Progress Update #11

Well, I think its time to share some projects. Lately I've been busy bike racing and working at camps, but on the down time I've been able to tinker with a few locomotives. I had three Milwaukee Road units sitting in a drawer and were rarely used. So, instead of attempting to sell them, I thought, what the heck, I'll just paint them and see what happens! A common goal I have in modelling is to do projects as cheaply as possible. Being a high school student with many expensive hobbies, something has give. I really do enjoy being cheap (resourceful is a better word). There's more satisfaction from using something from the scrap box rather than a product that everyone else has on their layouts. All that to say, I really enjoyed trying to bring these engines to life with an average of $3 per engine (so far...).

After a little research I found the BN locomotives I wanted to transform these MILW Rd. units into. I looked at tons of photos (some were courtesy of Mike Bartenstein) and tried to find the same type of locos as my three models. The Athern RTR GP38-2 would become BN GP38-2 #2079, since I found some quality photos of it on the Nelson Line in the early 80's. The Athern Genesis F7 would become BN #720. I didn't find any photos of this engine on the Nelson Line, but I knew it ran on a branch line next to where my father grew up. He would have seen #720 pulling lumber from Wheyerhauser mill in Snoqualmie, WA. And... I don't know about the F7B yet. I'll probably just choose one of the last prototypes to have gotten scrapped.

The first step I did was obviously strip the paint. I then filed, puttied, and cleaned up all the bad or misplaced details. After that, I added new details, a.k.a lots of brass wire and styrene! The locos were then primed with some cheap grey rattle can primer. The paint I then used was also rattle can stuff(haven't yet gotten into the world of airbrushing). For the green I used some light green gloss Testors paint and a cheap flat black. Not ideal, but they turned out alright(Dullcoat and weathering can mask some imperfections!). I just had enough decals for #720. The F7A isn't complete, but it's pretty close. So, here's some photos of where I am at.

Another project I basically finished was applying scenery to the lift bridge. I wanted to add some interest without having the scenery obstructed when the gate was in the down position. I settled on modelling a road (Hyw. 395) and a small ranch scene. For the ranch scene I made a cattle guard from rail and a basic fence from thread and ties. For the grass I just used some 2mm static grass, but I'll add taller grass later.