GC&SF passenger trains get a make-over.

For a long time now I've been running three passenger trains during our operating sessions on the GC&SF:
- Trains 5 and 6 - the Ranger
- Trains 11 and 12 - the Kansas Cityan and the Chicagoan respectively; and
- Trains 15 and 16 - the Texas Chief.
(You can find brief information about each train by clicking on the train name. The information about Trains 11 and 12 appears to be incomplete.)

In reality, I've been cheating, as Trains 5/6 and 11/12 didn't (as far as I can tell) operate through the area I model at the same time. From what I can gather from Loren Joplin's website, Trains 5 and 6 (the Ranger) operated between Kansas City and points in Texas (via connecting trains) until they were discontinued in late May of 1960. At that time, Trains 11 and 12 had their routes extended to cover the territory that was previously covered by the Ranger. I've never specified when in 1960 my layout is set, but if that date is prior to late May then I should have Trains 5/6 and 15/16. And if it is June or later then I should have Trains 11/12 and 15/16.

I also cheated in regard to the consists of my passenger trains, which never matched the consists of their namesake trains. I just built them up with the cars that I had available within the following guidelines:
- Trains 15/16 emphasised first class travel, with more sleeping cars than the other trains,
- Trains 11/12 were geared towards chair and coach travel, and
- Trains 5/6 mainly carried mail and express, and short-distance passenger travel.

Thanks to Kato and Con-Cor, models are now available for many types of ATSF passenger cars, so I decided to see how accurately I could represent those that I run on my layout. I started with the car lists shown on the previously mentioned website. The lists are a bit confusing as they show all the cars that operated in a train, but the actual make-up at any point along the route varied due to cars being added and/or removed as it progressed.

Goodbye to the Ranger ...

After narrowing the lists down to the cars that ran through Ardmore I found that:

Trains 15/16: I have suitable models of most of the cars and reasonable stand-ins for those that I am missing. However, at Ardmore the real train had 14 cars in its consist, so I would have to omit a few cars for it to operate on my layout.

Trains 11/12: I have models of some of the cars, and reasonable stand-ins for most of the rest. I still need a couple more baggage cars or 50' express box cars. I also need models of ATSF chair cars but RTR models of suitable cars have not been produced in N scale.

Trains 5/6: These trains were heavy on mail and express cars, and I need more baggage cars and 50' express box cars to represent them. Also, in 1960 these trains included a pair of heavy-weight chair cars, and I have nothing that I can use as a stand-in.

As I mentioned, Trains 5 and 6 were discontinued in May 1960, and I have decided to do the same thing. Consequently, my layout is now set sometime in the period June to December, 1960.

Here's how restructured Train 11 (the Kansas Cityan) looks as it rolls through Davis:

(Click here to view on Youtube.)

... and hello to Trains 337 and 338

This process has corrected some long-standing anomalies with my passenger trains, but left a couple of gaps in my operating timetable. But those gaps were quickly filled.  The real southbound Fast Freights 37 and 39 were so busy that they often had to be run in two sections. The Santa Fe eventually added two additional southbound freight trains - Trains 337 and 339, to handle the extra traffic. Following their lead, I have added Train 337 (southbound) and Train 338 (northbound) to replace Trains 5 and 6 in the timetable. Train 338 is actually not prototypically correct: I had to create it to fill the timetable gap left by deleting Train 6's northbound journey, and to get Train 337 back to north staging. These new trains have simply slotted into the former Train 5/6 positions on my timetable. They don't do any switching - they just run from staging to staging.

It took a bit of effort, but I think (hope, really) that I've correctly amended all the paperwork necessary to reflect these changes. We'll have to wait for the March operating session to see how that works out.

Regards to all,
Ron

Working on the railroad, again.

During the past week I've spent some time restaging trains and preparing the layout for my next operating session (to be held on a date which has still to be decided.)  In the process I added four more Intermountain ice refrigerator cars (because I love them) and removed about ten other cars from the operating system. I feel that I still have too many cars on the layout, and I'm thinking of ways to address that.

