I’m still can’t believe I’ve been custom building and weathering model trains in some form or fashion since the early 1990’s, 30+ years now. I did take a small break while I was finishing up my military career, but I still found some time to fiddle with some engines and freight cars on the side. Now that we are settled into our final home (we hope at least), I’m able to devote more time and energy towards this great hobby.

The latest projects I just finished included converting an Athearn Genesis C44-9W to a paint scheme that was applied early in the development of UP’s modern Flag Scheme seen on thier engines today. The engine features the standard flag, but also includes a large UP Shield and Building America on the long hood behind the Flag. The nose also sports the UP wings and the lightening striping on the long hood. To date, I’ve only been able to find photo’s online for one C44-9W that had this paint scheme – #9816.

The engine started out as a standard UP red sill unit made by Athearn in their Genesis line. I was able to easily remove the factory road number, number boards, and UP lettering by soaking paper towels in MicroSol and allowing it to sit on the areas I needed removed for 30-45 minutes. The lettering is easly removed with either a Q-tip or a stiff paint brush. From there, it was just a matter of applying the new decals from Circus City Decals. The decals are easy to work with and settled in nicely on the long hood doors. I used Walthers Solvaset to soften the decals and allow them to conform to the doors. From there, it was off to the weathering booth. I wish I had taken a before shot to show the start of the engine, I’ll take care of that on future projects to include in-progress shots.

Post weathering, you can see the difference below along with the new lightening stripe behind the cab. The front door also had the window plated over so it matches the prototype. I use an airbrush for weathering and use a host of paints from Mission Models, Vallejo Model Air, and Tamiya. The paint is usually dilluted to provide softer coverage and allow my to build up the weathering in layers. Once that step is complete, I break out the weathering chalks and begin the final detailing.

I try to use prototype photos whenever possible. Thankfully, there are a number of excellent websites that have huge archives filled with photos of modern engines and freight cars. I becomes more of a challenge finding decent photos online for anything prior to the late 1970’s. Most of those photos are going to be in slide format or found in books dedicated to a particular railroad.

Below is the final product. Total time to complete this project was right around 6 hours from start to finish.

The last two engines I weathered were both Scaletrains ET44AC’s. The Kansas City Southern was upgraded with Microscale decals to replicate the normal candy cane stripes KCS was known for. Those can be a little challenging, but some patience and a lot of Microsol usually does the trick.

Happy Modeling!