The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

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...