The cars that are not in use are still on the layout, and form a train that sits on a hidden staging yard track that is not used during ops sessions.  About half of those cars are ones that I should probably sell off or give away as I no longer want to run them on the layout (for one reason or another).  The rest get swapped out from time to time with other cars, just to change things up a bit.

This train has now grown to 27 cars, and is the longest train on the layout. I can, and have, run longer trains, but for ops sessions my freight trains are limited to 2 locos, 21 cars and a caboose, as that's all that can fit on my arrival/departure tracks without interfering with other tracks.

Here's a video of this train running southbound through Davis:

 

While I was at it, I also filmed my track-cleaning train as it ran laps around the layout:

Regards,

Ron

Installing Microtrains trucks on Athearn reefers

Ever since Athearn released its models of ATSF 50' ice reefers I've been wanting to get some for the GC&SF. But unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate an online retailer with any suitable cars (ie those with either the "Ship and Travel" slogan or the straight line map) in stock.  From time to time such cars have shown up on ebay, but only as single cars, and the S&H to Australia pushed the total cost way above my budget.

Back in October I finally found a seller with 4 "used" cars for sale at a price I could afford, and I got my order in. It took a woefully long time for the cars to reach me in Australia, as the seller used ebay's Global Shipping Program. It took TWO WEEKS just for the cars to travel from the seller in New Hampshire to the GSP centre in California!!!

But eventually the cars arrived.

The cars are much nicer than I expected them to be, and are a very good match for my Intermountain 40' ATSF ice reefers. Three of them look 'as new', and the fourth was lightly weathered. Nothing to complain about on that front.

Athearn ice reefer in centre, Intermountain 40' ice reefer to the left, and Atlas PS-1 boxcar to the right.

However, the trucks used on the cars rolled very poorly, and the couplers (Accumates, or an Accumate clone) have a long extension which makes the car-to-car separation look very long. The fact that these cars are relatively low in height seemed to exaggerate the look.

Intermountain 40' ice reefer to the left, Athearn 50' ice reefer to the right.
The Intermountain car has MTL trucks and the Athearn car has Athearn Accumates.

I decided to replace the Athearn trucks with Microtrains trucks, but that proved to be a little more difficult than I anticipated. The cars have a post that extends through the hole in the truck, and that post is much narrower than the mounting hole in the MTL trucks.

I did some research, and found a Trainboard thread in which a poster named Christoph said "I put a short piece of a drinking straw over the cast-on Athearn bolster pin, then it just fit into a MTL truck. I reused the Athearn screws, and everything can be reversed if you wish so." I wasn't able to find a straw that was the right size to fit in the manner described, but then it occurred to me that I didn't need a closed ring of straw.

I cut approx. 2mm from the end of the straw, and cut it in half. Then, by trial and error, I trimmed it until it fit.

Then I installed the MTL tuck and tested that it swivelled properly.

As the screw-head is only slightly larger than the mounting hole in the MTL truck, I added a washer that MTL used to supply with their trucks (I'm not sure whether they still supply them.)

Then I installed Microtrains standard wheelsets, and the cars were ready to roll. Here's an "after" photo to show how the car-to-car separation now looks:

Comparison of models of ATSF ice refrigerator cars. Intermountain 40' reefer on the left,
and Athearn 50' reefer on the right. Both cars now have MTL trucks installed.

After doing some test running, I've added the cars to the GC&SF fleet where they'll be earning their keep at the next operating session.

Regards,
Ron

Quarry operations

A few weeks ago I was saddened to learn that my Okie friend Roy "Rip Rap" Miller had passed away. Roy worked at the Dolese Bros. quarry at Big Canyon between 1950 and 1963, and over the past 15 years or so generously provided me with a lot of information about his time at the quarry, along with a bunch of photographs (that can be found on Dwane Stevens' flickr site here.)

