After looking at 2,000 models for two days at the Collinsville RPM meet I decided to do a little ‘Back to the Future’ on the Bagnell Branch but I’m stopping at 1980 as I hate the graffiti paint on today’s freight cars. The modern modelers at the meet do some amazing artwork with their airbrushes replicating these cars but for my taste and what I remember from my Mopac days in the field it just looks wrong.

I’m a complete novice when it comes to freight cars after 1960 so Kevin Love gave me some guidance on what Atlas, Athearn, ExactRail MP cars were accurate. Tom Johnson is a retired art teacher and has a beautiful layout to prove it. He also has some of the most realistic model freight cars I’ve seen. I decided to try his methods on a couple of cheap Atlas boxcars and a P2K covered hopper before I tackled the high end models.

My references are the Mopac Color Passenger and Freight car book from Morning Sun (which you can buy from the MPHS company store http://mopac.org/store/books-books-books/item/19-missouri-pacific-color-guide-to-freight-and-passenger-equipment ) and Tom’s weathering blog on Model Railroad Hobbyist http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/14896?page=1 .

My other reference is Railcar Photos where you can do a search on initial (ie., MP, TP MI etc) and car type ‘Boxcar’ and enjoy the photos. Here’s an example where I did a search on ‘MI’ and ‘boxcar’ http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=52913 . Just go http://www.railcarphotos.com/ Looking through the Morning Sun book Mopac’s freight cars were maintained in pretty good shape, not much rust, just grime from use and a little wear and tear. Here’s a third reference you can use just go to the pages for CEI, MP or TP photos http://www.boxcars.us/index.html

After reading Tom’s tutorial all I used for this first car was Dullcote with a few drops of black and roof brown, dry pigments and oil paints. Tom’s explanations are pretty easy to follow. [attachment=1:12ax1d4p]MPatlascar2.JPG[/attachment:12ax1d4p][attachment=2:12ax1d4p]MPatlascar1.JPG[/attachment:12ax1d4p][attachment=3:12ax1d4p]MPAtlascar.JPG[/attachment:12ax1d4p]

While not a Mopac car here’s a P2K covered hopper I did using Tom’s tutorial.
[attachment=0:12ax1d4p]SLSFcoveredhopperP2K.JPG[/attachment:12ax1d4p]