Aluminum foil IR reflector installed on the coupler of an Intermountain F7A
When I installed my automatic detection circuit for crossing signals using infrared (IR) sensors from the WeHonest company, I installed them between the ties. They were initially a bit too sensitive, but after a while of running and changing out lighting to LEDs, the sensors weren’t quite sensitive enough. They would often miss a passing train which is annoying and not up to my standard for how I want things to run on the layout. After reading up online about how this type of sensor works, I tried a super simple and cheap solution that now has them detecting every time!
The WeHonest IR sensor uses an IR transmitter (blue dome) and an IR detector (black dome)Here’s a WeHonest IR sensor in place between the rails
The WeHonest IR sensors are a single unit. unlike paired sensors that detect a break in the IR beam, the single units use a paired IR LED (bluish dome) and IR detector (black dome) and rely on reflected IR energy to close the circuit. Since the bottoms of most of my locomotives and freight cars are flat black, I wondered if they weren’t reflecting enough energy to trip the sensor. To improve the reflection, I stuck a piece of double-sided Scotch tape to a piece of aluminum foil and cut small reflector squares to attach to the bottom of locos and cabooses. I attached them under the coupler, behind the coupler, and even on the bottom of the truck–wherever I could get some good adhesion along the centerline (where my sensors are mounted). It doesn’t have to be perfectly flat because the IR transmitter and detector seem to have reasonably wide beams, so they’ll work with IR reflected at an angle. With just this tiny and simple modification which is invisible from trackside, the IR sensors now work every time without fail!
Reflector installed at an angle behind the coupler on an Athearn RS3
IR reflector installed on the bottom of an Intermountain F7A truck
Aluminum foil IR reflector installed on a caboose
One concern I have is a piece of conductive material coming loose on the tracks. To mitigate the chance of a short, I cut the rectangles small enough that they can’t bridge the rails in case they accidentally detach in a spot of hidden trackage. They could cause a short if they come loose on a switch, but all my switches are easily reached, so the reflectors would be easy to spot and clear. Thought I’d pass this trick along in case anyone else is struggling with the same issue.
***UPDATE***
This technique worked so well I added tiny rectangles of aluminum to the underside of every car on the layout. It’s easy to find a spot on a coupler pocket or on the center sill that can’t be seen while it’s running. Now there’s almost zero drop out for the signals while a train is crossing.
I’ve been on a hopper kick lately, so following close on the heels of the hopper class of January ’24 are these 13 cars comprising the hopper class of March ’24. They were actually built at the same time as the previous hoppers, but these were all custom paint jobs, so it took a while longer to paint and decal them. Among this class are several unique cars including two exact cars I’ve wanted to model since I first saw a picture of them. The first is Central of Georgia war-emergency rebuilt hopper 21781–there’s a photo of this car on railpictures.net at in a line of “yellow ball” hoppers Appalachia in 1978. The other car is Interstate 9234, a hand-me-down offset hopper of unknown origin with arched ends and an 18″ height extension to increase its capacity.
I’ve wanted to build a model of this car ever since I saw it in Ed Wolfe’s first Interstate Railroad book. The Altas offset hopper makes it easy
Most of the cars in this class represent old 50-ton cars relegated to “yellow ball” captive service between local mines and the huge coal transloader at Appalachia, VA where the St Charles Branch joined the Southern mainline. A few cars are regular offsets and war-emergency rebuilds including offset 112773 which spent a lot of time against a 100W lightbulb getting “beat up” to look the part! In addition to the Interstate car, there are four other cars with scratchbuilt height extensions including three offsets and a war-emergency rebuild, representing cars which received their height extensions in the mid-to-late ’70s.
Athearn 34′ offset hopper with an 18″ extension made from sheet and T-shape styrene
The class includes a couple unique Southern 70T cars as well. The first is a “standard” hopper from the large 70300-73749 class in its original black paint scheme. The first 3,000 or so cars were delivered in black and made it into the mid-’60s before being repainted. Another hopper, 73921, is a Pullman Standard PS3 70T hopper clone that’s been repainted in the more modern Southern scheme from its Railroad Roman scheme. This car, along with the L&N PS3 70T hopper in this set, were kitbashed from Atlas 70T 9-panel hoppers, one by me and one by Patrick Tillery. These were built before the Tangent model was released and have been sitting on the shelf for years–I’m happy to finally have them on the layout! Rounding out the class is an L&N PS3 50T hopper from an old Train Miniatures / Walthers kit representing a repainted car from the late ’60s.
A Southern PS3 clone and L&N PS3, both kitbashed from Atlas 9-panel 70T hoppers
The red cars were painted with either Tamiya NATO brown or a mix of Tamiya NATO brown and flat red–this mix will probably be my standard in the future, and I intend to vary the mixture to get variety in future cars. Never in my life have I done this many decals in one stretch. All told, there are more than 600 individual decals on these cars! Most of them are from K4 decals with a few Mask Island sets. The L&N hoppers are from a Great Decals set and a Curt Fortenberry set I got many years ago. Some Microscale small lettering and ACI labels rounded things out. Most received pretty heavy weathering since most represent non-interchange cars in their last years of service. I’m happy with how these cars turned out, and I’m happy I’ve got 9 more “yellow ball” hoppers to augment the fleet that’s been needing some help for a while.
All 12 hoppers from the “class of Jan 24” including 9 Atlas 70T, 1 Atlas 50T offset, and 2 Proto 50T war emergency rebuilds
I’m proud to introduce you to the hopper class of January 2024. This class is comprised wholly of “run of the mill” hoppers for the layout rather than any super-detailing projects. Most are Atlas hoppers including 9 70T 9-panel hoppers and a single 50T offset. Rounding out the class are two Proto 2000 war emergency rebuilds. All hoppers are factory painted, but most have been renumbered, and some have had their round “O” replaced with the rectangular one more appropriate for my era. Renumbering/relettering consisted of carefully scraping off the unwanted digits with an X-Acto chisel blade and adding new decals. I used a tiny paintbrush on the ends to paint in something close enough to the right number to not stand out from a distance.
