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A fire destroyed the toll house on the A&W's Sturgeon Bay swing span bridge on February 2, 1952. A short in the wiring is believed to have been the cause. The toll house was used in the days when the bridge served both rail and road traffic, which came to an end when the nearby Michigan Street bridge was built in 1930. |
| This 40' PS-1 boxcar with a 6' Superior door from Kadee Quality
Products Company is a fantastic ready-to-run car.
Yeah, yeah, I know... I didn't do any real modeling work on this car; Kadee makes a very fine ready-to-run car in the 1950s GBW scheme. But I did like the weathering effect I put on this car, especially the faded GREEN BAY ROUTE heralds, so I'm sharing it with you. I weathered the car by drybrushing Delta Ceramcoat (cheap acrylic paint available at the craft department of Wal-Mart, a 2-oz bottle is less than a dollar) "charcoal" along the weld lines of the car, mainly along the upper half of each weld line. I made a mask out of a piece of manila folder to keep the drybrushing to a narrow band right at the weld line. The results was just a hint of rust/dirt at each weld, barely visible in the photo. Then I took some masking tape and masked off the GREEN BAY ROUTE herald on each side. I arranged it such that the edge of the tape was on the white border. Then I drybrushed Delta Ceramcoat "white" on the heralds to give a faded look. I really like the results I got doing this. Next, I tried to achieve the look of the paint from the lettering washing down the sides of the car. (Yeah, yeah, I know - the prototype cars had Scotchlite lettering which wouldn't streak, but I wanted to practice trying this effect.) I used the same mask that I used to drybrush the "charcoal" on the weld lines. As you can see, I could use a lot more practice on this technique. The effect looks more like the opening credits to the TV show "The Munsters!" Oh, well. Next, I got out the airbrush and lightly sprayed Badger Modelflex "weathered black" on the car body, with emphasis on the black ends and roof. Then I spayed a little "rail brown" on the sides, just to tone down the drybrushing effects. Lastly, I sprayed "reefer orange" on the trucks and couplers to simulate rust. I protected the car body with a hand-held piece of paper when I sprayed the couplers. Looking at the photo of the car, I can see that the last step I have to do is close the door tightly! |
The completed car.
This is the car "out of the box."
The end of the car.
All photos on this page by Mark Mathu.