Way back in 2003 Roy wrote to me: 
"At the time I worked at Big Canyon, there was a local train which ran from Gainesville, Texas to Purcell Oklahoma, and one from Purcell to Gainesville every day. Which ever one arrived in Dougherty first usually switched out our loads and set in empties somewhere around noon each day. The Santa Fe also ran a night switcher which came sometimes from Gainesville and sometimes from Purcell to switch us at night. The cars were dropped in Dougherty where they were billed to destination and shipped from there. We gave the billing info over the phone to Dorty (our usual short term for Dougherty.) Bills of lading were made up later and taken to Dorty to be signed. The first thing I did each morning was to do a yard check to see the number and kinds of cars we had on hand for loading. Then I worked up a noon switch list, sometimes ordering kinds of cars mixed in depending on estimates of what kind of cars the plant might need. As an example, I might order 3 coal cars, one hopper, 3 more coals and 2 ballast and so on for each track. We asked that the train of empties be made up like that in Dorty to save switching in our yard. Sometimes I actually guessed right and got the various types of cars in the right order. But sometimes one material was produced at a faster or slower rate than I thought and another kind of car had to be switched in. Before I left in the evening, I had to do the same thing for the night switch, or the night clerk had to do it if we were running a night shift. Later I was  promoted to Ass't Supt and turned that all over to someone else. It was a mad house sometimes but was also fun. I told you that the most cars I remember loading in one day was 128 but a usual day was somewhere between 65 and 80 cars per day."

(Note: I asked Roy what he meant by "coal cars" and he said that was the term they used to refer to drop-bottom gondolas.)

Under my current operating schedule the quarries at Dougherty and Big Canyon are switched by a twice-daily local freight that runs north from Gainesville (actually, south staging). In addition to its regular consist of empty gondolas, on its northbound run it stops at Ardmore and collects any cars that are for delivery to Gene Autry or Dougherty. When it returns to Ardmore it drops off any cars being shipped from those locations (apart from the loaded gondolas from the quarries, which it takes back to Gainesville.)

When I introduced the current system, the Ardmore/Gainesville local was handling about a dozen cars at the most, and it made sense to have the one train handle all the traffic. Since then I've added more cars and the train is now quite long as can be seen in this photo from my last operating session:

So I've decided to separate the quarry traffic from the other freight.

Once the change is implemented, the current twice-daily locals between Gainesville and Dougherty will be replaced by:
(i) a twice-daily turn operating from Ardmore to Dougherty and back, handling all freight apart from gravel loads from the quarries; and
(ii) a morning south-bound train, and an afternoon north-bound train operating between Purcell and Gainesville (acually, between north staging and south staging), switching the quarries as described by Roy.

Following this change I will rebuild the Gene Autry part of the layout so that I can increase the size of the Ardmore Air Base to better reflect the fact that it was a busy air force base during the '50s. This map from Historic Aerials shows the layout of the rail sidings as they were in 1965, by which time the airbase had become a civil facility.

The change will also allow me to add a few more gondolas so I can increase the traffic from the quarries, and to that end I've already bought some Caswell gondola kits:

Caswell gondolas were very plentiful on the ATSF during the '50s, but the photos that I have from Roy show that a wide variety of cars were loaded at Big Canyon. Here are some pics that I cropped from larger images:

The images appear to show a variety of cars apart from (possibly) Caswell gons and Hart ballast cars. Right in the middle of the second image there's what might be a two-bay composite hopper. I'll be studying these photos carefully to see what other car types I might be able to add.

Thanks for looking.

Regards,
Ron

January operating session, and other stuff

January operating session

Back on the 18th of January I hosted another ops session on the GC&SF.  As we were an operator or two short, I ran the yard at Ardmore. Between that busy job, and responding to requests for help, I forgot to take photos of the session. Fortunately, Rod took several to help us remember the event.

John C (centre) did a great job running the yard at Pauls Valley, and during my post session tidy-up I didn't find a single thing wrong with the cars and trains that he had worked! Graham (right) is running the Pauls Valley local freight, and here he is doing some switching at Wynnewood.