The underside of an Atlas hopper shows the additional details including door bars, train line, grabs, brake platform, and coupler cut bar
The Atlas cars all went through a series of “upgrades” including shaving the backs of the grabs to make them more round and closer to prototypical thickness–this is far easier than replacing all the grabs with wire, and from 12″ away, you really don’t notice that a few of the grabs are still molded onto the body. I did replace all the grabs adjacent to the coupler with wire grabs, and I added homemade coupler cut bars from .012″ brass wire and train lines out of copper from old Cat 5 ethernet cables. Each car also got tack boards made from strip styrene. Since I first posted about the “layout standard hopper” four years ago, I’ve added a couple more details including an etched metal brake platform cut from a sheet of roof-walk material and the bars across adjoining doors, made from styrene channel. The Central of Georgia car also got some slope sheet braces made from styrene L shape. I touched up the metal and bare plastic with some black and Vallejo “hull red”–not an exact match, but close enough once the weathering goes on. I used a silver Sharpie to add a little detail to the elbow and ends of the train lines.
The interior rust is a couple layers of rust-colored wash
I had a lot of fun weathering these. Each first got a coat of matte lacquer spray to help blend in the decals and to give the cars a nice finish for the weathering to stick to. Next, I dry brushed some black, light rust, and dark rust onto the sides of the older black cars to simulate fading paint, scrapes, and rust patches. Some of the red cars also got a few nicks of dark rust. I masked off the capacity data and shop dates of a couple of the cars to keep it new looking like a patch job. I airbrushed all the cars with a light coat of dark tan on the sides and underframe and some flat black inside the hopper. I sprayed the black thinly letting the red still show through a bit. The undersides got a little black as well to add to the grime. Next I gave each a wash or two of flat black to bring out some of the detail and add some grunge. The last step was the hopper interior rust. I made a wash of light rust color, painted a “water line” just below the top chord where the coal would reach, and filled in everything below with the wash. I sopped up any excess with a paper towel. Each car got 2-4 coats leaving some more rusty than others. A few of the older cars (like the black ones) got some extra dabbing of light rust on the insides and a little dry brushed dark rust for some variety.
The CofGa hopper got the most weathering of the bunch
Overall I’m happy with how these turned out, and I like this technique for weathering the inside of older hoppers. While newer hoppers tend to have lighter rust or even bare shiny metal, an older steel hopper tends to settle into a mottled dark rust color which I think the repeated light rust washes over flat black airbrushing accomplish pretty simply and convincingly.
Here’s an Atlas hopper before touch-up painting and weathering showing the additional details and “grab shaving”
The hoppers all got medium weathering and old rusty interiors suitable for their represented age
70T hoper 281260, assigned to the CNO&TP, shows off its dark rusty interior
The only 70T hopper in older roman lettering is 281056–renumbered to fit into a CNO&TP series of these cars
The “oldest” hoppers in the group are a pair of war emergency rebuilds still in original black and a “heritage hopper” Central of Georgia hopper in original colors
A few of the cars with some coal loads showing the heaps straight from the tipple
Side-by-side of an MDC car (left) and Atlas car (right) showing the slight length difference
In the last post, I mentioned some of the work that went into creating an ex-Central of Georgia 70T rib-side hopper from an old MDC Roundhouse kit. Atlas makes a much more crisp and better operating out-of-the-box car in its Trainman 9-panel, 70T hopper that is a good stand-in for this car, but it’s about 2 scale feet too long. The Atlas kit, however, is a great model for the Southern’s mainstay fleet of 70T hoppers in the 70300-73749 and 281000-281299 series which far outnumbered the ex-CofGa cars in the 74100-74584 series–all you have to do is remove the heap shields and renumber them. The MDC Roundhouse kit can be picked up in Southern paint pretty cheaply. It’s a far WORSE model both dimensionally and detail-wise to match the Southern’s main fleet of 70T cars, but its overall dimensions are closer to the ex-CofGa cars. However, it requires a ton of work to make the car presentable in a string of more recently produced and more detailed cars. So, is it worth the work? Spoiler alert: it’s not worth it unless you’re just a crazy hopper person like me who notices the subtle length difference between these different series of cars in a long string of hoppers.
Ok, if you’re still reading, here’s a little more on what it takes to model one of the ex-CofGa cars using an MDC Roundhouse kit or one of the slightly improved Athearn versions. First, what’s wrong with the model out of the box? These molds are at least 40 years old, so the detail is sub-par–the rivets are clunky, the grabs are thickly molded, the brake platform and brake wheel housing is grossly under-modeled, the brake wheel is horrendous, and it’s just missing some details like the long grabs on the left ends of the car and bracing inside the car. Also, the bottom sills and corner posts are super thick at the ends. The interiors have an ugly scar right in the middle where the injection molding was done. The most egregious issue is also the most likely to escape notice (so I didn’t bother fixing it): the middle hopper bay is reversed with respect to the brake end. The lettering is not up to today’s standards but acceptable for a car that will be weathered, but there is no lettering on the ends of the MDC cars. The car also comes with arched heap shields that can be added, but they’re a little too short to look right, something that I initially ignored but eventually remedied by replacing them with parts off an Atlas car. It’s also missing details that were on the CofGa cars like slope sheet bracing on the ends.
Detail differences between the original model (right) and the modified model–note the difference in the side sill width
I remedied most of these issues with an X-Acto blade. I started by removing the angles between the bottom sills and the side panels. Next I worked on the side/bottom sills and carved away excess material from the top and bottom with a No 11 X-Acto blade (leaving essentially just enough for the “PULL HERE” lettering). This was done to both the ends of the sides and the ends. I also removed the excess material from the left-side corner posts with a blade (I left the ladder side alone) and cleaned up the excess plastic in the steps. I narrowed down the ladder grabs with the X-Acto blade using repeated small cuts on the back side and alternating between top and bottom until the grabs were essentially round-ish instead of rectangular. I also used a chisel blade to remove the awkward rib down the center of the underside of the slope sheets. Finally, I removed the molded-on grabs from the lower ends adjacent to the couplers.
