GN 10784 Plywood Boxcar - Quick Weathering

Time to dive into weathering my new Bridgetown 2023 acquisition, a GN "Plywood" boxcar.   Normally, I've thought these cars were gaudy and strange.  

Orange... in a freight?!

To be fair, I'm not much of a GN researcher, but I do want to model GN cars as foreign cars showing up on my Southern Pacific layout.  Over the last two years or so is that these cars did run across the area that I model, namely Tehachapi and even the Jawbone Branch.

Great Northern Paint Schemes?

IMRC/IMWX boxcar kit painted in the 'normal' paint scheme for 1948-1956.

While I'm more used to the classic brown GN boxcar fleet, adding this bright orange car will certainly be an outstanding model, drawing attention.  

Timeline of GN paint schemes:
1941: Side Facing Goat Herald introduced. First FT's delivered (first orange and green livery).

1948: New/repainted freight cars use "Great Northern" instead of "Glacier Park" in logo.

So oddly, the IMWX/IMRC kit has the post-1948 herald with the Great Northern, not the Glacier National Park phrasing in the herald.  Orange/Green paint scheme on the plywood car started back in 1941 with side facing goat. - Good to know, I'll have to change the tare date anyway on the brown car kit, which will work to be a 1948 repaint, probably just remove the "NEW" and leave the "F" date.

IMRC 46055-03*, a RTR GN "Plywood" panel boxcar in orange and black.

These cars were built in 1947 at the St. Cloud Shops with the upgraded post-war steel ends, and retained pre-war design of panel roofs.  It looks like there were two groups of cars, one of 500 cars built in 1945, then 400 cars in 1947.  The GN 10784 would be in the second group of 400 cars.  It would also appear that within the first three years, about 7 cars were destroyed and struck from the roster.

GN 10000-series 'plywood' composite boxcars ORER data 1950.

These were some of the first cars built with plywood sides.  Some PFE reefers were also rebuilt/built with plywood sides, but ended up being changed back to other materials within 5-8 years as the early plywoods failed faster than standard board or steel-side construction.  I don't really know what the disposition of the plywood-sided boxcars on the GN, but clearly they existed into the early 1950s and roamed freely.

Minor Repairs

Somewhere along the route from IMRC's Chinese factory to my hands the car seems to have been dropped and had the steel weight knocked loose from the inside of the floor.  Thankfully, there was not very much glue holding the roof to the upper body edges, and I was able to remove the roof to reattach the weight.

Interior with re-glued weight.

I used some standard automotive RTV-Silicone.  Don't forget to be sure the weight is centered on the floor and with a bit of RTV around the edges to hold it firm.  Then the RTV was allowed to gas-off for a couple days before reattaching the roof with MEK (Tamiya glue).

Weathering Goals

Generally, I want to keep the weathering on this car moderated.  The 1947 build date can mean that it showed up on my railroad within the first year or two.  Given that I model into 1954 with RSD-5s, then I could have them with nearly 7 years of weathering.  I'll aim to go with some grime weathering on the lower car, and also some washes on the panel-edges. 

Some basic roof weathering with Pavement and Territorial Beige highlights along the running board.

Dusty/sooty roof gets a bit of typical weathering.  Rain washed-effects of the Pacific North West should play a part in the weathering too, which will extend onto the car side.

Weathering with Acrylics

Right side with weathering starting.  Ladder mud/boot kick marks onto the side.

 The trucks and underframe are Pavement wash and highlighted with Territorial Beige.

Left side with panel lines.

Most of the side weathering at this point is just highlighting the panel edges with grimy wash and a bit of Pavement from Apple Barrel. 

Weathering with Chalk Marks

Right side chalk marks.

A couple light chalk marks for release lever and hand written "Seattle".  Dark chalk mark of "21" at the left end of the car.  I decided to make the sharp dirt/soot drips from the ends of the door track with my new dark gray Gelly-Roll pen against a straight edge ruler.

Left side chalk marks.

