The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

One of my pet peeves is otherwise nicely done models riding on shiny metal wheels - it ruins the effect of all the other work done on the model.  And you should NOT use plastic wheelsets - they seem to attract dirt and grime and gum up your track.  Swap out the plastic wheels for aftermarket metal wheelsets.   Most of my replacement wheelsets are Intermountain, available in boxes of 100 axles.  The wheel profile is not the best but they are readily available and are generally in proper gauge or easily adjusted.  I have tried other brands but they are hit and miss as far as being readily available locally.  I have found that Rapido wheelsets are always too narrow compared to the NMRA, and they are a bugger to regauge.   My process for the wheels is fairly simple and gives good results.  Below are my go to paints: Vallejo Air Black and Vallejo Game Effects Dry Rust If you want to you can first clean the wheels with 99% (or whatever % you h...

The CN noodle was designed to go over a flat surface.  When you are decalling your freight cars the decal will fit flat sided cars perfectly.  However on a rib sided car, the proportions of the noodle will be off if you just apply the whole decal over the car side.  This video shows my technique for applying the decals to keep the noodle proportions correct.  I hope this is helpful for those who "roll their own" freight cars.  

I built a pair of CN 66' gondolas < here > and decided I needed a load for them.  I shot one of these gondolas with a load of poles in 1992 (in the photo above) that I thought would be a fairly easy to build load.  The first thing I needed to sort out was how to make the poles.   I thought about using skewers but they are too small in diameter to be reasonable.  While tooling around in a dollar store I stumbled across a package of wood dowels that scaled out to 12" diameter, roughly appropriate for HO scale.  I picked up a few packages of the dowels and had my starting point.   I also needed to come up with how to mount the poles so they would be removable.  A small piece of thin plywood forms the load base.  I trimmed the I drilled a series of holes in the plywood to insert some round toothpicks to represent the vertical side posts used to hold the poles in place.   I needed to figure out how to represent the bark that w...

Previously I had worked on building a fleet of rebuilt CN F7 units < here >.  A total of 3 units (2 F7Au and one F7Bu) were completed and I moved onto other projects.  Recently I stumbled across another partly finished F7B and decided that I should get it wrapped up.   I bought this model as part of an ABA set of Kato drive Stewart F7 units from Dan Kirlin's hobby shop in Winnipeg circa 1994 (!?!).  In previous decades I had added lift rings, a winterization hatch and had drilled out the various grab iron and railing mounting locations to the model.  I used an OMI rooftop cooling coil for the coil seen on the prototype.  These are long out of production and impossible to find now (made out of unobtanium), but Precision Scale has a plastic cooling coil that replaces this one.   As well, I had modified the fuel tank skirting and fuel tank to reflect the prototype arrangement.  I then let the model marinate in the box for years due to...

CN 157188 eastbound through Roblin Manitoba in 1993.  Marc Simpson Photo CN 157064 in it's almost finished form.  This is a car that is going to need a repaint soon. CN 156053 is a less weathered car that was recently shopped. CN ordered 700 65'6" IL gondolas from Hawker Siddeley and NSC between 1966 and 1972.  These cars were used in general service with some receiving a removable roof.  These were often seen in steel service, scrap metal and hauling hydro poles among many things.   These have been on my build list for many years.  Originally I planned to scratchbuild these cars but Kaslo Shops ( https://www.kasloshops.com/ ) has made this task much easier by releasing a 3D printed version of both the HST and NSC cars.  Each type has a number of differences that only become obvious when you look at the cars in detail.   The kit comes with a mix of etched parts and 3D printed parts.  Everything is nicely rendered.   The ki...

 Recently my wife and I purchased a light box for photographing my models and her hand made cards ( Cards.by.Amara ).  The light box is big enough to fit an HO 85' passenger car so it will work well for most model photography. The light box comes with several back drops in neutral grey, black, white and tan/beige.  I played around with the different backdrops and a recently weathered CN PSC Caboose.  I must say that I am partial to the black backdrop, with the grey and white 2nd and 3rd.  In this application I think the tan/beige doesn't work well.   The light box is easy to set up and the built in LED lights have variable tone and brightness controls.  I see good potential for this for my model photography. Neutral grey back drop.  It's okay but I may have to brighten the lighting in Photoshop Black backdrop: I really like how the red-orange pops with this back drop White back drop: this will likely need some work in Photoshop to be useable ...

Trackwork, freight cars and a switcher in Proto48 by Greg Amer A few of my cars on display GT 0-4-0 in Proto 87 by Rene' Gourley FW&D boxcar in HO scale by Rob Kirkham Soo Line caboose by Larry Sebelley BC Rail tank car in N scale by Timothy Horton Southern Pacific caboose in TT scale by Xen Valoczy Soo Line passenger car in HO scale by Stephan Wintner The Railway Modellers Meet of BC was held this past weekend (May 27-29, 2022) and it was what I would consider a rousing success.  In addition to the on line clinic lineup and layout tours < here >, we had operating sessions,  in person layout tours, "Meet My Layout", model displays and "Meet the Modeller".  We also had group discussions based on era and prototype and Table Top Clinics.   "Meet My Layout", Table Top Clinics and the group discussions were new additions and overall were well received by attendees and may well feature in future meets.  I presented a table top clinic on weathering ...

For the past few years I have been on the organizing committee of the Railway Modellers Meet of BC .  We have worked hard to make this one of the best model railway events that we can.  Over the past 7 years we have continued to work on improving the meet.  We are all proud of what we have been able to achieve over the past years and are looking forward to many more years of presenting the best model railroading has to offer.   We had to scramble to put together an online meet when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.  In a very short timeframe we learned how to put on a Zoom event which went pretty well considering we were basically making it up as we went along.  We continued with the Zoom clinics in 2021, and for 2022 we are going with a hybrid on line and in person meet.  The clinic presentations will be on line while there will be in person events on May 27th to 29th.     It has a lot going on:  Operating Sessions on private...

 I have posted a video on how I do my chipped paint effects on freight car roofs.  Fast and uses a few basic tools and paints, it gives a good weathered effect for your fleet. Chipped Paint on a Freight Car