Details added include tack boards, grab wires, tow rings, cut bars, and train line
Next came the added styrene bits. I added some flat bits for the tack boards and the panels where the coupler cut bar would attach. Some large triangles (using the Atlas cars as a model) became the interior bracing. The most complex part was the slope-sheet bracing under the ends. I made these from three pieces of L-girder styrene and just dimensioned and cut them to resemble photos. I also replaced the brake wheels with more detailed Miner wheels from the parts bin (one Kadee and another whose origin is lost). I added wire grabs adjacent to the couplers, and added custom-bent long grabs on the left ends made from .012″ brass wire and tow loops made by bending .012″ brass wire around a thumbtack (I bend them into a “J” shape and just drill one hole). I bent coupler cut bars and eye bolts from .012″ brass wire using a little jig I made. I also added a couple pieces of brake-gear piping between the reservoir and triple valve bent from .020″ brass wire. The train line is a piece of copper wire from an old ethernet cable sandwiched between two pieces of L-shaped styrene. The final details included Kadee No 5 couplers, Intermountain metal 33″ semi-scale wheels (faces, backs and axles painted black), and arched heap shields salvaged from Atlas models (the in-progress photos here show the MDC arches which I replaced before weathering). Some careful carving and putty fixed the ugly scar on the center sill inside the car.
Detail differences on the ends
I wanted to renumber the cars and detail them for the early ’70s, so I removed a couple of the numbers and the black-and-white lube stencils the best I could by scraping them off with the back of an X-Acto chisel blade. I custom-mixed some paint to match the body and covered all the new details and scraped sides. I added the new numbers, ACI labels, and end reporting marks using a combination of Microscale, Herald King, and K4 decals. Now they were ready for weathering!
Interior detail including braces and covering up the injection mold scar
For weathering, I started with some drybrushing of dark rust spots in a few places on the sides. Next I airbrushed them moderately using a combination of flat black and dark tan airbrushing and washes. Since these are old cars that have been repainted, I went a little heavier than usual with the black on the interiors. I hit them with a wash of flat black paint and water, letting it sit for a minute and then wiping it off vertically to produce some rain streaking and shadows on the details. I used a wash of light orange rust and water on the interior and then added some drybrushed rust spots inside.
String of Atlas and MDC cars mixed in–the differences are subtle but noticeable
In all, these cars took probably 4x as long to detail and make layout-worthy as the Atlas Trainman cars. Now that they’re complete, I do like seeing the more stocky look of these CofGa cars mixed into a long string of Southern-heritage 70T cars. So much so that I’ll probably eventually go back and take all the heap shields off my Atlas cars and renumber them into non-CofGa series. Thankfully I’ve only completed 3 of these Atlas models, so it’s not a huge sacrifice. So, if you’re a hopper nut like me and nerd out on seeing the subtle differences between car series, then knock yourself out on a project like this! If you’re not a hopper nut, I recommend sticking to the Atlas models and saving yourself a lot of trouble.
The hopper class of April 23 consists of 11 hoppers, mainly L&N and heritage cars
It’s time to introduce another “class” of hoppers graduating from the workbench to the layout. Looking back I see the last class of hoppers graduated in April of ’22, so I guess I’m averaging about a dozen hoppers a year… got a ways to go! This class was fun because most of the cars are for the L&N trains on the layout. Previous to this, most of my L&N cars were of mid-’70s paint and markings, so I focused on some cars to represent the mid-’60s to early ’70s including four PS3 70T cars, a PS3 50T car, and three ex-Monon two-bays (ok, I don’t need 3 Monon hoppers, but they came as a set, and I got them for cheap so…). The three remaining cars represent Southern prototypes including two ex-Central of Georgia 70T cars and an old 50T offset in red with Roman lettering.
This Tangent PS3 2750 hopper received a new number, corner tow loops and roller bearing trucks to represent a later series of cars
The easiest cars of the bunch were the 70T PS3s which are all factory-painted Tangent cars with excellent detail. The four cars all came lettered in the 73000 series, and after looking through pictures, I decided they’d also be good to represent the 150000 and 153000 class cars that were also delivered in the “DIXIE LINE” paint scheme. For hopper 152067, it was as simple as changing the number and build dates. I scraped off the old lettering using an X-Acto chisel blade–it leaves a little shiny spot, but this is easy to disguise with weathering. Hopper 153708 was a little more involved because this class came with the later style tow loops at the lower corners of the car and roller bearing trucks. I snipped off the modeled loops, cut new corner tow loops from .015″ styrene, glued them on and painted them. A set of Bowser roller bearing trucks and metal wheels fit well and kept the car at the proper height.
This L&N PS3 is a factory painted Walthers Trainline kit that’s received new ladders and other details
The 50T PS3 is a factory-painted Walthers Trainline kit which is an updated version of a VERY old model kit that’s been around since probably the 60s and has pretty clunky detail. I remedied the worst of the detail issues by cutting off the ladders and replacing them with DA ladders and added new scratchbuilt heap shields. A new Kadee brake wheel and some new wire details like brake gear piping, grabs, cut bars and train line hose finished the detailing.
These three hoppers came in a single box from Atlas–they’ve had their details enhanced and have been extensively weathered but are otherwise stock
The Monon 50T hoppers are pretty much stock, factory painted Atlas hoppers. I used my favorite “grab narrowing” trick where I carefully cut away the back of the ladder grab irons with a sharp No 11 X-Acto blade. This makes the detail look much finer from any distance and is easier and quicker, in my opinion, than completely replacing the grabs with wire. I did add some wire grabs on the lower ends along with some cut levers and train line hoses.
