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Representing brake gear - more art than science Journals/Blogs
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Active Member 57 posts iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

Over on my Andrew's Trains site I've been working away at (and writing up how I've been) upgrading the Athearn Blue Box XAF10 Railbox cars (and yes I know they are not exact - but they're cheap and I have a few of them to upgrade and add to my fleet).

For more information you can head on over to the main site but I wanted to share some photos of the progress so far. This is a multi-part project that I've been working on for some time as I get a few moments.

Here are some excerpts from the article on adding brake gear (as art versus science):

"This article provides a method to model the brake rodding of an AAR AB air brake system to get the maximum look with minimum effort. Train lines and brake-system piping exist on all freight cars; the design of many car types (especially boxcars, flat cars, and gondolas) makes it difficult if not impossible to see in regular operation. Providing simplified brake gear without all that piping, and the time and materials required to install improves the look of your freight fleet and can be done in a short time (usually an hour or so)."

I’d like to thank Tony Thompson from the ‘Modeling the SP Blog’ who was the inspiration for this article. (See the Resources section at the bottom of this page for a link to Tony’s original blog post.) Tony’s minimalist brake line modelling omits piping and any other items of brake gear that are out of site on freight cars as we would ‘normally’ view them. Tony’s approach makes sense on a running model; after all if you can’t see it then why should you model it?

I took my inspiration from Tony Thompson's excellent article on his blog. All of that detail is in the original post on my site. Let me know your thoughts. Images in the next post.

Visit the original post here using WordPress short codes:  https://wp.me/P47pPY-Sz

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

Photos

To give context, here is a model before the rodding:

And an after shot:

I'll be working on some underfloor weathering today and tomorrow and hope to be post some pictures of the rodding once this is done. That will tone down the brass and silver of the staples.

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

More photos

From the Sebastopol shops RIP track:

Works in progress as I'm updating my boxcar fleet. There are a few more to complete.

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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bkivey Regular poster 363 posts
bkivey

Van Halen?

 

 

 
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iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

Not quite Van Halen

Try - the Hunter Valley Lines early 1970s logo.

EDIT: Note that I've updated the Logo to the modern version

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

More photos

Last night I began weathering some of the car undersides to get an idea of how the work will look once operating on the layout. While I was a little worried that the rodding would stick out like well... , insert your idea of things that stick out here, I'm glad that I've proceeded to this point.

Southern 36188

An E&C shops kit of the PS-1 50' Boxcar.

From a lower point of view the rodding detail on this car disappears into the background clutter of hard angles and shadow (image taken in reflected sunlight on my workbench – late afternoon – with nice and flat tones). There is further weathering to be done on this car underside, but I like what I see so far.

XAF10 class prototype car

The Athearn BB (Railbox) Kit

This is the one that had me worried that I'd made things too big and obvious using the 0.020 thou brass rod. With the base weathering on and the car upside down everything appears to be 'in scale' so I'm greatly relieved with the work so far.

The original post is live on the HVL blog now with a couple more images for context. Thanks for so many of you stopping by to read this post.

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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iandrewmartin Active Member 57 posts
iandrewmartin

More Sou 36188 photos

It’s officially Australia Day so I thought I’d share more work done weathering the Southern Boxcar underframe and sides. It’s interesting to see how the added brake gear has become just another part of the model, and no longer seems to dominate the underframe, just as I had hoped it would.

 

The underframe weathering is what I consider to be just right (considering that it will be hard to see). I had to add a bright white background behind the model for it to show up.  Very pleased with how this work has come out. It looks perfectly functional, and most importantly, looks the business.

 

You can read the entire post by  clicking this link. Thanks for following along and enjoy the day.

Andrew Martin
Designing & Building Small Operating Layouts since 2003
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Andrew's Trains for hundreds of layout ideas and designs
Andrew's Trains' page on Facebook
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