Peter is running the Ardmore local freight, which also serves the quarries at Big Canyon (shown here) and Dougherty.

Bill is running a southbound passenger train, behind my sound-equipped BLI ALCo PAs.

This bloke with terrible posture and fat stomach is, sad to say, me. I'm using a tethered throttle because my wireless throttle was giving me too much grief.

Unfortunately, nobody took any photos of Rod. So here's one from a previous session:

Wireless woes

As I mentioned, my wireless throttle was giving me some grief during the afternoon. I thought that it might be because my rechargeable batteries (which are now quite old) don't hold charge very well.  However, all my batteries still registered over 8.5vdc on my multimeter the day after the session, and since then I've done a lot of train running to restage the layout, and the batteries have been fine.

This isn't the first time that I've had problems with wireless operation during a session. The fact that I don't seem to have those problems when I operate on my own makes me wonder whether there is merit in Brendan's idea that the "wet blobs" (operators) in the room are interfering with the radio signal. The UR92 panel is located under the layout, immediately behind me in that last photo, so anybody who is switching Ardmore, Gene Autry, Dougherty or Pauls Valley is likely to be standing directly between their throttle and the UR92. And with seven or more operators in the room, there's a good chance that there'll be at least one other person also blocking the signal. When I'm feeling industrious, I will relocate the UR92 (possibly into the ceiling directly above where I'm standing in that last photo), to see whether that improves things.

New freight cars for the GC&SF

Between 1935 and 1950 the Santa Fe rebuilt more than ten thousand of its older USRA refrigerator cars using their massive steel underframes. For a long time now I've been wanting to get some of the Intermountain models of these unique cars, and I finally bit the bullet at the end of 2016. Most of these rebuilt cars were modernised during the '50s, and it's probably unlikely that in my era (1960) many still survived in the form modelled by Intermountain. However, in 1960 only about 3% of the Santa Fe's reefers were mechanical cars, and rebuilt ice reefers continued to serve well into the'60s.

Rightly or wrongly, the GC now runs six of these cars, which I picked up on eBay:

These cars are quite low, with an internal height of less than 8 feet (7'3" according to my reference book, but 7'9" is printed on the car side.)  The plug doors were a mere 68" (5'8") tall. For comparison, here's one of the Intermountain reefers alongside an Atlas PS1 box car:

Continuing along the path of buying cars that ain't quite right for my period, I also bought some ATSF Ft-V flat cars released by Intermountain.

These cars are so nice looking that they put all my other flat cars to shame, and I quickly removed most of them (the others) from the layout. My only 'complaint' is that the wheel flanges are so small that just the slightest bump can (and probably will) derail the car.
EDIT: The wheels on these Intermountain flat cars proved to be more troublesome than I thought, and the cars would derail as they passed through turnouts far too often. I wasn't able to work out what the problem was, as the wheel gauge was fine according to my MTL track gauge tool. In the end I replaced all the metal wheels with MTL "standard" (medium profile) wheels, and the cars now operate very reliably.

Unfortunately, the Ft-V class flat cars were converted into pulpwood flat cars during the mid 1950s. 
Memo to self: do research before buying new cars.

Thanks for looking.

Ron

I've been working on the railroad ....

Between my part-time job and working in the yard I've been pretty busy lately, but I've still managed to get some jobs done on the layout.

Added new freight cars:

Last week I prepared car-cards and waybills for a bunch of new freight cars that I acquired over the past 18 months or so, so we can use them for future operating sessions.

ATSF Bx-57 40' box-cars (Atlas PS1)

By 1960 (the year I model) the Santa Fe was no longer painting cars in the "map/slogan" scheme, but box cars in that scheme were still quite common. These PS1 "Bx-57" cars from Atlas are (in my opinion) even nicer than the various models of AAR "map/slogan" cars that I have from Intermountain. I bought all 4 road numbers recently released by Atlas:

George Hollwedel told me that Atlas is intending to do another Bx-57 run with 4 more car numbers. Bring them on, I say.