Southern 50T hopper in Roman scheme weathered as if it’s seen a few miles
The Southern 50T offset hopper is a factory-painted Athearn model from a set of six (more of these to do). The roman lettering was common in the early ’60s and was almost entirely phased out by 1970. I wanted to model it in its last year or so of old paint. Detail-wise, it got the narrowed grab treatment, a new Kadee brake wheel, and a few wire details.
These two ex-Central of Georgia hoppers started as Roundhouse kits but are full of added and modified parts
The most work-intensive of the bunch were the two ex-CofGa 70T hoppers. These began as factory-painted Roundhouse kits (one used, one “new” but very old stock). Up to this point, I’ve been content to use the Atlas Trainman version of this car which is a pretty good stand-in. I also use the Atlas cars for my “primary” Southern 70T hopper fleet, and in reality, the Central of Georgia cars are 14″ shorter in length (40’6″) than the Southern’s big 70300-73749 class of cars (41’8″)… crazy me, I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to have the ex-CofGa hopper be noticeably shorter in a lineup?” Let’s just say these cars need a LOT of work to bring them up to modern standards and to correct the most egregiously noticeable detail faults and missing details. Lots of styrene, cuts, and extra details later, these cars emerged. Perhaps I’ll do a whole write-up on them [see the full write-up here], but they do, indeed, look cool and distinct in a lineup of Southern 70T cars… was it worth it? Only to a hopper freak like me.
I spent more time than normal weathering the interiors of these hoppers using a combination of airbrush, washes, and dry brushing
Most of these models represent cars that were already 10-25 years old when I’m modeling them, so they got some pretty heavy weathering. I did some dry brushing of rust spots on the exterior. The Monon cars got some car-colored dry brushing to fade portions of the big “MONON” using pictures as a guide. On several of the cars, I masked off portions of the data (LT WT and LD LMT) and shop markings with rectangles of tape–when peeled off after the airbrushing, it looks like re-stenciled data which is appropriate for cars this age. I airbrushed them all with a light spray of flat tan to fade them a little and add some dirt, especially around the trucks and bays. I also airbrushed some flat black into the interiors–the older the car being represented, the more black it got. Next I used a wash of black with a little tan on the outside to darken the seams and corners and dull things down. On the inside, I used a wash of Vallejo “orange rust” and water and dabbed it on heavily with a big brush, letting it dry in splotches and in the corners (some got a couple coats). For the oldest cars, I drybrushed the interior with orange rust, particularly along edges and panel lines. Finally, I put dabs of Vallejo “dark rust” into the centers of the orange spots to make it look like an old but growing rust spot with fresh orange rust along the outsides and dark rust in the middle.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the additions, and it’s fun to have a few “rust buckets” running around in the trains. Can’t wait to load ’em at the next ops session!
The 16 hoppers of the April 2022 class finished and ready for the next session
The St Charles Branch would like to welcome the Southern Hopper Class of April 2022 to the roster! The 16 cars in this graduating class are the largest group of cars I’ve ever finished at one time (and probably the largest group I’ll EVER attempt at one time). The 16 hoppers, including a foreign exchange student from the Clinchfield, represent cars across the layout’s range of ops session eras from mid ’60s (cars still in roman font) to the mid ’70s (brand new 100T hoppers). Consequently, all were weathered a bit differently from a 55T twin with dents and lots of grunge to brand new with just a little grime on the trucks and underside.
A Tangent 70T PS3 clone next to an upgraded Atlas Trainman car
A few of the cars (CRR 70T and 50T extended-height war-emergency rebuild) have been complete and just awaiting weathering for several years. Some of the cars have been running on the layout for a while but didn’t yet have their full set of details or weathering. The bulk of the cars are Atlas 70T Trainman hoppers, which I love because they’re relatively cheap but have good wheels and trucks and great paint for budget cars. Some Trainman hoppers got a full set of new grabs (did this a while ago). Most Trainman hoppers (along with a pair of Bowser/Stewart 12 panel hoppers) got the standard treatment of getting the grabs shaved down to a more reasonable thickness front-to-back using an X-Acto blade. Other added details include Kadee #5s, plastic bits for tack boards and door bars, wire grabs adjacent to the couplers, homemade tow loops, homemade train lines (copper wire from Cat 5 cable), and homemade coupler cut bars (bent from .012″ brass wire on a homemade jig). A few got dents added in the top sill by softening them with a 100W lightbulb. A few of the cars came with heap shields (correct only for a small number of ex Central of Georgia cars) that got removed as well. I also swapped out the trucks on the Tangent 100T cars–I decided I wanted cars that roll well more than neat spinning roller bearings.
Two of the more heavily weathered hoppers of the batch–note the dents in the top sill of 70439
All but one of these cars is factory painted which saves a TON of time. I changed some of the numbers by scraping them off gently with an X-Acto chisel blade (along with the later round “O”s on some of the Atlas cars) and replaced them with decals. Most cars received ACI labels (1967+) and a couple got lube plates (1974+). Before weathering, I covered some of the weight and shop stencils with rectangles of masking tape to represent re-stenciled cars. I ran them through a weathering assembly line that included coats of various thickness of airbrushed flat black followed by light tan. I then painted out a few more weight panels with fresh oxide red and added some stencil data in a different font to a couple cars. A few of the cars got some drybrushed rust marks too. Finally, most of the cars got a wash of flat black inside and out. Overall I’m really happy with how they turned out, but I don’t think I’ll ever assembly line 16 cars again… do you know how many wheel faces that is to paint? 16 cars x 8 wheels x 2 faces per wheel = a ton of wheels (that’s 128 wheels and 256 faces… don’t hurt yourself doing the math)! Still, it will be worth it to see coal trains with a lot fewer shiny cars in the mix.
