Model Railroading > The Case of the Missing Pepsi

One fine day Railfan Richard talked his buddy into taking the morning off work because he heard that the eastbound Amtrak would have a pair of new P32s in the Pepsi paint scheme.
So they drove over to East Yard and just about on time here comes.....an F40 on the point.
Not quite angry enough to refuse to trip the shutter, but not "Plan A" for today.
The DS had lined Amtrak around an auto rack train at Cascade and here is the pass.
Actually the 519, a Walthers P32 was called but had a bad traction motor cable (broken wire to the lead truck).
It came out of the shop later that day with a new wire, plus I gave it a Curren Keeper.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/21 19:45 by railstiesballast.

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Beautiful layout.

Uncle Joe

Neat scene and humorous back story!

I only saw those Pepsi cans a few times passing through Denver, thinking back. Years have sure flown by.

Aw man! I woulda been bummed too.
At least it was clean & shiny!  ;-)

P.S. Great layout & pics. Also love the pavement. Any tips for modelling that road?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/21 13:09 by bearease.

Nice stuff

Posted from iPhone

Nice shots!  Love that Pepsi paint scheme!

For a road surface, I recommend starting by really looking carefully at the roads in your area.  Note how they are kind of gray at first glance but the closer you look the more color and detail you can see.
Read articles; the December RMC has a great article on asphalt road crossings and nearby pavement.
To my eye, the stones vary from light gray to tan to brown, the asphalt binding varies from light to dark gray, and there are patches and repairs here and there.
My asphalt road is a plaster overlay on a sheet of wood.  I gave it a profile with the center higher with a plastic spackling knife cut into a concave shape.
It is painted a faded gray with some patches of darker gray to simulate paving patches.  A medium or fine tipped marking pen can simulate where repair crews have put hot asphalt onto cracks, sometimes they make quite elaborate networks or odd patterns. Older asphalt lines fade to gray, new ones are almost pure black.
Some places a "reveres  penetration" maintenance procedure is used to extend the life of pavement.  This begins with a coating of hot liquid asphalt followed by a thin blanket of pavign stones (about 3/8" to 1/8"?).  The asphalt acts to "glue" this new wearing surface to the old pavement and also to seep into cracks and improve the resistance of the pavement to letting water seep into the base courses where it would make it muddya nd weak.  I have not tried that but I see where other modelers have done it well.
 Again, keep your eyes open for how it looks to you where you live or are modeling.
Finally, I sprinkled a little dark gray weathering powder along the center of each lane and smeared that out both longitudinally and laterally with my finger (hint: use a little sponge instead) to get the darkening you see from oil and other fluids dripping from passing vehicles.  If you don't have any powder, a charcoal pencil very lightly rubbed on the side of the point will give you something to then smear out along the road.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Yea, it was the patch that I noticed. That and the subtlety. Some roads I've seen are too gritty and would be impossible (or at least uncomfortable) for an HO car to ride on.
I'll be modelling in N, so I'm thinking I'll have to make it pretty smooth to make it look in scale, but I definitely want that worn & patched look.

I'd love to see more of the layout! ;-)

Thanks again.

--Barry