ATSF Ft-V 53'6" flat cars (Intermountain)

I think that Intermountain has released these flat cars under their own label, but the six road numbers that I bought came from George Hollwedel.

These cars are also very nice, and I'm now looking for suitable loads for them. They make me want to also buy a few of the BLMA 60' Ft-7 flat cars for a little variety.

ATSF Tk-L fuel service tank cars (Micro-Trains)

I've wanted some diesel-fuel tank cars to fuel my locos at Pauls Valley and Ardmore, for some time. I bought the decals to produce some myself, but when George Hollwedel commissioned a 3-pack set from MTL I grabbed a set from him instead:

Unlike the models of the Bx-57 and Ft-V cars, which are pretty accurate models of ATSF prototypes, these tank cars are just good stand-ins. But they capture the look very nicely, and will do until something better comes along.

Planning for a timetable revision

The current operating timetable uses a 6:1 fast-time clock, and represents an "18-hour day". A complete operating session requires 3 hours of train running, split into two ("morning" and "afternoon") 90 minute segments each representing 9 real hours. However, when we add in extra time for 'show-and-tell' at the start of the evening, and a break for beans, a session can take over 4 hours if we run the full schedule. Needless to say, we usually end the session before all the trains are run, leaving me to sort out the mess the next day.

I'm planning to slow down the clock a little to either a 5:1 or 4:1 ratio, and only run one "9-hour" segment per operating session. We'll alternate between the "morning" and "afternoon" segments from one session to the next. A 5:1 ratio fast-time clock will require 1hr 48m of train running, and a 4:1 fast-time clock will require 2hr 15m of train running. Either one will probably be fine, and we can decide on the evening which way to go.

In addition to slowing the clock, I also want to add in two more trains. I already have the rolling stock to allow that, and the staging yard tracks will be available. I just have to make some small changes to the timetable.

BLI PA/PB

As mentioned in my last post, my sound-equipped BLI PA/PB locos couldn't make it around my layout without stalling on some of the turnouts.  My main concern was with my Peco C80 points in my hidden staging yards, but I also found that they had problems with some of the (visible) turnouts at Wynnewood and Dougherty. I can't use these beautiful locos for an operating session until these problems are resolved.

Re-gauging the wheelsets (all of which were just a tad too tight) seems to have solved the problem with the Peco C80 points in hidden staging, but I will continue to conduct tests until I'm certain that I have 100% reliability.

At Dougherty I had yet another problem with my old friend arch nemesis, the southern-most ME turnout in the yard. It seems like every time I add a new loco, it has problems with that turnout. An hour or so of work has fixed the problem (but for how long, I wonder.)  I am so-o-o tempted to replace the turnout with one of the newer DCC-friendly turnouts from ME.

Over at Wynnewood I found a totally different problem with an Atlas C55 turnout - one of the built-in jumpers connecting the stock rail to the closure rail had failed. I've experienced this problem before, with a turnout at Davis, and this afternoon I corrected it the same way. In the process I replaced half a dozen insulated rail joiners (left over from when that part of the layout was originally wired for DC/cab-control) with metal ones.

Just two days ago, John C and I were discussing that very problem with Atlas C55 turnouts. I think he jinxed me.

During all this testing I observed that the back end of the rear truck on the PB unit bobs up and down ever so slightly when the loco is creeping along. My guess is that one or both of the traction tyres on that axle are not quite seated properly. When I bought the locos I also bought a couple of extra axles without traction tyres so I could get rid of the tyres. Unfortunately, I've forgotten where I put them "for safe keeping".

If you're still with me, then thanks for reading.

Regards,
Ron

Trains are back!!

I had arranged for a friend to come over today to help me seal the timber decks, but the forecast top temperature of 38C put an end to that idea.

Instead, after finishing my daily chores, I headed down to the train room and cleaned the layout.  It was actually a lot less dusty than I had expected, although the thousands of dead ants and spiders scattered about made the layout look like it was used to film both Them and Tarantula.