The Tangent hoppers represent cars built in 1975 so weathering is minimal
You may remember Southern GP7 2187, a Proto GP7 I finished last summer. Well in addition to fixing the railings and steps for my 1970 timeframe (black and white instead of yellow), I decided to install sound. Now sound is something pretty new and intimidating to me, but after running a couple factory-equipped sound locomotives, it was tough to go back to no sound. I finally decided to just jump in! There are many great sound decoders out there, and everyone has their preference. I won’t claim to be an expert, but after doing some research, I decided to start with some Soundtraxx Econami decoders. As you might guess from the name, these are “budget” decoders that run about 2/3 the cost of a full-featured sound decoder from any manufacturer. The Econami is pretty basic, but it does have the key features I need, and it uses the same basic sounds as the more expensive Tsunami 2s. Best of all, the Econami Diesel version allows the user to select from a handful of prime movers including everything I need for my first-generation fleet: the Alco 244 for RS3s and the non-turbo EMD 567 for Fs, GP7s and GP9s.
Basic mapping of a 21-pin connector for DCC (use at your own risk)
Soundtraxx makes two versions of the diesel Econami, the larger ECO-PNP and the smaller 21-pin ECO-21PNEM. I picked up a couple ECO-PNPs, one of which was intended for 2187, but once I got the decoder, it was obvious that it wouldn’t fit without major modification to the large metal weight–I needed something smaller. After installing the PNPs in an RS3 (just barely) and an F3A, I decided I was happy with the sound produced by the Econami and a pair of mini cube speakers, so I looked to see if I could install the smaller 21-pin decoder in the GP7. The 21-pin arrangement is newer, and I was surprised at how tough it was to find a cheap 21 pin harness I could wire into the locomotive. You can find cheaper ones in Britain, but it was going to cost me an extra $20 to get one in the states–what’s the point of using the Econami if a simple harness was going to eat up all the savings?
Taking 8mm off the height of the weight in the nose of the Proto GP7 to make room for speakers
So, could I get the 21-pin Econami to work without a harness? While it was a little tough to find info, I finally figured out the mapping of the 21 pins (thankfully German shares some commonality with English…). I knew it wouldn’t be practical to solder directly into the decoder (the pin holes are tiny and close together), but I thought I might be able to shape the wires to act as pins, so I ordered up an ECO-21PNEM. What I found was I could tin the wires on the locomotive, cut the end so about 2mm of metal was exposed, and then carefully insert the wire into the correct pin hole. While the connection is not bulletproof, it’s snug enough that the wires don’t come out easily, and if you can push the wire in until the insulation is flush with the board, there’s little chance of a short. For the extra wires (e.g., speaker wires), I used 30 AWG stranded wire tinned with solder–I had to use a little extra solder to get a snug fit, so a 28 AWG wire would probably work as well. Once I verified everything worked, I used a piece of electrical tape to hold the wires down and in-place.
Using a 21-pin Econami decoder without a 21-pin harness
Now for the speaker. Unfortunately, I decided to use the large clear plastic blocks for the number boards and lights, so the little room that was left in the top of the shell was taken up. I decided the best course of action was to take the weight off and remove about 8mm of metal height from the nose section with a hacksaw. After filing the cut clean, I was ready to install the speakers. I’m using the 11 x 15mm cube speakers made by Loksound. You can find a lot of sources for speakers this size, but I love that the Loksound versions come with different baffle arrangements including both short and tall and a base to install two speakers side-by-side (my preference). I built a double baffle with the short walls using CA and connected the speakers in series (16 ohms impedence). Yes, the decoder is 8 ohms and the speakers are 16 ohms. My research leads me to believe this is not ideal but is acceptable as long as I don’t run the amp at max, which I don’t–if you have a good technical reason why this is not a good idea and will damage things in the long-run, please feel free to post a comment!
So, in the end, I was able to fit a sound decoder and two small speakers into the Proto GP7 with just a small, one-cut modification to the body weight, and I’m really happy with the sound! I’ve got a Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 EMD diesel decoder now as well, so I’ll do a comparison at some point and let you know how I think the Econami compares. For now, I’ll enjoy the chugging sounds of the EMD 567 and hauling coal hoppers interrupted occasionally by the chimes of a Nathan M5! St Charles is now a much louder place.
I’d had my eye on this project since the first time I saw a picture of one of these cars online. There were two challenges that held me back. First, no one made the right decals. Secondly, no one makes this car, so it would be a pretty major kitbash. It’ sat on the “someday” list until K4 Decals produced a set of good looking decals. The main excuse was now out-the-window, so I had to bite the bullet and figure out how to kitbash the car. The challenge is the shallower and steeper offset angles–they’re very distinctive and different from the angles on common twin hoppers like the old Athearn and newer Atlas models. The only thing that looked close were the angles on the old Athearn blue box quad hopper. I had one sitting on the shelf, so I took a closer look. It turns out the angles are perfect, as are the rivet strips and rivet patterns along the ribs. So, how to turn a quad hopper into a twin.
Cutting down a quad hopper to make a twin sounds pretty straightforward. If you don’t care about having an extra rivet strip, it is! Of course, I had to care… sigh. There’s an extra rib between the rivet strips on the twin compared to the quad, so I had to figure out how to get the extra rib in there. Turns out, there’s just no way to do it with a single shell (or I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out), but it was possible using two shells–2 quad shells to make a 1 twin… makes sense. I guess technically I could make 2 twins with 3 shells, so I did keep the extra pieces in case the bug strikes again.
2. Cut hopper bodies
Picture 1 in the gallery shows the two original shells, and you can make out the pencil lines where the cuts need to be. I chose a spot between rivets to give myself a chance of saving the rivet detail in the putty and sanding step later. Using a razor saw, I cut each shell into three pieces as seen in picture 2 with the black hopper providing the ends and the red hopper providing the center. After cleaning the bays off what would become the center, I glued the ends to the new center piece as shown in picture 3. This step is the most critical of the whole project, and it took some filing to get everything square. I used plastic model cement to give myself time to line up the pieces–it’s crucial to get the sides aligned so they’re “level” across the gap. A gap is easy to fill and sand flat, but only if the sides are even with one another.
