R&S Photography: An Old Lionel Tanker

A wonderfully rusty Lionel 0 gauge tanker sits in the golden glow of the afternoon sun. The rust seems to come alive when engulfed by the light of the celestial body, giving the tanker a very warm, yet peaceful appearance.

 

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LYB logo applied

News update: the LYB logo is in place, and the tank has received some further attention, adding more layers of paint, varnish, and weathering, even to the logo itself. It's basically ready to be installed now!

Further progress on the oil tanker rail car: painting the tank

This time the tank itself got my attention.

I applied 'warm gray' color paint on top of the primer using a spray can. I sprayed in an irregular fashion, to give it that extra 'weathered' or 'dirty' look.

 

What you don't see here, is that, when I started to 'weather' the tank further, I got a bit carried away at it! The wagon looked great, but way too rusty! 

And even though I totally loved the result, the idea for this project is to represent an operational unit, hence there is only so much one can do as far as weathering goes. Otherwise the poor wagon would never pass the 'safety test' :)

So... I resprayed it a bit, smoothing out the rust, and giving it a rough, yet more 'decent' look! The extra layer of paint also gave it more structure, and now it looks like a heavy-duty wagon which has been around for a while, and has been painted many times over!

And yes, it still has some rust here and there, because otherwise it would not match with the chassis. I must say the result so far is pretty cool!

To be continued...

Progress on the 'O' gauge tanker project

I'm currently working hard to get an old, derelict, 1950's Shell oil tanker rail car back on its feet, and transforming it into a LyondellBasell (LYB) tanker. The 'O' gauge car was manufactured by Bub in Germany, and looked in a sorry state.

The wheels and axles have been installed, completing the truck assembly which now sits on rusty, Märklin rails.

 

As you can see, I've left the chassis intact in its original condition, meaning that I haven't taken away any of the rust and the aging it showed. I feel that if I had restored it to 'mint' condition, its charm and charisma would have been lost, making it way less attractive. Likewise, the spare parts used are not new, but from the same vintage as the rail car or even older. After all, 'Rust' is in the name of this blog for a reason!

The missing coupling is now also in place. It's not the original coupling type that should go with a Bub rail car, but I thought this one would make it more interesting than the original, which was rather basic (i.e. boring).

 

Same thing goes for the buffers. Actually, this rail car never had them, but I wanted them in place because they make it look more detailed and interesting to look at. I'm now considering whether I should leave them like this, or 'weather' them a bit to match the chassis.

So, basically, the chassis is now complete, awaiting the installation of the tank, which is currently being worked on.

The tank itself has received two coatings of primer and is awaiting further processing. Note the dent on one of its flanks, which is a 'battle scar' sustained in the course of his long, working life. I decided to keep it for the same reason I left the chassis intact: it's all a matter of preserving as much as possible the 'magic' that comes with age.

As you can see from the above picture, the inside of the tank shows traces of rust too, which I will also leave 'as is'.

Finally, the cap of the tank was removed before the latter got the primer treatment. I want to keep the cap 'as is' too, because it looks perfect already, so why change it!