I just unboxed two InterMountain UP autoracks. Weathering is mandatory - even more as the yellow is a little bit off and rather toy-like.

At first I applied a coat of matte acrylic varnish to get a "sticky" surface for the following - not shown here.

Next I wanted to have a faded look - the look of many hour of sunshine bleaching everything. Therefore I applied three coats of a white acrylic wash:

Got a container today. At first this seems to be quite ordinary. But unboxing was like a locomotive:

Container is really nice made, detailed and printed:

Perhaps you already know this technique for unloading gondolas:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qrdaMq2tI

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeH_KT4lpbA

I'm building a modern billboard - the first steps:

These styrene sheets will hold the advertisement itself:

And that's the supporting structure on the back so far:

I started doing some short and not so short videos of operations on the Somewhere Southwest switching layout - which I will present in this blog.

Are there any means in modern times to move a freight car without an engine?

Let's assume there is an industry which receives some bulk material in a covered hopper. It can be unloaded in an underground bunker, but only one outlet at the same time, then the car has to be moved until the next outlet is over the bunker. 

I want to show you how I am making trash bags:

I found out by accident (yes, it was really an accident :-) how acrylic paint (i.e. weathering) can be removed:

1. glass fiber eraser
2. isopropyl alcohol
3. methylated spirit
4. mouthwash
5. methylated spirit, mouthwash, water

Usually you can see well cars and autorack cars making up a whole train or at least a large cut of it. But sometimes there is a mixed freight with one single well car or one single autorack car in between other cars.

Are they really spotted to a customer at some team track or so which receives only one single container or one single autorack car? Unloading a single well car somewhere should not be too complicated, you only need some crane. But unloading the upper level of an autorack car isn't too easy unless you have the right fixture for it.

"Somewhere Southwest" is a switching layout in H0-scale. It is located where it's hot&dry - in the southwest of the United States.