On this side I went with a "Mill St" chalk mark and a very faint tally mark set to the left of the door.  I also did the same dark gray Gel-pen marks from the door tracks.  Generally these streaks can be done with a fine brush, but I wanted to try making sure that they were straight by using the straight-edge and pen method.  It seemed to work.  I can also use a bit of 70% iso-alcohol to feather the end of the streak down a bit more.

Routing Cards

On many of my cars starting in October 2023 and moving forward will have a couple of the OwlMtModels 1220 Routing & Grading Cards applied.

Right side with routing card

On the right side I put a simple routing card under the 7 of the car number.  The car's plywood sides could be hammer-stapled to, thus allowing the cards to be placed pretty much anywhere, although I'm sure GN would prefer the clerks to use the card boards, fitted low on the doors!

Left side with routing and a grading card.

The left side has a Grade "B" card over in the right side data block, below the herald.  There's also a routing card placed over the "Mill St" chalk mark.

In Closing

The basics of weathering this car to this point only took a little over an hour.  So don't be afraid to do a "quick and dirty" weathering pass on a model.  

Wrapped up and ready to roll.

I may experiment with some chipped paint showing a section of the plywood layer failing in a follow-up Part 2 post.  I may also make a light pass with the airbrush to blend everything together a bit.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Routing & Grading Cards with OwlMtModels 1220 Decals - Prototype Routing & Grading, demonstrated on NC&StL 15337.

Consist Photo Analysis (Part 2) - Owenyo Local, Circa 1950 - GN Plywood Boxcar at Little Lake

GN Paint Schemes - off-blog reference resource

Routing & Grading Cards with OwlMtModels 1220 Decals

Over the years, I've used blank snippings of paper glued to the car sides to simulate the routing cards on my models for over 20 years.  In recent years, modern modeling takes advantage of digital depth of field stacking and focusing which makes it possible to even read the smallest lettering on models.  In recent months, I've started to notice my older models with blank routing cards are starting to draw unwanted attention.

NC&StL 15337 Accurail kitbash with OMM 1220 routing and grading cards matching photo below.

However, for the prototype modeler and the operating modeler there's one detailing aspect which I've that can be improved with modern technology.  Why not also be able to read what is on the routing and grading cards on the model?

For more info on this NC&StL car see links below:
NC&StL 15337 (Part 3) - Wrapping Up & Weathering - Other articles on this Accurail 36ft Fowler kitbash are linked at the end of Part 3 article.

A New Chalk Mark Method - Using Gel-Pens for chalk marks!

NC&StL 15337 - Fowler -TRRA photo, East St Louis, July 1948, Illinois, Joe Collias coll, Bobs Photo - Ted Culotta collection

The prototype photo of NC15337 shows two or three cards.  The ones on the left are probably routing cards, and the one on the right is probably a grading card.  It's another level of modeling enjoyment to be able to match prototype photos even closer now.  Let's look closer at how this came to be.

OwlMtModels' Decal Cards

The OwlMtModels #1220 decal set includes 144 prototypically based cards, two groups are in white, a third group in light green/blue, and the fourth in a manila/beige color.  Thanks to Anthony Thompson and his prototype paperwork collecting contributors for making posts on his blogs over the years documenting the vast historical cards used by various railroads.  I'm also linking directly to Tony's blogs in this post for the prototype examples.

OwlMtModels' new #1220 Routing & Grading Cards decal sheet.

Earlier this summer I asked Todd Osterburg to see what we could do with PDC's fine line decals.  He was nice enough to draw the artwork.  The decals are produced by PDC in Canada and sold through OwlMtModels website for $2.00/sheet.

Railroad print shops would use various basic pastel colors which they had on hand.  Special colors such as yellow or red were reserved for home-routing/shop cards or bad-orders.  If there's interest, OwlMtModels may offer other versions, but this is a starting point for modelers.

Prototype Cards

A clerk cards a SSW boxcar with his hammer-stapler - Linked photo from Anthony Thompson's Routing Cards #11 blog.

