This weekend I made my first attempt at weathering rolling stock using acrylic and enamel paints, Bragdon weathering powders and Testers Dullcoat. The hopper is an Accurail kit and it took about 4 hours from initial kit building to finishing up the weathering. This is an Airslide Center Flow (ACF) Kansas City Southern (KCS) hopper that was put into service in 1994 and is showing it's 15 years of use on the rails.
Here is the before shot...

Located in Bryson City, NC just behind the Smoky Mountain Railroad station and depot this museum houses the largest collection of Lionel trains with over 7,000 pieces of locomotives, rolling stock, trackside details and accessories. Some pieces dating back to 1918 and are displayed in enclosed floor to ceiling wall length cases.

 I hope you enjoy the short video tour.

This is my first attempt at editing a video short and it is composed from a series of captures on our Great Smoky Mountain Railroad excursion what was on Friday, November 28, 2008.

EDIT: Based on initial reviews I have added some audio and commentary to the video and have replaced the original with this new version.

I decided it was time to tackle the next step on my blue backdrop. I took notes and also made a list of paints and brushes I needed to ensure I was up to speed on creating my mountain scenery. So with the list in hand I went to Michael's Arts and Crafts supply store Sunday afternoon and returned home with a mission, about two hours later I had my first layer of mountains chalked in and painted for the west and south sections of the lower deck.

Last year I donated a dollar a day to the local PBS television station WUNC-TV here in the Raleigh/Durham area and as a part of the drive I got some free gifts from the Scenic Railroads television show as well as 4 free tickets to ride on the excursion train at the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad (GSMRR) in Bryson City, NC. So in September we planned a trip to the Smoky's for the Thanksgiving Holidays. We arrived at the GSMRR Friday morning around 8:45am in preparation for our 10:30am departure.

This was originally posted in my blog on the Model Trains Universe site on April 27, 2007 and re-posted on the Piedmont Division Blog on November 16, 2007, and now re-posted here on the new MRH site today!

We went to the Great Train Expo on Sunday here in Raleigh and they had a good many booths this time around, but one thing that really got me was the number of vendors who seem to price their items at twice the amount most people can afford to pay. Now my LTS Train Buddy had a section too, and I spent $140.00 on stuff from him because he is always 20% to 25% below MSRP for most items. This is a photo of Kim Parker at TB explaining something of importance to Monique, but I cannot remember what he was talking about.