Creating Holiday Magic

Many of you have asked how I brought my MCIS Holiday Train to life, so we are going to spend this blog post doing exactly that! Quite a bit of content to cover which would not have done the process justice if just posting on Facebook.

MATERIAL & DESIGN

Matt Welke got the idea in my head while he was making those CPKC Holiday Train decals. Look no further than the prototype for inspiration in the form of 60’ Plate F boxcars. The specific boxcars used by CP are not made and that’s ok as the car type was really just inspiration.

What was available were Walthers Mainline 60’ double door boxcars with the GTW/CN version very sparse marked (Only reporting marks). Made an order for (4) from the good folks at Midwest Model Railroad and they arrived before I knew it.

Alongside the railcars, I need the actual signage which was cut by Circus City Decals from very thin styrene. Topping off the material and design was the 26 led flashing kit from Evan’s Designs.

With railcar and signage on hand I mocked up the layout using the artwork Matt provided. The goal was not to heavily modify the cars but keep it since I had to add lighting still. Getting the lettering even with the door rods was accomplished with (4) styrene strips that I cut, painted, and installed.

Material Listing

(4) Walthers Mainline 60' Double Door Boxcars

(4) Evans Designs - 26 nano LED flashing multi-color light kit / 3V 

    Mini Colored String Lights | Shop for Mini Multi-Colored Lights

(1) Styrene to level out signage

(1) Set of custom cut signage from Circus City Decals + Decals for new reporting marks 

(1) CA glue + Accelerator

(1) Spray Adhesive

(1) Paints to match / your choice 

(1) Glitter of your choice 

(12) AAA batteries 

INSTALLATION

Before I spent a bit of money ($35 per light kit x 4 railcars) I figured it would be wise to complete installation on MCIS7401 "MICHIGAN". If everything worked out well on this car, it would just be a matter of applying to the rest of the boxcars. Since I am writing this blog post, we can rest assured that it all worked out just fine. Please mind the photos I forgot to take them during the first railcar so what you will see if the concept that applied to all installations. 

Install Item 1 (Styrene Support) - Depending on the length of the signage determined the length of the styrene strips that were used to level out everything. What I did ensure no matter the length was the strips spanned from the door frame out either the first, second, or third rib providing a solid support. These were painted to match the railcar before installation. 

Install Item 2 (Paint / Glitter the Signage) - Just like it sounds each sign after removing from cutout had a bit of clean up sanding, then got a white base coat and after this dried were sprayed with Elmers adhesive and covered in a snowflake glitter. This glitter helps reflect the light from the leds around the car. 

Install Items 3 (Install the new decals) - which for these cars were just reporting marks and numbers

Install Item 4 (Conduit clearance) - while the battery, switch, and controller are located inside the boxcar, I needed a way to get the wire to the outside. On each car in the upper left corner I notched out a very small portion of the eave where the wire threads through to begin the lighting around the carbody. 

Install Item 5 (Railcar Signage) - I went ahead and installed all of the interior signage with the LEDs being added last around the perimeter. 

Install Item 6 (LED Install) - With the interior items and conduit path made I installed the LEDs from the upper left corner (clockwise) around the car. For this I use gel type CA applied using a toothpick and CA accelerator to quickly lock in the LED before moving to the next one. The LED kit I used operates independent of track power, be sure to test out before install to ensure everything is working properly. 

Take your time working around the car, but once you do the first car and figure out where to best install the lights and wiring the next cars will go quicker. Given its a 26 light string on this car you will find extras left over. I use the conduit patch and tuck the rest inside the railcar which is then secure with kapton tape out of the way. 

After installing all of the lights come the fun part of testing and operating your railcars. I will share how the train was operated along with its train consist in the next post. 

Until then happy modeling! 

GM

2018 Railcar Analysis "Big Data"

Everywhere you turn in the rail industry you hear about big data and how carriers and car owners use it to manage their fleets. Obviously from a model railroad perspective we dont have this same exact data, however we do have other ways to pull "big data" in regards to our own layout rosters. 

UNDERSTANDING THE LANDSCAPE

Case in point comparing the August 2017 roster to the March 2018 data is well astonishing and tells a story in itself that we will discuss in just a minute. Being a modern contemporary model railroad I do my best to recreate what I observe trackside or read about. Some of the practices have to do with railroads actually decreasing fleets or going to more versatile cars that can be a one stop shop like the venerable 60' Plate F boxcar. Nowadays it seems this one car type has become the 50' Plate C, 50' Plate F, 60' Plate F, and even the RBL... So the more of a renaissance fleet the better to flex for customer demands. As fleets age out railroads may go towards more towards consolidating fleet types as scene with the boxcar, completing going away from a fleet, leasing a fleet, or customer moving to privately owned and managed equipment. This applies to beyond railroads and can be inferred with airlines and many other types of managed fleets. Its important to have a cost effective fleet that services the customer properly, otherwise it does no one any good because real railroading is a for profit business. 


MARCH 2018 REVIEW

We are going to look at the changes made to the St. Clair Sub roster over the past seven months first at a high level then going to jump in the car owner / type level to see exactly what transpired. 

Immediate take away from the high level totals - total roster grew by 35 cars in three of four categories. How can this be if MCIS sold and acquired covered hoppers assets in this time frame, what else could be driving the large growth. Lets now look into the owner / car type information to tell us more. 

Boxcars 

 - Foreign cars down account age outs and other carriers moving towards TTX cars

 - Private ownership up account TTX picking up the share of age outs with 60' Plate F's

 - MCIS does plan to begin replacing aging 50'  Plate C cars with second hand owned 50' and 60' Plate F cars. 

