Railfanning And Models

Railfanning keeps me interested in up-to-date models. Here are some recent projects based on what I see when I'm out in the real world watching trains.

The first is a Walthers Mainline TBOX painted in red. I see them around pretty frequently, and I was happy Walthers brought one out, especially at a moderate price. Here's a prototype shot of RBOX 889410.

Below is the Walthers model. This will need to be tagged, and I also see that it needs to have a natural metal roof.

I also see quite a lot of cars lettered for CN subsidiary Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific. Here is DWC 409766:

Here is an Athearn model that isn't too bad, considering it seems to be an update of old Roundhouse tooling from the 1970s. The sides are pretty good, the ends are different. I don't like the color, but I can fix that somewhat with tagging and weathering.

Here's a pretty common type of tank car that I see a lot, UTLX 642270:

This was an older-run Walthers car that I updated with yellow conspicuity stripes. It also needs the yellow hazmat emergency label that's on the lower right hand side of the tank in the prototype photo.

A lot of the fun in modeling for me is going out and seeing the real thing that I can reproduce on my layout in my basement.