Huckleberry Railroad/Crossroads Village (near Flint, Michigan) held their annual Railfan Weekend last weekend (August 4-5, 2012). It was a new event for me, I wasn't aware that they had such an event until last Friday night. Anyway, I was invited to operate on an N scale layout that has been participating in the event for several years. Aside from the hour or so trip to/from Flint on Friday/Saturday/Sunday, the entire weekend was very enjoyable.
In preparation for the event, and two full days of running trains, plus what was essentially a full week of nothing due for class, I took advantage of several evenings and undertook several projects I wanted to get done. Ironically, a couple of modeling-related purchases were coincidentally made just a couple days prior, mostly due to circumstances rather than conscious planning.
Due to a Pine-Sol/paint stripping incident (I thought the base color of the shell I was stripping was black, so I left the shell in the Pine-Sol until I could see the yellow paint coming off the black shell. Apparently the shell was molded in yellow plastic.), I had to order a couple of parts from Atlas a couple days before starting my project blitz. Among other things, I ordered two GP38 shell assemblies (complete with Accumate couplers). The shell that had disintegrated into soft plastic had been Alaska 2003 when I originally purchased the engine. It had already been through several patched transformations, and I doubt all of the added paint would have fallen off anyway. However, the truck and fuel tank color were almost an exact match to the engine I'd been wanting to turn it into- Central Oregon & Pacific 3838. With the purchase of a set of Microscale CORP decals several months ago, all I needed was time and a steady hand to complete the job. Since the decal set was good for two units, and since the CORP 3826 joined the CORP 3838 on the Huron and Eastern, the 3826 became my second CORP engine (also considered was the 3827, at one time assigned to the Toledo, Peoria & Western). Despite hitting a few rough spots in the decal process, both engines were completed by Saturday morning:
One of my goals for the project was to begin building an N scale version of the Huron & Eastern's locomotive fleet. In addition to the two CORP units, I also have the CMGN 8903 in my collection, which gave a bit of a local element to the trains operating on the layout.
In my last project update post, I included photos of an RS3 in the Port Huron & Detroit (PHD) paint scheme. I did finish the paint on this engine, but haven't had a chance to reassemble it. When complete, it will be lettered for the Detroit, Caro & Sandusky Railroad, not the PH&D.
In other PH&D modeling projects though, I added a pair of MP15s to my PH&D roster. While the PH&D's entire diesel locomotive fleet consisted of 2 S1s, an S2 and an S4 (with one of each type left when CSX bought the operation in 1984), one of my modeling scenarios depicts the PH&D current-day, having not been merged into the CSX. PH&D 75 and 76 both wear the two-tone blue with white/red stripes. Also, visible in the third photo, is a red PH&D caboose, number 75, for which no prototype actually existed. One of my other modeling projects is a modular version of the PH&D (no additional progress of note has been made on that project recently), for which I am gradually repainting and decaling PH&D boxcars. My fleet is growing somewhat, although I have a long way to go. You can see most (if not all) of the fleet in the third photo:
Finally, to wrap up this update, is CEFX 9395, an SD40T-2 originally owned by the Southern Pacific, before being sold to CEFX, leased to RailAmerica, and assigned to the Toledo Peoria & Western and the Indiana & Ohio. At some point it was purchased by RA and received some minor paint updates, but in my (own) reference photos, it had CEFX lettering (I stripped off the SP on the nose before realizing it had been reapplied by RailAmerica). With some minor paint touch-ups and some new decals, this Intermountain model is a nice stand in for another RailAmerica unit:
Charles W.
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