- Early 2019 will see the end of the MCIS All door boxcar fleet in revenue service. 

Open Top Hoppers

 - Foreign ownership up due to coke orders originating in CWE pool cars  

 - Private ownership up significantly due to securing DTE coal contract (DETX hoppers)

Covered Hoppers

- Foreign ownership up a few cars due to new service lanes with CN and CSXT

- Home road is no change as retirement of the 4600 fleet was a wash with new 5188s 

- Private ownership up significantly due to Graystone Cement establishing a terminal at Bay City adding their own fleet of WSOX and NRLX marked 3281 cubic cars.

Flatcars

- Large increase due to wind unit train operations and further Essar steel business 

Tankcars

- Increase due to growing LPG and Dow Chemical business

TAKEAWAYS

The state of the railroad post described going after new business and leverage grow with more unit train operations. With the coal and wind cars we are growing this business which ironically is a balanced energy plan, and the new 5188s in grain service will support cycling more unit trains to export Michigan crops to market. Boxcars and how they are operated will continue evolve as the fleet gets older. Lastly we will continue to see a heavy reliance on private owned cars to fill the bill on specialized loadings like steel, cement, and chemicals. From a modelers perspective between what manufacturers are offering now and the aftermarket products from decal vendors there is no better time to capture the continued evolution of modern railroading. 

There you have it - 2018 analysis in a nutshell. Have a great rest of March. 

GM

** This post is completely fictional and does not relate to any real railroad or customer **

Grand Trunk Western's Gentle Giant

I spent the good first half of my childhood growing up in Michigan. My favorite railroad no doubt as a kid and even now as an adult will always be the Grand Trunk Western.... in case my Michigan Interstate locomotive paint scheme didn't give it away. But now that I live in Texas one would think that sightings of original Grand Trunk equipment would be few and far between.

Graffiti tagged but FRA compliant with the reflective tape. The "Good Track Road" slogan is pretty much gone below the logo.

But there is hope! Sometime back in the mid-2000s General Motors relocated its Service Parts Operation warehouse out to Roanoke, TX north of Fort Worth. So what does the relocation have to do with Grand Trunk you ask? The answer is a steady stream of blue GTW 86' 4 and 8 door boxcars delivered daily by the UP local switcher to the GM warehouse. Seeing these boxcars is nothing new as they have been setout and picked up countless times by a UP manifest freight that I assume comes out of Muskogee, OK or Dennison, TX. enroute to Fort Worth. What I did realized though is these particular boxcars only originate from one location when hauling service part loads outbound to other GM SPO facilities like this one in Roanoke and others that I know of in Sparks, NV and Cucamonga, CA. The origin is none other than GM's Swartz Creek SPO Facility just to the west of Flint.

Even wanting to appreciate the ubiquitous blue GTW autopart boxcar I began to notice that even though they are standard blue and have the GTW logo on the side everyone has become unique in its own way especially after traveling the North American network these many years with tired battle hardened look about them. With parent CN purchasing the Illinois Central it is now not uncommon to see IC, ICG, and CN 86' auto part boxcars as well but only the Grand Trunk ones have the 8 doors. As tired as some of these cars look I have seen a few parent CN repaints with various reporting marks of CNA, GTW, and IC looking classy in the standard CN boxcar brown or on occasion a darker GTW blue adorned with the www.cn.ca web address.

What logo? GTW305900

Parent company CN  - alot of the repaints that I have seen are coming in this brown but look much more minimalist.

So what does this post then signify you ask? Well after being away from Michigan for many years, I now have the ability to take a short drive and catch a glimpse of what Michigan railroads were synonymous for and continue to support; the Automotive Industry. These boxcars invoke memories of going downriver and watching GP38-2's shove cars over the hump at GTW's Flat Rock Yard, Henry Ford's old electrification concrete towers in Taylor, or driving through Flint seeing an endless sea of these gentle giants at Torrey Yard. These memories I have found help inspire me even more to continue modelling proto-freelance Michigan in my own way.


GM

Boxcar Fleet

Over the next two weeks I am going to be focusing on each of the Michigan Interstate railcar fleets. The first post below details all boxcars with MCIS and MCBT reporting marks. As 70 ton Plate C cars attrit due to age, we look to replace the fleet through new build or secondhand purchase of Plate F 100 ton 50/60' cars.

Thrall 50' 70 ton Plate C 

4397 cubic feet cap.

All Door

                 Forest Products pool.

   Rebuilt in late 90s with updated doors.

ACF 50' 70 ton Plate C 

5080 cubic feet cap.

Single Door

                General service pool 

ACF 50' 100 ton Plate 

5095 cubic feet cap.

Single Door - Precision

                General Service Pool 

    Rebuilt to 100 ton standard in 2000s

PS / FMC 50' 70 Ton Plate C

5277-5344 cubic feet cap.

Single Door

               General Service Pool

These cars are heavily utilized in bagged dry bean and corrugated board service.

Gunderson 50' 100 ton Plate F

6301 cubic feet cap.

Single and double door 

           Paper / General Service Pool

Following the industry these cars are used heavily in rolled paper moves and as a backup for any general service move as they displace the older 70 ton fleet.

Gunderson 60' 100 ton Plate E

6652 cubic feet cap

Single door

                 Paper Products Pool

Dedicated to Fort Michilmackinaw Paper.

Berwick 60' 100 ton plate F

7321 cubic feet cap.

Double door

      Automotive / Forest Product Pool

Cars primarily in use to GM moving parts from sequencing warehouses in Michigan to North American Assembly plants. Cars  have ability to be utilized in forest product service as necessary moving plywood and MDF board.

Stay tuned later this week for the open top fleet.

GM