Once this new shell had dried thoroughly, I removed the top chord. The top chord on the original model is pretty chunky, and it would be easier to add a new one across the gap than try to fill every gap on top perfectly. It was pretty simple using a No 11 X-Acto blade swiped repeatedly under the top chord resulting in the shell seen in picture 4. Next, I filled the gaps with modeler’s putty. Using a combination of the back of an X-Acto blade and fine sandpaper, I was able to get the joint pretty smooth, and I was careful to stay away from the rivets as you can see in picture 5. This was also a good time to remove all the molded-on grabs with a combination of nippers and X-Acto blades. I found the corner posts and ladder posts to be really thick, so I whittled them down a little on the back side with an X-Acto. I also trimmed the top of the bottom sill near the ends to make it a consistent thickness instead of a taper like the model.
7. New styrene top chord
Next I worked on the center sill and undersides. First I cut the center out of a single underbody to shorten it to the right length and joined the ends together with glue. After it set, I used a large X-Acto chisel blade to remove some the material as shown in picture 6. I left a little strip to hold the hopper doors on. Next, I added a new top chord to the shell. I didn’t have the bag to verify, but I believe I used Evergreen HO scale 2×6 for the sides and 2×8 for the end to get to picture 7. I added four corner caps made from .010″ sheet styrene and rounded them on the top and on the corner after they dried using a file. Moving back to the underbody, I removed the existing mounting “blobs” for the brake gear, and in their place, I added angles from the bolster area to the corners using strip styrene (this was a pain, but I found if I cut them to the approximate shape, glued them with plastic cement, then press fit the underbody onto the shell and maneuvered the angles into position while the glue was still wet (I didn’t glue the underbody to the shell yet). When the angles had set, I added the brake parts including some brass wire for piping and a bracket for the reservoir made from sheet styrene as shown in picture 8.
10. Finished interior
The interior of the car was challenging. I went ahead and glued the underbody and doors in place first, then added some styrene square rod above the doors to get it even with the model’s center sill piece. The new center slope sheets were cut from a single piece of styrene, and I used a pounce wheel to put some rivet lines into it to match the end slope sheets. Because of the ribs, the new slope sheet didn’t quite reach the sides, so I used bits of styrene to fill in the gap between ribs as seen in picture 9. Next came the not-so-fun part of turning the flat center sill ridge inside the car into a tapered one. I don’t have interior photos of one of these cars, but I can’t imagine using a flat top when you want the coal to exit the car. This step was not fun. Not one bit. Lot’s of measuring, cutting, folding, and taking back out and cutting again. My pieces ended up being too wide, but I just glued them on, let them set, then trimmed them to the width of the ridge in the shell with an X-Acto blade. Some styrene strips to make the angle braces and the interior was complete as seen in picture 10.
11. Final details added
Now I was ready for all the little details that you can see in picture 11. I drilled holes and installed all the grabs, making the long grabs on the non-ladder side from brass wire. I added coupler cut bars to a bracket made from styrene and an eye bolt. I made tow loops from brass wire, and I made a new brake platform from bits of styrene and some brass Apex roof walk material. I added the brake line along one side using brass wire and eye bolts. I added some tack boards from styrene on the bottom sill. I added train line hoses made from copper wire from old Cat 5 cable glued between two styrene angle bits (makes for an indestructible train line). A kept the molded on steps as I needed them to be durable for layout handling, but I used an X-Acto blade to shave them down a bit in the back to thin them out. Finally, I added a little buckling to the top chord using a 100W lightbulb held to the styrene for a few seconds and then pushed down using the handle of an X-Acto knife (be careful, the styrene melts really quickly). It was finally ready for paint (picture 12).
16. Final hopper – interior weathering
I first sprayed everything black, then gave it a couple coats of “burnt sienna” for the boxcar red. Because the paint was very flat, I sprayed it with a couple coats of Testors Glosscoat (rattle can) to prep it for decals. The K4 decals worked really well and had just about everything needed with the exception of an ACI label I stole from a Microscale data set. The K4 set looks like it’s designed for a 33′ car, and this prototype is a 34′ car. I ended up cutting the road name into “CENTRAL,” “OF” and “GEORGIA.” I place the end lettering first and then centered the “OF” between them, a little more spaced out than the decal sheet. I used about 800 applications of Micro Sol and Micro Set and pushed the decal firmly onto the body using a damp paper towel until everything was nice and snug over the rivets and on the body as seen in picture 13.
Weathering was a three step process. First, I dry brushed a little dark rust color both inside the hopper and in a few spots on the outside using a picture of this specific car as a guide. Next I gave it a couple of washes with very thinned black and then tan paint, wiping it off down the car (like rain streaks). Finally, I airbrushed some black inside the hopper and underneath followed by a couple coats of tan, hitting the trucks and hopper bays harder than the body to get the final model shown in pictures 14-17.
I’m very happy with how this project turned out, but I’m also very happy I don’t need a fleet of these cars. Many will look at this car on the layout as “just another offset hopper,” but I’ll always know the extra work that went into building a more accurate model of a neat prototype.
1. The two Athearn quad shells with pencil lines where the cuts will be made
Interstate hand-me-down hopper in transloader service
Added another hopper to the roster today. This car is one of the hand-me-down hoppers given to the Interstate in the early ’60s when the INT was under Southern ownership but still operating independently. The independence didn’t stop the Southern from specifying a Southern-inspired paint scheme. This model started life as an Athearn blue box model–it was a hand-me-down from an old friend and mentor who got me into model railroading as a kid, so the body of this car must be 40 years old! The toughest part of this model was modifying the angular peaked ends to the oval version seen here. The cars in this series were a hodgepodge with various ends, so photos are helpful. Other details include DA steps, tichy grabs, and some homemade tow loops. The decals came from K4 Decals, and the unit received moderately heavy weathering to reflect its age and status as an end-of-life car.
