The Prototype Boxcar Series Track Base (Part 3) Final | Boomer Diorama # 225 

Thank you for sharing. Wow! Just Wow! I always learn a lot. Thank you again for sharing.

knowing about your videos feels like cheating. I have no clue what my experience of the hobby would be without boomer's videos. and frankly, i dont want to know. thank you boomer, you've really defined the hobby for me and make me keep going.

Nobody better then Boomer..IMO. TY for your time educating and sharing....

That is amazing. You captured the look of the old weathered ties perfectly. Really impressive.

Hello BD, I don't watch every video of yours, but everyone who watches this video knows why your layout looks the way it does. Dedication to the smallest detail, very very good👍👍👍!!!!!

You sir are an inspiration to the model train hobby, thanks Boomer!

Thanks for all of the inspiration. This is a great track plan, the time and thought put into it for realistic operations is just awe inspiring... best o scale micro layout on you tube, hands down. I finally caught up on all your videos from when I stopped modeling in the spring, when I got deep into restoring a "new-to-me" project car. It's too cold to pretend I'm a car guy, so I'm back to pretending I'm a modeler.

Boomer ... loved this series. My summer job back in 1967 was at the CP yard in Port Coquitlam - sweeping out the residual grain in the box cars in preparation for their return trip to the Prairies. Looking at your vignette - I can smell the grain and feel the heat. Boy I hated that job!

Stunning! I bet if photographed outside it would be difficult to distinguish if real or not.

When I did some writing for Railroad Model Craftsman, I used to spend time in their office. When the latest Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette would show up, we would all try to guess what was on the cover! In tie plates, they would stagger the spikes. Later on, if the spikes loosened, they would pull out the spikes and switch them then hammer wooden plugs into the used spike holes. Sometimes you would see tied up bundles of tie plugs along the right of way. I’m getting ready to do my track. I refer to your videos for advice. Thanks, love your modeling. Pat Dusty on the head.

Another great series. When you said that you were going to use flesh as a fade for weathering the boxcar, I thought you had lost your mind. Well, it turned out beautifully, so I learned a new technique for weathering my rolling stock. FYI, styrene will yellow over time, so on the base, if you wanted it white, it should be painted white.

Such an encouragement coming back to modelling after 50 yrs a reminder of the sheer pleasure of experimenting and building up layers of washes. Thank you for sharing!

Greetings From Colorful Colorado WJ Thank you Boomer for this series. Once again, I have learned from this series and reaffirmed stuff you taught in past videos. I still own my 1st O scale Lionel set from 1965. I have NOT weathered it as I think it should remain in "Original Played With Condition". Now after watching this series, I think about how cool I could make it look. Once again you have inspired me. I love the final touches you did with the leaking and sprouting grain. Your Faithful Student John

Boomer, I use Grandt Line tie plates. I asked if I bought them in bulk without the advertising on the packaging, would they give me a discount and they said yes! I saved a bunch of money. I use Code 125 steel rail, not nickel silver. steel because it actually has blue color in it. Your photo shows this. Right O Way sells it in bulk. When you paint the sides of the rail and leave the top unpainted, it looks like the real thing. Also, don’t forget rail joiners every 33 feet! It’s amazing how all these little details make a big impact! Life is an experiment. Enjoy the journey!

Alltough doing N-scale with ready made tiny black sleepers I am learning a lot from this video. Thanks!

During heydays of railroad construction, no gravel ballast was used. It was just surrounding soil for economical reasons with any type of trees used for ties Straight, crooked cut on 2 sides. Later on small gravel that just grew up on size were used. Slags from steel foundry wal also used with their dark black brown color. In marble country like Vermont, crushed whitle marble was popular. When all around it was sand well sand did it. They used cheapest closely available there was/is. As time passed with less money to put on new builds railroads went more fancy on tree species for ties, more straight, larger with heavier tie plates and rails and railcars. Old low low budget cut on 2 sides crooked ties didn´t mean necessarely small in size. I´ve seen some more than 16" wide. Have fun now with your crazy realisticly builded track.

