First 1:160 Modeling Since...

...golly, I honestly can't remember when I last did any modeling in N Scale. Embarrassing, to say the least! Well, the dry spell has been broken—assuming that one is willing to acknowledge relettering a car as actual "modeling." Regardless, it felt good working in N again.

Inspiration for the project came from Lee Weldon, of Western Maryland Railway fame. He's been gearing up for a gala event to celebrate his newly-rebuilt layout with a run of private varnish for friends and fans.



I'd originally thought of offering up the coach I'd used as the tourist railroad sign from my last White River and Northern layout (above). However, after a quick mechanical inspection, I determined it wasn't roadworthy. Not only would it be a fair bit of effort to bring it up to snuff, but it was kind of goofy-looking to begin with; so, I decided to create a "proper" private car by relettering a new Athearn 50-foot Overland coach.



For the most part, it was a fairly straightforward project. After dismantling the car, I soaked the main body in 91% alcohol to strip away most of the original paint (above). Next, I sprayed it lightly with Tamiya Navy Blue. Then I set about making a set of decals (below). This took more time than everything else combined, mostly because of the tedious trial-and-error process of matching the blue of the coach so that the lettering could be white. This was complicated by the fact that color rendering between plain paper and decal paper was vastly different. As a consequence, I burned through quite a bit of decal material trying to get a decent match.



The main band of lettering across the top was cut from a continuous decal strip that runs the full width of the car to eliminate exposed decal ends. The car numbers, on the other hand, were a different matter. Although the natual inclination is to cut them as tightly as practical, it works better to leave at least some room around the lettering, because the cut edges have a white border that can encroach on the lettering if cut too tightly.

When at last I got all four decals applied successfully, I carefully touched up any obvious white edges with a dark blue fine-tipped Sharpie. To give the otherwise plain car sides a bit of style, I added white "pin stripes" made from slivers of plain decal material. When everything was dry, I sealed the whole car with Dull Cote. I also painted the interior flat black to kill the glare of the raw metal weight on the bottom, and I'm contemplating adding some passengers as well.



Now I not only have a roadworthy private car for Lee's event, but I also have a nice new piece of rolling stock for the (currently non-existent) White River and Northern, something that hasn't happened since around 1999. It's not a contest grade model by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun to do, and it will look good plying the rails of the Western Maryland.