Rest of story - part 2

I am up for anything that did not involve ore cars for awhile, so we procured a bunch of cars at a local flea market and also some online.                                                                                                                                                                           

The operating plan calls for at least 21 of the large boxcars, so I volunteered to paint and decal many of them into different road names if they were going to stay as “fleet cars”. I did not want to change out grab iron, drop steps, stirrups, brake wheels, etc on 20+ cars. I was up for painting and decal work, even some weathering as I like all those aspects of the hobby. These would be good ‘three foot cars’, or look great from layout edge, but not be any contest entries. I am 99% sure that if I did all the detail work, the day before I applied the final spray of dull coat, a manufacturer would announce 86 foot auto boxcars with all the details and operating doors and complete airbrakes. I have down time between runs as a road pool engineer for Union Pacific and I like to spend my free time working on projects, so I can spend my home time with my lovely wife and family. OK, I maybe sneak off to the layout room when home too, but that’s the next blog.

We decided that those ICG cars and Milwaukee Road would be perfect for his mid-1980’s era layout. The Milwaukee Road cars were made by Athearn many years ago, good luck finding them. The next thing was to locate decals, then paint. Daniel Kohlberg makes some great decals, mostly to do with the IC,ICG and affiliates. His set ICG-15 for 86 foot boxcars is spectacular. Contains all the lettering you would ever need. I sent off for three sets and some other decals to add some orange ICG flavor to my freight fleet. Check out all his stuff at Paducah@mindspring.com 

The Milwaukee Road decals proved a bit more elusive. Miller Advertising, Herald King to most of us, makes set B-372. I was able to locate two sets on the internet. I guess my search for the third set will continue. After receiving all the decals I brush coated Microscale liquid decal film on them. Two coats were recommended. Dan Kohlberg was right in saying that those big 11 foot ICG logos would appreciate it. I actually should have used three coats. The Herald King sets were old, so I do this as a precaution to prevent breaking up of the decal during application process. While they were drying, it was off to the paint booth for the ICG cars, and the paint stripper for the Milwaukee Road cars. The ICG orange was dark enough to cover up the previous road names, the Milwaukee Road yellow would not fair as well. I stripped those two cars in 91% alcohol bath, procured from the local Walgreens. All cars were then washed in warm soapy water and allowed to dry before primer.

part - 3 decals, decals, decals..

The cars were all painted and then I applied two coats of gloss coat. I loaded up the cars, decals and tools into my grip and now had some fun projects to work on during my down time.

I cut out all the lettering, which was a lot. I guess when you have 86 feet to work with, you can add as much lettering as you want. I soaked them on a washcloth and then used Micro-Sol to put them into position. I then applied many coats of Micro Set to make the decals lay flat against all the detail work and door panels.

After many trips and all the decals applied, I put two coats of dull coat over them and then painted the frames. I used DRGW freight car brown, my new go-to color for dirt and such. I like this much better than black as you can see some underbody detail and it also weathers up nice.

I then assembled the cars with the weights provided, using CA to glue the weights and screws in place. I usually would now work on the trucks, wheels and weathering. But the new owner wants some fun projects to work on between his daughters soccer games and gymnastics classes.

Things I changed, as the Milwaukee Road decals called for black ends. I did not find any pictures to support this, so I painted them yellow as per the car sides. I like the Tru Color shade, but need to adjust my air brush spray pressure next time. 86 foot boxcars take up a lot more room than my normal 24 foot ore cars, but are a lot more colorful.

Thanks for looking, Thomas G.