As I've mentioned in other posts, I have been collecting my trains since I was a student at Purdue starting in 1988. At the same time, the real railroads have continued to change. A few examples based on my current locomotive fleet:
- CP has changed its name from CP Rail to CP Rail System to Canadian Pacific Railway. Currently, I have six different paint schemes in my fleet.
- British Columbia Railway merged into Canadian National.
- Soo Line was always part of CPR but finally retired its own paint scheme.
- Burlington Northern purchased Santa Fe and was then purchased by Berkshire Hathaway. I own four different paint schemes and there are three newer paint schemes involving orange paint that I really, really don't like.
- Some of the locomotive models I own have been retired in real life. The venerable Amtrak F40PH has been retired in the US, but Canada has rebuilt them and they're still in use.
- CP had two ultra-modern "green goat" locomotives that they decided not to keep. I think the engines are very nice and am keeping them anyway.
- In the most annoying case, Amtrak has five paint schemes but due to a stupid licensing scheme, you cannot get car decals for the current scheme. Locomotives, yes, but not the cars.
- I have many freight cars that are road names that no longer exist -- Western Pacific, Cotton Belt, etc.
Basic Maintenance
Every car and engine will need to have basic maintenance and simple "upgrades" done in order to keep them rolling reliably. These are the tasks I'm planning to perform for the entire fleet:
- Kadee couplers - some of my engines and cars have non-Kadee couplers installed. My personal experience has been that non-Kadee couplers do not work nearly as smoothly and as a result, I won't keep using them. Kadee also offers a kit with the entire line of couplers so that you can pick the right coupler for each car to get the height correct without having to rebuild the car, scrape down the engine mounting piece, etc.
- Standards verification - this involves checking the weight on cars, making sure coupler heights are correct, etc.
- Engine maintenance - this involves cleaning the wheels on a regular basis, lubricating the motor with the appropriate compounds, and so on.
- Metal wheels (cars) - metal wheels eliminate many of the issues that people have with rolling stock. As time and funds allow, all plastic wheels will be swapped out for metal wheels of the correct diameter.
- Resistor wheels (cars) - as I discussed in a previous article, I am planning for detection and eventual signaling on the railroad. In order to do that, I need to know that the track is occupied. While the engine will be detected, cars are not unless you install resistor wheelsets. This causes a small amount of current to be passed through a resistor on the wheel, which tells the detection system that a car is in the block. I'm planning to add one resistor axle to each car as time and funds allow.
The rest of this article covers the more extensive maintenance I would like to do to keep the fleet current with the practices being followed in real life.
Freight Cars
For freight cars, one of the common approaches taken by the real railroads is to patch over the old reporting marks with the new ones, as shown in this photo.
Because taking a car out of service to be painted means that it's not making money, railroads are unlikely to do this until the car has to be completely overhauled or if it's damaged. The patching can be done by either airbrushing a patch area, or decals are available to act as the patch. You then get decals with the new numbers to put onto the patch to match the new railroad owner's reporting marks.
Another thing that you can do is to add visibility striping to freight cars. This regulation was passed in 2005 to make freight cars stand out more because people were driving into them in the middle of the night through unprotected crossings. Here's an example of the striping and a number patch together:
Tank cars are striped vertically, but other cars may be striped horizontally or vertically. The best approach is to go take photos of real trains to get ideas on how to detail the cars. If you don't have a good selection of railroads near you, you can go to YouTube and check out these two channels:
A final bit of reality is the amount of graffiti on railroad cars. I fully understand that it's a part of the real world. The taggers have no respect for private property and are trespassing when they tag these cars. The paint they put on frequently covers the reporting marks, making it difficult for the train crews to see the information. While it happens in the real world, this is one thing that I refuse to "promote" by adding it to my railroad. If you do choose to add graffiti, there are lots of ways to do it, whether by buying decals of the graffiti or by doing your own with paint markers.
Locomotives
Engines are patched, as well, as shown in this photo. You can see the old Burlington Northern logo on the nose, but a new BNSF logo is under the cab window.
As I said, if I go through the effort to repaint a locomotive, I will probably add some key details to the locomotive at the same time. The locomotive is really the "star" of the train, so I want them to look good. The cars are making the money for the railroad, but they just don't get the love that the engines do.
Another thing I want to keep in mind is to make sure I'm focusing on the primary railroads on the layout, which are CP and BNSF. However, that doesn't mean I can't have cars and engines from other railroads. Engines frequently interchange onto other railroads and the railroads simply settle up with each other for the time the power was in use. In addition, railroads have trackage rights on each other's railroads. On my favorite railfanning spot in Chesterton, Indiana, it is very common to see every locomotives from every class 1 railroad on these tracks owned by Norfolk Southern. While I focus on CP and BNSF, I'll still have a handful of engines from the rest of the railroads that are interchanging with my railroad.
Detailing an engine can also help bring it into the modern era. While ditch lights were common on Canadian engines, they were not required in the US until later. The 4-axle BN GP40 and GP50 locomotives I have all predate the ditch light requirement. There are also extra details, like GPS domes, safety markings, etc. that may be missing. Air conditioning units are also frequently added to locomotive cabs that are normally left off of models.
Some of the older engines, such as the SD40-2 that was so popular, are now being rebuilt. Canadian Pacific is rebuilding these locomotives into SD30C-ECO engines. You can see the differences below:
And the new:
While I may build (or eventually buy) one of these models, I don't want to put the money and effort into this type of conversion of my old Athearn blue box locomotives. I would prefer to put a new coat of paint on them, a few key details, and simply lean on the fact that CP continues to run these locomotives today, as they actually do as of 2017.
Conclusion
As with everything, everything takes time and money. Patching a railroad car is much faster than stripping down an engine, detailing it and then repainting it. These patch projects can be done in a short period of time, in between doing benchwork, wiring, scenery, and all the other things that need to be done for a layout. The best idea is to have a toolbox of options for your fleet and to choose the right tool based on the situation.
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