https://nypost.com/2022/01/13/la-train-t...iners/amp/

nice headace for UP to sort out

Twenty years ago, the sight of a CNR 40' boxcar in Green Leaf livery brought back memories from my childhood and I was hooked back to HO modeling.  At that time I bought every CNR boxcar Athearn manufactured in BB kit.  With time passing and experience I discovered that those cars had a lot be desired and looked for better kits.  Finding a good basic kit for the 1937 AAR boxcar design is not easy though and finding one at 60$ us is not an option for me.

I had kitbashed an Athearn BB kit not so long ago for a freelanced road and I thought I could use another kit to model a CNR 40' boxcar.

The idea transformed itself into a project when I visited Exporail, the Canadian Train Museum in St-Constant, Quebec and saw a prototype of the car manufactured in 1939.  Here are some photos.

   

   

   

The Athearn BB kit for the 40' boxcar is pretty close to the 1937 AAR boxcar design and I thought that, with some modifications, I could get a nice model.  No intent here to get a perfect model of the prototype but something good enough.

I had a good candidate on hand and I was able to begin the journey.

   

If interested, follow me.

We have had more snow in the first week of the new year than the total for the last two years.  

WPMA-40 makes a pick up of an empty car they set out earlier in the week at Great Bay Foods.

Bruce

   

It’s a new year and it’s been a while since we’ve had a challenge of any kind. It’s time we thought about doing something along those lines.
 
It’s a new year and it’s been a very long time since we’ve had any kind of fundraiser to support Big Blue and it’s time we thought about doing something along those lines too.
 
Let’s talk about the challenge first, does anyone have any suggestions as to what we can do? Usually a build challenge of some sort, we’ve had photo challenges in the past, kitbashs and scratchbuilds have also done well. The last couple of, “Do something” challenges went well to, gives everyone a choice of what they like to do best. Think about it and come up with some ideas and let’s talk about it in this thread.
 
Now for the fundraiser, It’s been a long time since we’ve had any kind of fundraiser, be it an auction, sale, or just plain asking for contributions, but it takes money to keep Big Blue going and we’ve been good at keeping things reasonable and within our means. We do get an occasional donation and we thank you all for that, but the treasury is getting low, we have things coming up, some repeat every year, some we manage to arrange for two and three years. Each time the costs go up and we haven’t a clue how much each time until we start to review our options with our service provider. We have our SSL certificate up for renewal soon, we have our domain name, our hosting service and a few other things that come up that and we want to be prepared for. So we need some suggestions on how to get things going so we don’t have to grovel the last minute, We have been successful from the first day we split from Zealot, Mikey and I started out digging into our own pockets and thanks to all of you, we’ve not had to do that since. We promised from the get-go that there would be no advertising or sponsors, and we’ve kept our word and will continue to do so regardless.
 
Now, how do we keep things going, do we want to ask for stuff that we can auction off? Do we want to maybe decorate boxcars and auction them? (That hasn’t been too successful in the past.) Do we just want to point to the “donate” button and say, “have at it”? We’ve always liked to give back something if we can, that’s why the auctions, but we’ll do anything that works. So, how about posting some ideas here for a Big Blue Fundraiser….

We both sincerely thank you all for your participation and support here on Big Blue, we are proud that you've kept us around for all these years.

Don (ezdays) and MIkey (ngauger)

Pat did an update yesterday, the biggest change I see is that we can now group upload photos and even drag and drop. There is just one upload box, no more one-at-a-time.

Thank you, thank you Pat

Lubbers Run, beginning to think this isn't the best place to railfan.
Wishing you and yours the very best in the new year.

Bruce

   

in the late 1960's my layout was built in the loft , British outline to the UK scale of 00 (1-76) , and the flexi code 100 Peco track was laid on foam underlay , now some years later the track & underlay has been lifted , all track & points got a couple of days soak in the bath tub .
Dried and cleaned track has been re-laid and now my first attempt at balasting (Woodlands)

   

Just wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year:

   

I created this pic MANY MANY years ago, back when most of us were all on the Zealot forum, WOW, A blast from the past  . ANYWAYS, I seen this in my files and thought I would bring it back this year, probably from 12-15? years ago.

Merry Christmas!

Some photos of two cars which were added to the roster recently.

A CP Double Door 40' Boxcar.  This is a Sylvan Scale Models kit.  Although it has an End door, I lettered it after it has been sent to General Service.

   

   

   


A CN Double Door 40, Automobile Boxcar with an End door.  Also a Sylvan Scale Models kit.