Although I'm more one to post how-to blogs than updates, I thought I'd try to combine the two to some degree here today as I have about a week until I go back to college. I've had about three weeks off now, but unfortunately many projects only get about 50% done until I realize that I don't have an essential tool or part to complete the job.

Hey guys. I've been meaning to start a weathering project for a boxcar I bought off of Ebay and was wondering if I could get your help with it. I picked up an old Athearn? 50' boxcar decorated for the Marinette Tomahawk & Western Railway. I had intended to weather it for a Hartford & Slocomb patchout but the MTW car was hard to come by for a price I could live with. I eventually settled for the older, less detailed model because I was willing to take the necessary steps to upgrade it.

Well, with this year's winter break coming to a close, it's about time to share an update of the progress I've made on my layout. Granted, my layout has no physical existence quite yet. My depiction of the Long Island Rail Road in February of 2014 has yet to take on any benchwork or even a track plan, so there is only a handful of projects I can work on. Space is the issue here; I can work on pretty much anything that can be easily stored. So while I've been home from college, I've essentially been working on more weathering projects.

So since I'm about to head back to school soon, I thought it would be a good time to post some of my latest weathering projects of the summer. Granted, I'm a slow worker when it comes to weathering. For me, a model can take a month to do, so although I don't have many models to show, hopefully they deliver on appearance. 

So since I've returned from a year of college, I've had a rather major change of heart about my passion for model railroading (and it's not the change of heart you would likely assume). Rather than lose my love for the hobby, I find myself even more appreciative of it. However, that new appreciation does come with a loss. I decided about a month ago to change railroads, locales, seasons, and eras. I've traded in my HO scale New York Central layout set during the summer of 1958 in Upstate New York for a modern (Feb.

Hello everyone! I decided this past week to tackle my Bowser Executive Line PRR H30 hopper as the second freight car weathering project of my hobby experience. Some of you might recall the post of my first weathering attempt which appeared in the "Yes it's a Model" section of this month's issue of MRH. It was a heavily weathered jade green NYC 40' boxcar. I decided to weather the hopper this time because it was something different, and I think it came out fairly well. It took a few more days than I expected but the results were well worth the wait.

So after about 4 years of compiling freight cars for my first serious layout, I finally gathered enough courage to weather my first one. I started with an Intermountain 40' Modified 1937 AAR boxcar and then replaced the side and end grab irons with Kadee ones. It took about a few hours a day for nine days to do (yes I know that's a long time) but I feel it was worth doing slow and steady for the first try. Here's a photo of the finished result:

Hey again everyone! I've decided to take a break from scenery (especially trees) for a bit to move onto something more exciting for me. 

For the past week I've been working on my scrap yard. It's not a rail served industry on my layout because of space constraints but what I'll mention here today will help with the junk itself, not the operation.

Hello again everyone. This is the second part to the "Realistic Summer Trees" blog. I realized that there were some supplemental pieces of information that were greatly needed in order to fully support the trees in the surrounding scenery.