Once I'd done with the vacuum cleaner, I wiped down the mainline with lighter fluid using a cloth wrapped around a small block of wood.

Then I set up my track-cleaning train - four track cleaning cars (my own Huey, Dewey and Louie plus a borrowed Aztec car) sandwiched between a pair of SD24s, and set it to doing laps around the layout:

The two end cars are home-made sliders. The pads are rectangles of masonite held loosely in place by nails that run up through holes in the floor of the cars. At the top of each nail I fitted a fishing sinker by squeezing it to the nail with pliers.

The holes in the car floor are just wide enough for the nails to slide freely. The sinker glued to the car floor holds the car on the track, and the sinkers on the nails press the masonite pad onto the rails.

The red car is an Atlas promotional car body that I mounted on a Roco track-cleaning car mechanism:

The fourth car in the consist is made by Aztec, and I borrowed it from a friend (Graham) in case I needed extra grunt to clean the track.  It can be filled with fluid, and it has a magnet to pick up any metallic material that might be laying on the track. You can just make out small bits of metal clinging to the rectangular magnet in the photo below.

After every few laps around the layout I clean the pads and the loco wheels, which do much of the cleaning. When the loco wheels no longer get dirty, I know the track is good to go.

Here's a video I made of the track-cleaning train in operation:

 

Once I was satisfied that the mainline was safe to run trains around, I broke out my BLI PA/B locomotives.  I bought these locos about two years ago, just before we demolished the old house; but I barely had time to even test that they worked before the electrical power to my train room was disconnected.

Both my units are powered, and have sound.  A single powered A unit (plus a dummy B unit) would have been much cheaper, but is not able to pull one of my passenger trains up the inclines from the staging yards. This is only the second time I've run these locos and I still have to adjust the sound levels. Here's how they looked and sounded:

 

I tried to sound the horn at the grade crossings, but I couldn't do that and hold the camera (phone) steady at the same time.

Unfortunately, the PAs stall on one of the turnouts under the layout, so I have some work to do on that turnout before they can be used for an operating session.

Thanks for looking in.

Ron

There's light at the end of the tunnel ...

He can't give us an exact date just yet, but our builder tells us that the new HQ building for the GC will be ready for us to move into in October. To say that we're excited by the prospect of returning to our old address would be a huge understatement, although the past 15 months of house-sitting has been an experience in itself.

Here's how the new house looks as of today:

No - the blue box isn't the TARDIS.

I will sure be glad to be able to run trains on the layout again.  All in all, 2015 has been a bad year as far as layout operation is concerned. Not only has my own layout been unavailable for sessions, but two other layouts in our group have become 'fallen flags'.  Earlier this year, Brendan sold his house and headed off for a trip around Australia with his family.  Fortunately, his layout was purchased complete by another friend and will rise again in the (hopefully) not too distant future.  You can see the full story on Brendan's blog.

Our friend Big John also sold his house, and has completely demolished his ATSF Boise Sub layout.  It was a seriously good layout, and I will miss it very much as I really enjoyed operating on it. John is planning to build a new layout in his new home, and as he works quickly I'm sure we won't have to wait too long to be running trains on it.

The Boise Sub featured an interchange with the Rock Island, and included this GP18 which was owned and weathered by Rod. Now that the Boise Sub no longer needs it, Rod offered it to me. He didn't have to ask twice.

Now I've just got to come up with a plausible reason for it to show up on the GC&SF in 1960. (I'm also thinking that the paint scheme is too modern for 1960. Maybe I should get a TARDIS after all.)

Regards,
Ron

BLI locos have arrived

Last August John C brought his BLI ALCo PA/PB/PA set over to my operating session, for show-and-tell. I was so impressed that I immediately ordered a PA/PB set from the latest production run.

I finally received the locos this week, and they are very impressive.  The 'stainless steel' looks a little too gold in colour to my eyes, and the stirrups are a bit clunky (see photo below), but otherwise these are VERY nice locos.