Boomer. When I was modelling in my "O" gauge day's there's nothing like a train of "O" gauge rolling stock it seems to flow towards you down the track. It really is the ideal modelling size. Back then casting individual Ties in rubber moulds from "Denture Repair Powder" Fun times, long gone. But I did hear on the "Port Radio" that the ferry to River Road is making another run. Open wagon's of scrap steel this time. Cheers, Chris Perry

I’m an N scaler and a couple months ago I started to build a diorama in HO scale. Ballasting was SO much easier and more enjoyable. I’be even been making some simple HO kits for rolling stock. It’s HUGE! I’ll still be doing N scale, but I’m really hoping to make a small, thing HO scale layout for switching some of these new kit cars around. Basically, it seems like it works the same with larger scales too, seeing how nice it can look.

An hour very well spent for this N scale modeler. I have a O gauge Lionel FM Trainmaster locomotive (bought new by my father in the 1950's) that's been desperately in need of a proper display base. Thanks as always.

I model in N scale and sometimes get blocked up,so I do something else for a while and it works. This inspired me so much, that I got an O scale kit to give this a whirl. I had never thought about doing something in another scale, but I can see the benefit of being able to do something super detailed that my fat fingers should be able to handle without going nuts.😂. Thanks so much for the inspiration you provide. You have made me a much better maker.

Good work and tutorial as always. Rails: most of the time, not always, rails carry on one side who made them (Carnegie etc) weight in yard lenghts. 60 pounds rails are 2 17/64" tall. Extremely rare up to 136 pounds in Canada. Flat smaller tie plates were also used with "sharp" bottom waves to anchor more into ties. 3 model ties. The one like Boomer used. Different sizes in relation with trafic and weight density. Those ties have 4 sides cut straight. For branchline small budget, ties were cut straight on 2 sides only. Bottom and top. 2 other sides were left natural tree shape. Some light industrial, logging, extremely low budget used also crooked ties. In real life, trees don´t always grow straight. A crooked shape ties, cut on 2 sides here and there is gorgeous. Creosote is by far the most used wood preservative. In cooking summer weather we can see like on Boomer photo, creosote being softened, leaking out of the wood. Far less popular is green stuff like on some hydro pole. Here again no budget railroad used, mostly long time ago, no preservative at all. Ties would last 5 to 7 years, depending on soil type and wood species and in sunny location will turn silver like old barns. Some wood are mostly flat. Cedars have deep veins offering better tints and seasoning as they aged. Rails have 2 or 4 holes at each end for joint bars bolting. The heavier, the more bolts. A good idea to do when you leave old or replacement rails nearby or on pile along track. Maybe a newer rail have replaced an old one. Its rust color can be lighter. Nice detail to do. About useless details, many North American railroads put date nail on ties. On top, usually in the middle or close. These nails had date stamped in relief indicating which year the tie was put on the ground. If tie was remove with track dismantled, and reused somewhere else, a new year date nail was added. Not often but it happened, ties with 3 different date nais. Top of nail is usually round, but some used square ones. Pin of nails was also round like ordinary nail, with different lenght. Some used square pin. It was intetesting while walking on old track to watch these nails. When many had same date was an indication on wich year big ties replacement occured. Sadly in the begining of the 60' those costly date nails were replaced with stamping on tie end with rail size they suit and railroads initial. Old ties had nothing added on their ends. Then an "S" shape flat steel was added to avoid tie splitting. Now a rectangular thin steel plate is pinned in end for that reason. CNR (CV, GTW, DW&P) used date nails. CPR never did (to my knowledge).

Great job Boomer, love the end result and how you got there! Thanks!

As always Boomer, so entertaining and educational. Thank you.

Nice to see Dusty helpful on river road every through doing o scale nice to adapt to HO weathering and track weathering track

It's absolutely a winner Boomer! Now if I can get this little HO CNR 40' boxcar to look half that good. Spectacular work indeed! Cheers 😃

Boomer, I LOVED the O scale series. No, I'm not going right out to find an Intermountain O Scale boxcar, but I enjoy "messing with" my boxcars in HO, and your techniques will be of some use. Plus, you provided some inspiration (as you usually do) to look at new techniques and to try to improve my skills.

great point of view about track, and ballast. Very inspiring. Thank you.