After 1965 when the Southern consolidated its operations at the Interstate’s Andover Yard, most of these cars spent the rest of their lives in captive service between the Interstate and St Charles area mines and the Westmoreland Transloader that was build on top of the Southern’s old yard in Appalachia, VA. These cars became known as “yellow balls” because many of them had a large yellow circle painted on the side. This is actually my first time actually applying a “yellow ball” to a model hopper, and it’s definitely something I’ll duplicate in the future as it makes these cars very distinctive!
Interstate hand-me-down hopper in transloader service
Interstate hand-me-down hopper in transloader service
Finished car with some light black and tan airbrushing on the sides, trucks and interior
The Southern Railway was definitely known for innovation, especially in the ’60s. They were one of the first railroads to use large numbers of 100T hoppers for moving coal. The Southern still had a large number of usable 50T cars, particularly war emergency rebuilds and ex-Interstate hoppers, so they permanently paired some of them into what they deemed 100T “articulated hoppers.” There was nothing fancy about it, they just removed the coupler cut levers from between the cars, put the brake ends of each car at the ends, and numbered them as a single car. The idea was it allowed 100 tons of coal to be moved in a single car shipment for a customer which gave these old cars a little more life in the 100T era. There were several paint schemes used on these cars include a red version with “SOUTHERN” on the left-hand car and the car number on the right-hand car. Some cars had a black version of this. The most striking and unique cars were those painted with giant lettering and “SOUT” on one car and “HERN” on the other–this is the car I wanted to model.
The base cars were easy enough. They’re essentially stock Proto 2000 War Emergency hoppers with a couple minor modifications. I trimmed the tow loops off the bottom, added small beveled strips of styrene under the outermost ribs, and used bent .012″ wire to fashion new side-mounted tow loops above the styrene strips. I also used dummy couplers on the “A” ends of the cars that I pulled out of an Accurail 50T AAR hopper kit–this will keep operators from inadvertently uncoupling the car on the layout. I only added coupler cut bars to the “B” ends like the prototype, and I added a scratchbuilt train line air hose to each end (piece of bent copper wire from old Cat 5 cable sandwiched between two styrene L-shapes).
Step 4. Apply the lettering masks to the car, cutting around the ribs
The tricky part of this model is the lettering. No one makes a lettering set that even comes close, so I would need to either make my own decals or somehow mask and paint the lettering–I opted for the latter technique. First, I had to draw up some artwork. I used my favorite graphics program, Microsoft PowerPoint, to create the lettering using large rectangles and quarter circles. Once it looked about right, I copied and pasted the lettering as an image (right click and picture icon) on a new sheet, then I was able to size it and print it with the letters 3′ tall in HO scale and the numbers 2′ tall. Then I covered the lettering with some Tamiya model masking tape and ran it through the printer again to get the ink onto the top of the tape. Warning: even after the ink dries, it still smears a bit, so I used another piece of plain masking tape to remove some of the ink, and I was careful not to get smudgy fingers on the car.
Speaking of the car, I airbrushed the sides white and let them dry overnight. Back to the lettering, I carefully peeled the tape off the paper and placed it on a clean cutting mat. Then I used a straightedge and Xacto blade to cut along all the straight edges. I freehanded the corners which was a bit more challenging. The angled ribs on this car required me to eyeball where the rib would go through the letter (I had a picture of an actual car), so for each rib I removed about 1/16″ of masking tape. Next, I peeled the letter mask off the cutting board and applied it lightly to the car, using a blade to lift and reposition it as needed. After all the lettering was in place, I used the round end of the Xacto handle to burnish the tape onto the sides securely.
Step 7. Carefully remove the masking using a sharp blade to get under the tape
Back to the painting booth, I first sprayed the cars with black as a dark primer and then gave them a couple coats of oxide red and let them dry for an hour. After the paint was dry, I carefully removed the tape from the sides using a blade and careful fingers to reveal the white lettering. I thought I was going to have a lot of touch-up to do, but the tape held up very well and left mostly clean edges. With all the tape off, I then used a brush and white paint to fill in the lettering gaps across the ribs. I sprayed it with some gloss coat and applied the capacity stencils and other small lettering from a Microscale data sheet using multiple liberal coats of decal solvent and decal setting solution. After letting the decals dry for a day, I hit the cars with another coat of gloss (the paint came out REALLY dull, so even with three coats of gloss it’s pretty dull).
For weathering, I first dry brushed a little light rust and dark rust onto the car, mostly on the inside to simulate a few years of wear with the paint just starting to wear through where the coal repeatedly tugs at it. Next I gave all surfaces of the car a couple coats of black wash (water with a dab of paint). I worked one set of sides at a time (one “SOUT” and one “HERN”) to ensure the weathering was consistent across cars, brushing on the wash, letting it sit for a couple minutes, then dabbing and streaking it off down the sides with a moist paper towel. I followed the black wash with a single wash of tan. The final weathering was some black airbrushing inside the hopper and along the bottom followed by some light tan airbrushing on the sides and trucks.
Finished 100T articulated hopper showing the huge “SOUT” and “HERN” lettering
I’m pretty happy with how this car turned out. It’s definitely unique and is bound to be a conversation piece on the layout. I can’t wait to watch the first operator trying to uncouple the dummy couplers so I can give them a little history lesson in Southern innovation!
Step 1. Print the artwork, cover with masking tape, and print again
Step 2. Paint the sides of the cars white
Step 3. Cut out the letters using a sharp blade and straightedge
Step 4. Apply the lettering masks to the car, cutting around the ribs
Step 5. Paint the car (I primed with black first)
Step 6. Let the paint dry
Step 7. Carefully remove the masking using a sharp blade to get under the tape
Step 8. Ensure all tape is removed
Step 9. Paint the white lettering onto the ribs using a brush
Step 10. Dry brush some rust–I dry brushed lightly on the sides and a little heavier inside, then I did a black wash and a tan wash
Step 11. Finished car with some light black and tan airbrushing on the sides, trucks and interior
Finished car showing the brake detail on the ends
Finished 100T articulated hopper showing the huge “SOUT” and “HERN” lettering
The next installment in the “heritage fleet” of hoppers is an original Norfolk Southern 70T car still in gray paint. The NS wasn’t acquired until 1974, so this represents a car most likely in “yellow ball” captive service to the Appalachia, VA transloader in the late ’70s.
