The units come from Wala-Wala WA and Delano CA to Albany NY for RailEx. Yes they do run in manifests. I saw a UP train with 4-5 of the ARMN's and a couple of the BNSF large reefers (not the same as the BLMA model) headed through Reno.
I think these are so great I can't wait to get mine. I think these are the best detailed N scale cars up to date by far.
Husker - I have a stupid question. I like the subtle weathering on the roof from the AC unit. How do you achieve the narrowing of the black grime away from the car end? Do you move the airbrush closer to the car to narrow the paint spray?
I catch them in Indiana once in a while on through trains. And he's right on the numbers when they get out here, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see that there are "unit trains" of the things, that have a singular point of origin and split off as they go to canneries, or whereever, so you have additional justification to go with as many or as few cars as you want.
Dave, the black exhaust residue on the roof was made by holding the airbrush almost parallel to the roof. I aim the paint stream right at the upper part of the AC unit and the tiny bit of vertical space above the unit, and then let the black just barely overspray on top of the car. I used Polly S flat black, slightly thinned.
A slight correction folks. The RailEx Washington facility, is up one a hill in Wallula, Washington. It's switched by a switching service using an old GP-30 on a balloon/loop track and they load both small (67' foot) and large (72' foot) reefers along with 50/60 foot, hi-cube, single and double, plug door boxcars. I saw the facility this past week while out on a operations/safety audit for a series of railroads I work for Barry
Stupid question, but do all modern reefers today have that external refrigeration unit mounted on the "end porch," or is that only a feature of the Trinity cars?
When I saw this thread, I went to look at my railfan photos of ARMN reefers. I see a lot on the UP line. Yes, they were all tagged except one clean one.
I always said that I would never put graffiti on my trains, but I guess after seeing this every day for as long as I can remember, it becoming a natural thing to see. The funny thing is that I never noticed the Carrier Reefer Units until about 2-3 weeks ago while waiting for a train to go by. I guess I always got caught up in the graffiti on these all white UP ARMN cars coming out of LA. I think I even posted a question about the Reefer Units when I 1[SUP]st[/SUP] noticed them and now I have 4 coming in the mail. The only thing is that I forgot the graffiti. eek:
I'm open to modeling graffiti on my layout - I have some buildings and bridge abutments that have it already - but none of my cars (save for one BN hopper that I bought that had it already) have graffiti at the moment. None of my locomotives will have graffiti though. Even if you do want your cars to have graffiti on them, it can be overwhelming to do them all. I think just having it on a few cars is good enough to look realistic. Who does make the best graffiti decals? I've seen Microscale's and the screen printing dots are too visible on them, which kinds of ruins the look. I haven't gotten any Blair Line decals though they seem to have a good selection.
I agree with you completely. I only plan to do a couple of them and I can’t get myself to weather Loco let alone graffiti them. I only took a quick look at the graffiti decals, but I’m planning on placing an order for some other stuff and need to make a decision soon on what decals I’m going to buy.
The Blair line decals are great graphics but are far more "tender" to work with than the Microscale. Some of the micro scale are very good, others it is true you can see the dots. Blair Line has a far greater selection.
Do the Blair Line decals have screenprinting dots? I would use the dotted decals for things like background or faraway objects, like the side of a building or a bridge abutment, but the trains are the focus of the layout, I wouldn't want to have any of the dotted decals on a train.
I have been using both microscale and blair decals for graffiti and they both work well. I have had some more challenging applications on ribbed boxcars where I am going over some of the door rail detail as well, and they hug the detail well if using micro sol. The dots are fairly obvious on the larger decals, but you have to look very close to see them once the car is on the layout. Applying weathering over the top of the graffiti also helps, whether it is a heavy grime coat or just a fade. I like the decals and until there is a better alternative, I'm happy using them. They are easy to apply, and there are many different sheets available. I can't remember what brand decals these are, but with close observation you can see the dots, but on the layout they are hidden by distance. The reefer cars in my original post here also have the same issue, and at this distance you really can't see the dots. Even up close, the dots really can't be seen on this CN car after the weathering was applied.
Dots? baffled: I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’ve never done decaling before and don’t know what to expect.
Dots are my question as well???? Anybody try to run all 24 of them on an N-trak layout utilizing (getting up to and down from) the green line?
Not sure about newer issues, but at least the early Blair Line graffiti was pretty crude, resolution wise. Visible "dots" (almost reminiscent of dot matrix printers or the very early inkjets) that were pretty noticeable on n-scale cars, especially in photos. I graff'ed up several cars early in my n-scale career (probably around 2002-ish, and decals may have been purchased 1-2 years prior) and wasn't especially happy with the results but lived with it. I'll admit...very acceptable for older tooling cars that weren't destined to be front-line photo pieces. Case-on-point....I have no photos of the relevant cars, and have since sold them off. I do think I still have some of the decals though....if I can fish them up I'll post an example. I haven't seen later Blair Lone stuff but I assume they've improved their quality over the years.
I think if you really want your cars/trains to represent 2011, then they have to be "tagged"... It just makes them more realistic and prototypical.
