Model Railroading > SP Kaiser Ore Train Vid

Hope this goes through, my first try posting a video.

I was going to add this to PrototypeMike's post of his Eagle Mountain ore train but thought I would post it on its own.

I shot this on Rob Spangler's stunning layout and I had to use borrowed power as he runs on NCE and my brace of U-30's and SD35's don't have NCE receivers.  [OK, I know the real SP ore train used U-28's, but I settled for Atlas U-30's.]  I actually have 60 of the G-100 Ore Gons but it is really too much for most layouts.

Some self criticisms: The train screams for weathering.  The shiny new wheels really take away from the scene.  Also I model the era when Kaiser was milling their ore into Taconite which has a more gray-purple color than Athearn't ore loads.


 

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Not to rain on your parade, but your Atlas U28Cs are actually Kato SD45s. Still, really nice train and once you weather, really really (Trump speak) nice train.

The mobile decoders do not care what system you use.
NCE,Digitrax,etc.It is the operations that will not mix.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,fl.

CM1 Wrote:
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> Not to rain on your parade, but your Atlas U28Cs
> are actually Kato SD45s. Still, really nice train
> and once you weather, really really (Trump speak)
> nice train.

You may have misread his post.

Nice train and layout!

 

Very nice Pat, thanks for posting. My video shows only the low side cars I own which scream new too. But I own a bunch of the high side ore cars too and I got them weathered for free. I took them to a model railroading clinic on weathering and there was 20 attendees who weathered 24 cars and all different. Saved me a lot of time.

Mike Mickens
Rialto, CA

I've got about two thirds of my 90 ore train cars weathered.  I got most of the work done on the train a couple of years ago but I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet.  A friend of mine kitbashed the caboose for me.  The locomotives are Atlas U30Cs.  Someday I want to have an appropriate SP consist to pull the train as well.
...John

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John,
All 90 gons in one train, very impressive to say the least.  With Kaiser U 30s  and Kaiser caboose, outstanding. I found right out of the boxes my Athearn gons ran flawless, how about yours?  Only issue I had/have is the ladders and other details are so delicate they are constantly getting knocked off handling them in and out of the boxes.

Excellent weathering, you even go the hydraulic oil stain that they all seem to have near the end of operations. Kaiser must have used a lot of hydraulic fluid at their dumper as it would take a lot to stain +/- 600 ore gons.

What did you use for the Kaiser caboose? 

Also, your loads have the more correct color for the Taconite pellets.  What did you use to get the look?  As noted in my posting, mine look too "Mineral Red" which is not too bad if you model the basic crushed iron ore but misses the mark for the later Taconite.

Pat

 

Hey Pat,

I did a test run of 54 cars before I did any work on them and like you, I was alarmed at how many parts were falling off of the cars.  So step one was to add a dot of super glue at every point of contact where a ladder or brake gear was glued to the car -- I think there were 36 points per car.  That made the cars much more able to be transported and layout proof.  The other item that had to go were the plastic couplers; easily damaged and not very reliable.  I made and added the ACI labels and the COTS stencils.  I kept track of my time and it came out to an hour and forty minutes per car -- I was averaging six cars per week.

You'd think iron ore would be a rusty color, but every photo that I've seen shows it to be a dark gray color, so I painted my loads with Floquil weathered black.  As you pointed out, it must be because it's actually taconite.

I believe my friend started with a Walthers caboose.  I can get a description from him if you're interested.  I made the decals for the caboose.

...John

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The first video is Kato SD45 in SP paint. The second video is Atlas U30s in Kaiser paint.