The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

April 1st 2026 update: I emailed Gaahleri about the break and they have responded with an offer to send a replacement body.  Good customer service so far! April 4th 2026 update: A replacement body is on its way; nominal cost to get it but worthwhile having it functional once again. Ouch.  The crack runs almost all the way around the cup mount on the airbrush. I don't think that will buff out... I was prepping to do some airbrushing on some freight cars and loaded my Gaahleri Barbatos Rex Swallowtail trigger style airbrush with black paint. I picked up the airbrush and saw a lot of paint spillage thinking to myself "I wasn't that sloppy loading the brush..." I gave the brush a wipe to clean the paint and more poured out of a crack in the top of the brush.  I had a large crack around the top of the brush where the cup mounts to the body.  I have a vague recollection of the brush falling out of the rack and hitting the baseboard but didn't think it was anything of no...

When I am operating on people's layouts, the most common question both myself and others have is "where am I?" on the layout, particularly if you are a new operator there.  Even on layouts where I operate often I still need to sort out what location I am at.   My friend Tim has a small business that does laser cutting ( Schist Lake Designs ) and other work.  I asked him to design some signage for my layout that would help operators know where they are and what direction they are travelling.   He sent me some PDF of the signs to review. I asked some others what they thought of them as far as readability, clarity, etc. We agreed on CN style lettering for the signs, along with CN and HBM&S logos. Once I was happy with the signage I gave the go ahead to get them done.  He used material with a white surface, giving a nice readable sign when it is cut. I received the signs in the mail earlier this week, and I'll be putting them in place prior to my layou...

For years one of the projects that has lurked in the back of my mind was the CN 222600 series mechanical reefers that were rebuilt from CN's fleet of 8 hatch ice reefers. These mechanical reefers were staples on the Hudson Bay passenger train from the 1960's through 1983. CN rebuilt a significant portion of their 8 hatch ice reefer fleet into mechanical reefers in the 1960's as these were relatively new cars (the last cars were built in the late 1950's) that were obsolete due to the advent of mechanical refrigeration.   The rebuilding process included plating over the roof hatches, adding full height plug doors, underslung genset, fuel tank, battery box and other equipment along with an A/C unit on one of the doors. The 222600 series cars also had steam lines for use in passenger service. CN also converted other cars with a 5' tall plug door. Other similar cars were in the 220xxx, 224xxx and 225xxx series, and likely others as well. CN's freight car renumbering ...

I recently completed weathering on a pair of locomotives; a CN SD40-2W for myself and a CPR H-16-44 for the CPR Boundary Subdivision. These were an interesting pair and represent the 1st and 2nd generation diesel locomotive fleets of their respective railways. The SD40-2W was purchased by CN in 1980 and was a new mainline locomotive in my era (1981-1983) so would have fairly light weathering as CN maintained their road power in good condition. To represent this I used Tamiya Black Panel Liner on the doors, louvers and latches to pop them a bit. After this was cleaned up I masked the windows and applied Tamiya matt clear finish to seal the body. After this I used oil washes to give the body a light grime coat.  I used oil paint and black PanPastel powders around the exhaust stack to get the oily gritty appearance often seen on these locomotives.  The wheels were painted black followed by Vallejo Game Effects dry rust which gives a nice look to the wheelsets. I sprayed a matt fi...

Starting in 1983 CN selected 9 units from their fleet of 1973-74 rebuilt F7Au for conversion into trailing "B" units.  They had their cab equipment, bells and horns stripped, windows and number boards painted over and new fuel tanks added to replace the smaller as delivered tanks. They also got a new paint job.  They were known as blind beetles, Blind B's, beetles and a few other more colourful names in the railfan community.  Railfans also called them F7Aum to represent modified rebuilt F units. You can find out more about the CN rebuilt F unit fleet in CN Lines magazine Vol 20 No 1 and 2 that covered the prototype and modeling of the rebuilds.   I decided I needed one of these units for my fleet and used a Highliners shell and a Stewart (now Bowser) F7A drive for the locomotive.  I used photos as a guide for detailing the model, and I scratchbuilt a fuel tank as well. There are plenty of fiddly bits on the pilot and rear of the car body that took some fig...

Whoops... someone forgot to say when to stop. North Vancouver BC in the 1970's My most recent projects were a quintet of 10'6" 40' boxcars with 8' doors.  Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern (later BC Rail) ordered these cars in the late 1950's and early 1960's for newsprint service.  They were among the last 40' boxcars built for Canadian railways before the switch to 50' cars.  CN had 8' door cars as well but they had a different door style. These are newly released Kaslo Shops Distributing cars both with and without roofwalks. Given how many of Kaslo kits I have built these were very fast to build.  Everything went together well, and sanding was really only needed on the ends to clean up the details.  I primed the cars with Mr. Surfacer 1500 which gives a very nice base to start from. The PGE car was painted with TLT PGE Freight Car Red and decalled with Black Cat decals. The Canadian Pacific block and script lettered cars were painted...

I have managed to acquire a number of CN employee time tables for northern Manitoba ranging from the early 1970's to the mid 1990's. These are snapshots of the railway operations during these times.  As is often the case there was far more traffic in the earlier time tables than the later ones.    My chosen era is the 1981-83 time frame. Time Table #39 shown above is the closest to my era that I currently have on hand. I'm still looking for additional time tables for my prototype time frame.  The main Subdivisions that are pertinent to the layout are the Turnberry Sub that runs from Hudson Bay to The Pas, the Wekusko Sub that runs from The Pas to Wabowden, the Flin Flon Sub that runs from Flin Flon Junction to Flin Flon and the Sherridon  Sub that runs from Sherrit Junction to Lynn Lake. This map shows the Hudson Bay Division Subdivisions in 1980.  I'm focused on the lines north of The Pas. In 1980 there was still extensive railway activity in northern Mani...

  The most recent project off the workbench is something I never thought I would build: Santa Fe SD45-2B #5512.  Kaslo Shops recently brought out this kit and requested a built up version to use for their box art.  I thought it would be an interesting project to try and tackle, being the first ATSF locomotive I have done. In the 1980's Santa Fe rebuilt 8 SD45-2 units into B units for road service.  There was a phase in the late 1980's and early 1990's where many railways rebuilt locomotives into B units to decrease their maintenance costs.  CN rebuilt F7Au, CP rebuilt SD40-2, BN had a few SD units rebuilt and Santa Fe had the SD45-2 and a few other types rebuilt.  This seems to have fallen out of favour more recently due to the lack of flexibility offered by B units.  You can read more on the ATSF B unit fleet here:   Santa Fe SD45-2 fleet information The kit went together well with everything fitting as it should. Not having to worry about w...

My most recent builds are a mix of 40 foot boxcars that I have been working on are a mix of cars for Kaslo Shops, myself and a few for friends.   A pair of Ontario Northland 40' 10'IH boxcars with 8' doors was the first thing off my workbench.  These are a recent offering from Kaslo Shops, and I built these cars for the box cover art.  These were not frequent visitors to northern Manitoba, but I have a slide scan of an ONT boxcar tucked in behind the road power heading north out of Wabowden MB. At least one car went as far as Gillam or Churchill so I have a prototype example! These were a straight forward kit build, one car (ONT 91037) with roofwalk and one car (ONT 91006) without.  ONT 91037 got a Jade Green paint scheme using the MRH Acrylic Paint Guide formula for NYC Jade Green that I tweaked a bit to get something close to the jade green in photos.   ONT 91006 was painted with Rapido Protocolour ONT green; I don't recommend this paint as it is dif...