Cards would be hammer-stapled anywhere along the lower wooden parts of wooden cars.  Steel cars had 'tack boards' and 'card boards' mounted to the car sides.  Flatcars and tank cars with wooden running boards could have the cards stapled directly into the deck or running boards.

Routing Card typical from Anthony Thompson's blog

The SP used a number system to send the cars around the system.  There were also basics for WB/EB and intcherchange cars seem to have cards for which railroad the car was going to go to.  For example D&RGW or UP at Ogden.

Routing Card Number index for SP - Anthony Thompson's blog Part 10 where other examples are shown.

There were many systems of cards used around the country.  It seems that different divisions would also have their own numbering series.

Another excerpt from Anthony Thompson's Routing Cards #11 blog

Much of the smaller lettering is not possible to print even with modern technology, so the decals are limited to the larger lettering.

Grading Cards

The grading cards: A, B, C, D (or X, depending on the railroad doing the grading) were easy ways to sort out which cars would be available for loading.  The traffic departments would actually keep a large sheet of paper, similar to the operating department's Train Sheet, to keep track of all the cars on the division going to customers and expecting to be becoming available in the coming days.  They would also keep track of how many available boxcars (XM) would be available in each grading category.  Shippers would then be putting their orders in for their loads which would require at least a certain grade of car.

Grading Card examples linked over from Tony Thompson's blog.

Anthony Thompson's blog, Route cards, Part 19: grading freight cars, covers more details of car grading.  Operationally, I'll probably be doing more on car grading for my Jawbone Branch at some point, but for now back to the car carding.  Tony has some additional grading card variations in Route cards, Part 23: varieties of grading cards post, including the octagon-shaped cards.

The railroads would grade cars according to several subjective standards by the carmen looking them over between loadings.  Cars could be improved to some extent by sending the cars over to the RIP track and spending some time cleaning up the interiors by fixing exposed nail heads, damaged boards, etc.  Some cars would be carded to be "CLEAN OUT" which would involve removing old materials and debris from the car's interior.  Normally, the customer that unloaded the car was supposed to clean out the car but that didn't always happen.  The railroads often had a whole track in the typical yard for cars needing "Clean out".  Cars could easily spend 8+ hours in these tracks as you wouldn't want to be inside cars sweeping them out if more cars were being shoved into the track.

Accurail PFE R-40-27 with a routing, Time, and CLEANED card, typical for perishable assignments.

Reefers obviously would need more specialized care and cleaning, thus it was concentrated in a few repair shops.  PFE had three locations, Portabello in Idaho, Colton and Roseville in California.  SFRD concentrated their efforts at San Bernardino and Bakersfield's facilities.  These repairs and cleanings could include removing spoiled perishables, cleaning the bunker drains, repairing or replacing the linings of the car if damaged or contaminated, etc.

Tank cars often needed to be cleaned if they were being reassigned to another loading.  Some loads required regular steam cleanings, other linings required NOT to be steam cleaned.

Flatcars were pretty simple, their wooden deck edges were easy targets for the clerks' hammers.

In Closing

At a little over one cent per card, these decals are quite affordable, and one sheet can do dozens of cars.

Right (not photographed) side of Accurail kitbash, which is finished in 'typical' fashion with chalk marks and routing cards.

I've started applying the cards to cars in my fleet, so you might start noticing them in future blog posts.

Jason Hill

Purchase OwlMtModels #1220 Routing & Grading Card Goodies here.

Related Articles:

Anthony Thompson's Review of OMM 1220 Decal post (Routing Cards, Part 30)

Anthony Thompson's Routing Card blogs - search

Some specific blog posts worth a look.

Route cards, Part 11 — examples

Route cards, Part 19: grading freight cars

Route cards, Part 20: more grading cards

Route cards, Part 23: varieties of grading cards

NC&StL 15337 (Part 3) - Wrapping Up & Weathering - Other articles on this Accurail 36ft Fowler kitbash are linked at the end of Part 3 article.

A New Chalk Mark Method - Using Gel-Pens for chalk marks!