week trundle from the shop property up the lead to the interchange is "choking" her beautiflul plants and killing them in short order on those days.  I just do not have the heart to tell her the truth, since she lets me get decent photo angles from the hillside behind her houses as long as I do not trample or otherwise accost her award winning roses.  I guess this is what happens when you have warehouses turn into studio apartments with cooperative gardens attached.  In her defense, the old mill never looks near as good when it was humming with american industrial might.

I am proud to report I am squarely placing the proverbial cart before the horse.  Being layout challenged, I figure I can build, paint and letter each train from lcomotive to caboose  (well, lets just call it a shoving platform since we are up to date and we cannot err on the side of righteousness for  switching crew sakes).  For those that tend to follow the imachinations of the Georgia Road, I figured I would show off a few projects that (finally after a couple years) found all their respective parts, got together, painted and decaled.  So let me delve back into character and move on with this early morning ramble of a diatribe.  I took my favorite position and managed to catch the switcher moving cars to the Georgia Road interchange, which for now is careful packing in a container under the base benchwork.

Stephen Railcar tends to beg borow or steal anything to work the shop tracks (if asked, they will always tell you they are "testing" or "breaking in" their prey), and this day is no different.   A Global Auto Processing Inc. (GAPS) SW does the honors today.  Behind it, follows two double door waffle boxcars just out of the detail shop.  These will join Georgia Road cars of similar persuasion moving OSB and appliances to and from Georgia and New Mexico.  The cars are extrapolations of Eric Brooman's Utah Belt RR with custom decals.  The UB formed the basis of my tendancy to prototype freelance, and in some ways you could say the Ol' Georgia Road is my perverted version set in the Deep South amid pine trees and fire ants  (yep--I read the thread on their facination with live steal bridge approaches.  If you want some, send me 20 dollars and I will make sure you get enough to understand why they are so feared and hated by all).  In the first shot you see the SW, which I did for my better half, who is part of the management of the company that ships KIAs from West Point, GA far and wide.  The two match set UB cars are Athearn car and never looked better, at least to me anyway.  Hope the Mopac modelers forgive me cause that is how they started out...eek!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/15 00:46 by georgiaroad.

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The SW grumbled on the less than perfect track showing off yet a third UB boxcar, this time a Walthers NSC paper box.  It sports an older variation of the yellow scheme.  Notice it has no FRA visibilty stripes.  It will go to a 1990s-early 2000 era layout.  The second shot is a a Quality RailLeasing Inc. unit in for repairs  (notice the missing radiator fan.  It is owned by a a fellow named mister Larry and is a small leasing company based in Pensacola, FL.  Maybe he will post finished pictures, as Stephens Railcar was only contracted to do the paint.  It will soon head home to go to work at a paper mill or helping move paper over the AF&G railroad based in the panhandle of Florida.  I guess I bragged a little too much on the master painter.  Notice the QRLX has an issue with the Q.  Dislexia has its moments and will result in some touch up correction. Last is a roster shot of the GAPS SW.  Being a display locomotive subject to rough hands attached to ignorant visitors to the office, it has only mininal detailing and will join a CSX autorack in a plastic display case once handrails and such are painted to match.

This will sum up the UB equipment for the time being other than upgrading old LBF coalporters and adding a few of my own based on pictures from the pages of MR and RMC.  If you search back, you will find examples of these hoppers and some autoracks in full UB regalia also.

As Minne Pearl used to say, " We's through sanging now."  I hope this little peak into my mental mindgame was worth the trouble of looking it over.  We are over here building a tie set out train now...Maybe it will not take two years to appear in a thread like this.  As they say, half the fun is the trip getting there...I scratch my head on that one sometimes...

H in AL 
...up WAY too late!

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You know I gotta show the prototype GAPS unit...I just gotta...  Never think I was a little proud of my copy cat ways, would you? 

Thank you all for the inspiration and as always, comments, tips,  and criticism is welcome....actually, I think I meant tips as in folding money....  donations accepted and so far are not tax deductable but can be laundered if needed...I have this great new washer and dryer...but I digress....

H in AL

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Sweet I'm really liking the concept bro.

Posted from Android

Look great--only thing missing is the dangling orange 5-gal buckets as stack caps!
I assume you used Highball for the custom decal work?

DrLoco Wrote:
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> Look great--only thing missing is the dangling
> orange 5-gal buckets as stack caps!
> I assume you used Highball for the custom decal
> work?

You are correct on the printer.  I did the artwork and he layered and printed it to my specifications.  I plan to do another working model,using a P2K or maybe a Broadway unit as a starting point.  I plan to try to make the buckets too.  Interestingly enough, they no longer cap the stacks.  I wonder if someone forgot to pull them off one moring...

H

Interestingly enough, they no
> longer cap the stacks.  I wonder if someone
> forgot to pull them off one moring...

You only forget to take the stack caps off once...after you start the engine and they flip up in the air and land on your head, you'll remove them entirely! 
:)