Orginal NS 70T hopper that’s seen a bit of service
The model is a factory painted Bowser hopper with some detail upgrades. Because it will be a light gray hopper in a sea of black and brown, I figured it would catch the eye more than most cars, so it has a higher level of detail than most of my cars. I removed the molded-on grabs and replaced them with wire, upgraded the brake detail, and added coupler cut bars and a trainline. Weathering if primarily drybrushing for the rust spots. I’m pretty happy with how the inside turned out–it’s two colors of rust drybrushing (dark rust for most with light rust around the paint edges) and a little black airbrushing.
These heritage cars are a lot of fun! I’ll need at least one 55T fishbelly hopper in NS gray as well.
Rusty inside of an original NS hopper made from a Bowser model
Two Southern “heritage fleet” hoppers being spotted
One of my goals is to have a fleet of “heritage fleet” hoppers representing each of the railroads purchased by the Southern and L&N in the 50s-70s. I’ve already got plenty of Interstate RR hoppers from the previous layout, but this is my first completed Central of Georgia hopper. Most of these were repainted into the Southern’s 74000 series, but some kept their CofGa reporting marks well beyond the merger. This model represents a car showing a lot of rust and wear and ready for the shop.
Old CG hopper ready for another trip to the shop for a repaint
It’s a stock, factory pained Atlas Trainman hopper with some detail upgrades including shaved-down grabs and a few wire details like the homemade trainline hoses and coupler cut bars. I spent most of the time on weathering. It’s mostly drybrushing to get the rust effects including the subtle ring inside the car. The data is supposed to represent a shop patch job, but it didn’t turn out as distinct as I would have liked. Lesson learned for next time.
Today was a big day!… but it shouldn’t have been. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I completed a locomotive model… like 7 years. Now it’s been less than a day as I put the finishing touches on Southern GP7 2187 today. This model started as a Proto 2000 GP7, and I’d gotten it through at least its initial detailing and coat of black paint several years ago. Last week, I finally decided it was time, and I decaled, added the last of the details, and weathered it.
Southern GP7 2187 from a modified Proto 2000 model
I modeled 2187 as she appeared around 1970. This was one of a handful of GP7s the Southern modified with Locotrol in the 1960s (hence the white number boards), but it seemed to spend most of its life in secondary service. Photos place it in southwestern Virginia in the late ’60s and again in ’71 after a trip to the shop that added the Southern-style sunshades and ACI tag. Modifications to the model include a 36″ dynamic fan, fan shroud and blank grill cover, scratchbuilt spark arrestors, modified fuel tank skirting, Southern-style sunshades, 5-chime horn, and Locotrol details like the 3 antennas and extra conduit.
Southern GP7 2187 from a modified Proto 2000 model
Southern GP7 2187 from a modified Proto 2000 model
Atlas 70T hopper upgraded to the layout “standard” which includes factory paint, modified grabs, a few details, and multiple layers of simple weathering
In addition to building the layout, I’m also spending some time building the hopper fleet to occupy it. I figure I’ll need somewhere between 100-200 hoppers. I’ve already modeled more than a dozen classes of hoppers for the layout, but the most numerous hopper will be a Southern 70-ton 3-bay hopper. The Southern had about 4,000 of these cars in the 1960s, and thankfully the Atlas Trainman 70T hopper is a pretty close stand-in.
The detail on the Atlas car is slightly above what you’d expect from an entry-level model with sharp paint, good rivets and crisp detail, but it still needs a little work to be ready for a prototype-based layout. Out of the box, the most detrimental feature is the chunky molded-on grab irons for the corner ladders. I’ve superdetailed a few of these cars by completely stripping the ladders and adding individual wire grabs, but it’s a lot of work for a middle-of-the-train car–not something I want to replicate on 60 cars. I’ve found I can improve the look of the ladders significantly by carving away the thickness of the molded grabs with an XActo knife, and it takes a lot less time and detail parts than adding wire.
Comparison of three Atlas hoppers including one straight out of the box (left), one with detail enhancements in progress (middle), and a finished car.
Additional details include a set of wire grabs on the end sills, a coupler cut bar, tack boards (scrap styrene), and a train-line hose made from a piece of stripped copper Cat 5 wire super-glued between two L-shaped pieces made into a box. While the wire lacks the detail of a molded plastic or brass part, it’s cheap, easy to make, and most importantly, it’s nearly indestructible (my last layout was littered with broken-off hoses). I also replace the plastic couplers with good-old Kadee No 5s. This was another lesson learned from the previous layout–smaller couplers like No 58s didn’t couple well on curves, and there are a LOT of curves on an Appalachian layout! The reliable operation is well worth the sacrifice in fine detail, though I’ll still likely keep the smaller couplers on locomotives and cabooses.
The final detail is the weathering which includes washes of black and grimy tan and light sprays of tan, black and rust via an airbrush. For some cars, I’ll also do some “restenciling” of the car data by painting fresh boxcar red over top of the washes and adding some decals.
Most of the detail enhancements are given to the ends of the cars
Being set in the 1960s and 70s, I’ll also need a few different paint jobs on the layout. Some will be the original black with Roman “SOUTHERN” lettering that most of the cars were delivered in. Several will be in the middle scheme with the older Roman “SOUTHERN” lettering on red. Most will be red repaints with the Most will be red repaints with the big rounded “SOUTHERN” lettering on the sides. For the Atlas cars, the repaint scheme often involves replacing the circular “O” with a more square “O” (the circles weren’t common until the late ’70s/early ’80s), removing the lube plates, and modifying the numbers to make them unique. I can usually remove letters, numbers and lube plates by repeatedly scraping a square XActo blade along the sides of the car. This mix of paint schemes and differences in weathering should add a good bit of realism to a train snaking through the layout.