Here's how the pair look sitting on the siding at Wynnewood:

This crop from the previous photo shows the stirrups.  They seem to have too much paint on them.

Here's a link to a short video of the locos in action.

 

The batteries in my camera ran out before I finished recording, so I'll have another go at this.

Thanks for looking in.

Regards,

Ron

Rod's new locos ...

We operated on Rod's layout last night, and I got to see and hear his new E8 A-B loco set from BLI:

 

I have a BLI PA/PB set on order.  I hope they're as nice as these units.

Sorry about the quality of the video - it didn't come out as good as I was hoping for.

Regards,

Ron

Northbound Fast Freight

Here's my first attempt to add a video to my blog.  It's an FT ABBA set with a northbound fast freight train #40 at Dougherty.

 

I shot this video several times from different angles to see what worked best with my Fuji digital camera, and backed the train up between takes. On one occasion I forgot to change the loco direction back to forward before starting it up again, with almost disasterous results:

The flatcar was too light to push the rest of the train backwards up the slight slope beyond Big Canyon, and it 'popped' out of the train, causing several other cars to derail.  Luckily, nothing fell from the layout into the Great Chasm.

This video is linked to on my YouTube account, which was created before I created this Google Blogger account.  Google doesn't allow me to link to the pre-existing account, although it does offer to do just that. When I tried to do that, Google created a NEW YouTube account for me. A search of the Google FAQs revealed that many other people have encountered the same problem, and Google has never even replied to the many requests for help.  (I'm still waiting for an answer to my email. Thanks for nothing Google.)

I'll keep practising with the videos, but I think I really need to get a proper video camera.

Thanks for stopping by,

Ron 

Refinery train at Davis

The rest of the tank cars that I had on order arrived today, and I wasted little time in replacing their pizza-cutter wheelsets with low-profile wheels, before putting the cars into service.

Here is the train, northbound at Davis:

As you can also see in the photo, I've started painting the styrene roads with several shades of grey to represent asphalt surface that has been installed and repaired at different times. Once that's done, I'll glue it into place, and then do some more work on the surface with chalks and pencils.

Tank cars

Today I placed into service the first of several batches of new tank cars which will run in my "refinery extra" that switches tank cars at the Kerr-McGee Refinery at Wynnewood.

This first photo shows the six tank cars lined up on the siding at Wynnewood. The silver cars are stock Bachmann 36'6" single-dome tank cars lettered for TEXACO. The black cars are Micro-Trains 10,000 gallon single-dome tank cars that I painted and lettered for TEXACO, using decals that I got from a custom decal maker who is no longer in business. (That's a pity, as these were the easiest decals I've ever worked with.)
Here's a photo showing a side-by-side comparison of the two types of tank car:

I'm very impressed with the Bachmann car. It has very fine details, low-profile metal wheels and operating body-mounted knuckle couplers (although I find them to be a bit big). It compares very well with Atlas and MTL offerings, and makes a nice change from the MTL single dome car.

Jerry's decals were a delight to work with, and they're the easiest decals I've ever applied. I used Tamiya TS-29 Semi-Gloss Black (spray can) for the base coat, and then applied Testor's Glosscote (spray) for a smooth surface to apply the decals on. When the decals were dry I gave the cars a coat of Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear (spray can).  I only wish that it was that easy to paint and decal ATSF box cars.

I also have on order a Micro-Trains runner pack of TEXACO tank cars, and I can't wait to have the whole train in action.

Postscript: Since painting these cars I've come to the conclusion that this black/white scheme is a not correct. I've yet to find a photo of a car in this scheme, and judging by the photos I've seen, it seems that most of the cars in the 3XXX number range were 8000 gallon capacity or thereabouts (not 10k as these MTL cars are supposed to be). Oh well, they're not the only foobies I have on the layout, and they'll do as stand-ins until I can replace them.  (That's a pity though, as I like this scheme.)