Modelling Maine Railroads

Sunday evening, I said that I would post more details about the construction of the shed. I didn't get around to that yesterday, so here it is. The shed followed my usual construction methods, for the most part. I started constructing the shed by cutting out walls from Mt. Albert Scale Lumber scribed wood sheet. I used the .060 width between scribes for this project. Htis type of siding is a pretty close match to the prototupe shed, appearence wise. I then assembled the walls, using 6 by 6 inch scale lumber for trim. To construct the doors to the shed, I glued scale 1 by 8 lumber board by board to the shed wall. Since it is meant to represent two doors, I differentiated the doors by building one on a slight angle, as if it was falling of of its hinges. It turned out that one door had to be 5 boards wide and one door had to be 6 boards wide. This happened because I initially thought I had, and measured and planned for, 6 inch wide boards rather than 8 inch wide boards. I decided...

This weekend, I scratchbuilt a small shed following a prototype structure located by the tracks in Mattawamkeag. I found the shed on Google Streetview, and figured out the dimensions from aerial photos. The shed was scracthbuilt from scribed wood sheet. I do not know who owned the shed during the 1950s, but it was either the nearby lumber mill or the Canadian Pacific, as the structure is definitely not of Maine Central origin. I will post more about how I built this structure tomorrow, I think. Looking at the front of the shed. Looking at the rear of the shed.

This morning, I decided to improve an old Athearn boxcar that I had acquired a few years ago. The car was an old blue box kit, and had okay basic details. It was painted and lettered for Canadian Pacific, so I had extra incentive to improve it. Also helping the car's case was the fact that it had the right number for the series of CP boxcar that it most closely represented. As my next layout will depict the section of the  Canadian Pacific transcontinental mainline which ran on the joint track with the Maine Cantral for 56 miles between Mattawamkeag and Vanceboro, I need all the CP cars I can find. I decided that in the case of this car, which isn't badly detailed but is not as well detailed as my other cars, I could use the car on CP mainline through freights only, so ttje lack of some details wouldn't be a problem. The main problem with this car was the bad weathering job that I had done on it. This car was the first car I that I ever weathered, and it was very obviou...

Though the title specifies that the following applies only to accurail refrigerator cars, it also applies to accurail outside braced wood boxcars. In fact, I have used the following methods with success on Accurail outside braced wood boxcars. My Accurail Bangor & Aroostook refrigerator car had a very distinct tilt to one side when placed on the track. This tilt was very unsightly, and also made the car liable to tip over during operation. So this evening, I decided to do something about it. I placed the car on my workbench and looked at the underframe to try to determine what exactly the problem was. I first checked to see if it was a case of the entire underframe assembly not being properly attached to the rest of the car. I have had this problem with a few other Accurail cars, and the solution to this is to simply push the underframe into the car until there is a click. Sadly, this was not the case with this car. At first, I thought that the problem with this car was w...

This afternoon, I assembled Maine Central #3852, an accurail two bay hopper kit that I purchased at Mainline Hobby Supply in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvannia. This is a very nice kit and built into a very nice car. It was a nice, quick, afternoon project after a long, slow, day at school. For the most part, I followed the instructions to the kit and did not make any modifications to the car. However, in the course of assembling the kit, I made several changes to the order in which I assembled the kit. I will note those modifications here, mostly for my own regrence if I ever build another model from this specific kit. First, when adding the coupler and coupler pockets to the car, add them before  adding the air resevoir. It makes screwing the couplers into place much easier. Second, glue the support post to the main body before adding the end assemblies with the couplers and such. Finally, screw the screws for the trucks all the way down the holes in the bolsters before att...

Wednesday night, I finished my model of the house that will be located by the tracks in Mattawamkeag. For the most part, I have already documented the construction of this structure on the blog. All that I did last night was finishing the porch. I started the porch on Sunday, but did not get any work done until Wednesday. The porch was built almost entirely out of scale lumber. The frame for the porch and the support posts for the porch roof were all made out of 6 by 6 lumber. The roof trim was made out of scale 6 by 8s. The floorboards were constructed board by board out of scale 1 by 6 lumber. Inch thick scale lumber is very thin!  After assembling the porch, I painted the frame and the posts white, and painted the floorboards grey. I then drybrushed black and brown paint on the floorboards to represent where people would walk across the floor to reach the door. The roof was built and painted to my usual method. I then did some light weathering on the whole house. ...