Well the incessant churn of lawn/garden/house/woods/pool maintenance, on top of travel and classic-car season, has finally begun to abate. I have gotten zero completed on the layout since April, which accounts for the dearth of posts. So I thought I'd celebrate the work that some friends have done on their own SNR equipment. And OK, maybe one of my own.
It's both amazing and an honor to see "your thing" interpreted by other guys for other layouts...
CENTERFLOWS
You may recall that early in the year, Patrick Harris of Three Notch Rail released a custom run of Accurail 4600sf Centerflow covered hoppers, lettered for the SNR. They featured the hex logo that I had time-warped into a futuristic multi-mark, for friends in the "modern" era.
I'd asked for photos as guys got these weathered and running on their layouts. Let's take a look at a few who wasted no time...
On Tom Patterson's Chesapeake Wheeling & Erie, it's 1975, so the car is only a few months old. So where most of us would use that as an excuse to call it a day, Tom (being Tom) instead super-detailed it... and OK then weathered it
anyway, since even a newborn will have some subtle crud accumulation. Here it is, on the CWE at Summit Springs, WV, fresh from the beauty spa. You have to see this stuff in person to believe it.
Down on Brent Johnson's Clinchfield, it's 1980. So the '75-built Centerflow, seen here in Marion, SC, has acquired a few years' worth of grime -- as well as consol stencils and ACI labels like Tom's. As with everything else on Brent's layout, the effect is beautifully restrained, and consistent across the fleet. Another layout you just have to see to believe.
Over on Paul Maciulewicz's SP Lordsburg Sub., the older Centerflow has clearly been trapped in captive service in the blistering desert sun. Paul's been developing some really stunning surface-rust effects for his Arizona setting, and the Railway is glad to play a part. I can't wait for the golden spike on this layout, and the start of operations!
Thanks guys for your efforts and artistry -- and thanks again to "SNR Nation" for all the enthusiasm shown for this car run! I believe Patrick sold it out almost instantly.
DECAL JOBS
In some cases where I've swapped cars with friends, they've later asked for spare decals so they could do up a few SNR cars on their own. I'm flattered of course, and happy to oblige.
As it happens I've got a couple sources for decal reserves:
- Several professional runs, including a last batch from Rail Graphics, just before they went out of business. And,
- My buddy Darren Williamson (IHB), who can do custom sheets from my artwork on his collection of ALPS printers.
My friend Bill Doll (Forest Park Southern) once found himself with a couple of nice PS-1 kits yet unassembled. He offered one to me for the SNR -- in exchange for some decal sets so he could do the other one up in SNR paint as well, for his layout. Wow! Here it is on the FPS's yard lead at Flowing Springs, WV -- looking an awful lot like its sister-ship on my layout, only with better weathering.
Bill also enjoyed the story around the
"Peanut Route" slogan car I did for the SNR's subsidiary, Southern Shore Line -- that evolved out of some questions about what those Centerflows might be hauling. (There is far too much involved in that discussion to summarize it here, but if you missed the post, check it out at this link:
"The Peanut Route".) He asked if I had leftovers, and behold: sitting in Middlesburg, WV, here's the first ever car on another layout from an SNR
subsidiary. I guess I need to send Bill some CJ&G
"Apple Hill Road" hoppers...!
Tom Gregory is a gentleman from Luka, MS, who, improbably, makes the 8-9 hour drive to Cincinnati every other autumn for SWOOPS (SW Ohio Operations). As he says, "Not many operating layouts in Mississippi!" I've been privileged to have him sign up to run at my place on numerous occasions. He wrote me a few months ago and asked if I had any spare decal sets he might use, to do up a PS-1 for his layout. Never a problem -- I sent him a few, and here is the result -- yet another 26000-series on yet another layout!
But having decals to spare, Tom wasn't done yet. Here's his take on a vivid late-50's repaint, which he says is naturally based on the SNR's orange-and-blue passenger and diesel schemes. Very creative -- I'd conjured up a future (1968) herald and font, but I'd never even
thought about a technicolor scheme that so many roads experimented with, usually on rebuilds, as things loosened up in the 50s. Call Patrick McGinnis! Love the lading visible through the door, too.
Actually even before he'd written me about the decals, Tom had done some decals on his own, too, for a gondola repaint.
Tom also sent along a shot of a double-sheathed auto car he'd built -- following a post I'd done on the same thing (click here for that post:
"A Couple of Aging Automobile Cars"). The prototype pic for that project was of a Southern Ry. car, and as a Southern modeler (as well as a
Southern modeler 😉) Tom thought it checked all the boxes. Daggone, with the right lettering it looks bang-on the original!
A while back, another friend here in Cincinnati, John Miller (Kanawha & Lake Erie) and I traded freight cars, and we subsequently traded decals too. Since the K&LE is set in 1976, John was interested in spares of the modern herald, and I created a few different sizes for him. Whereas, I wanted examples of
his boss old-school diamond herald, and he kindly gave me the last two sets in existence. I did up a couple of gondolas (click here to see that post: "
K&LE Gondolas"), but John took the concept and
ran with it. In the above photo, the car I gave him is on the right, and
all the others are cars he did himself, including the awesome malaise-era paint-out in green. Again, never thought of it!
AND ONE OF MY OWN
Here is the sum total of modeling projects I completed this summer (other than Vanderbilt swaps -- watch this space). And this was only because I took decals to the beach, where I'd have time! 😄
Man I have been meaning to play this gag for decades -- since the early 90's, when the indie band Veruca Salt debuted, with their hit "Seether". That band name just rattled around in my head -- "Veruca Salt, where do I know that from?!" Naturally it was Barri, knower of all things non-technical, who clued me in -- Veruca is the charming little princess in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
"I want an Oompa-Loompa NOW!!" -- V. Salt
There is so much eternally great stuff in Willy Wonka (yes of course I mean the 1971 Gene Wilder version) -- and with the band paying homage too, some reference had to be made on the SNR, since it is The Buried Jokes Route. Given that salt is hauled in privately-owned covered hopper cars, the idea just crystallized (no pun intended). (Well OK, sure -- pun intended! 😄)
The challenge was the font. I originally did a decal sheet in blue block letters, to mimic the Morton Salt cars, but it was just too vivid for the Truman era. So I toned it down to no louder than other examples I could find from the time, mainly by outlining the letters (and dropping the blue). Gave it a '49 build date too, so it could have a little bit of salt rust, without obliterating the name.
Sadly I don't have a single customer on the layout that could remotely use it. No matter - it will just have to be random overhead traffic -- on its way to some northern city to destroy all the new cars next winter!
In a world of pure imagination...." ♫♩♫♫♩♩
(Y'know, I probably can scare up some decal spares, if anyone wanted to join in on building a cross-layout fleet of them... 😉 )
Well, that's it from the Wonka-Vator -- thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think!
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