Such a wonderful and inspirational video, you have out-done yourself! As always, amazing videography/commentary and inspiration for all!

Thoroughly enjoyed the 3 part series Boomer - very inspirational. Love the growth under the door openings.

What an excellent tutorial! I have some 2-rail O engines and a few cars I kept and made some quick bases using flex track and some flat interior vinyl trim baseboard moulding left over from a home project. Ballasted and weathered it was "good enough" to get some pieces displayed. I was going to make another but instead will use your method. I appreciate the tutorial on using styrene. I'm more comfortable with that than wood in modeling, so thank you for showing the way. I also like your using Vallejo model air as a brush paint. I was painting a camouflage pattern on the hull of a 1/200 ship model a year ago and the had a bottle of the "right" color. Instead of breaking out the airbrush, I sponged it on and it came out very well. And, yes, the O Intermountain cars are very nice. Thank you for this video. It was the best hour I've spent on modeling in a very long time!

Simply outstanding!

You are a Master you give me such inspiration to do better work. And I use a old or new stocking attitude to the vacuum hose this way it doesn't go into the tub and easily to collect the grass

Beautiful. Great work as always.

WoW that really looks great !

Another great video! This technique can apply to HO too I think. I know you did a video on HO ties for the stack by the factory. I have to go back and rewatch it. Even before weathering, it looks more like wood than wood.

Well done, Sir. Thank you!

The opening photo is very yoda-esque, moving the locomotives using only the force.

Nice looking track!

Awesome !!!! Well presented and a very realistic result.....oh, ya Missed the fish plates!! -Alerx

Dear Boomer, absolutely agree on how the articles of “the narrow gauge gazette” influence one’s look on modeling. Love the ‘madness’ of these vids. Amazing piece of short line modeled tracks. Cheerio

Amazing work! Really enjoyed watching the video, for my next layout, i hope what to do with the tracks... 😊

Boomer Your Work is Amazing ! Such in the detail and depth to your modeling is Inspiring ! I think your tie plates are slightly Large for O scale Track ? My tie plates measure approx 6 inches wide x 9 inches long . I realize they do vary some in actual real dimension however . None the less they Look Awesome on your Diorama ! Congrats Keep UP the Very Talented WORK !

Does Dusty know you used its comb lol. Great video, love the story's

Great job!

Awesome!

This is the video I’ve been looking for! I ordered the buff and earth brown that you recommend. The challenge for me is I’m painting peco plastic ties that I already sprayed with rustoleum camo brown. Wondering if I should first paint all the ties buff and then add washes and browns etc afterward? I have already used an xacto to score up the plastic ties which gives a nice cracked aged look. Paul B

One 'like' for the music !

Thanks for the great video!! Will try out some things soon after I get my static applicator built. Start with making some simple grass tufts that I can place on layout. Planing to make them on a thin silicone sheet with an aluminum cookie sheet underneath. Gotta buy some matte medium, also. Question: Have you ever experimented with adding some earth colors to the matte medium? I'm thinking that might make for nice grass tufts. Cheers ...

Oh, one more thing. You are right about not using brown paint. It has too much red in it. The color is dependent on the area of the country you are modeling. I model the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains which gets very little rain compared to the west side of the range. There is a lot more reddish brown on the rainy west side compared to the east side of Donner Pass.

As usual👍👍👍

Noticed that the holes on the larger tie plate were not in line at all. Like you said most lickly to reduce the tie splitting possibility. Time stamp 31:24..

“As Boomer puts all his HO stuff on eBay and converts to O….” 😁😁 the next layout! After the current art piece. The smaller tie plate and rail looks like 115 lb rail. The larger tie plate is definitely 132/136 lb plate.

Fascinating! I found myself wondering how you get the ends of the ties so delightfully ragged. The only way I can think of is scraping with the saw teeth. Also, the irregularly curved splinters on the sides of the some of the rails. Do you first score the plastic and then wedge the splinter up? Thank you for your videos. I look forward to each of them.

Lovely!!! ♥

Boomer, great video on track philosophy, and how the track and the ballast really set your model (railway) off (sorry, in Australia we use railway, not railroad). Quick question, do you mix up your matte medium 50/50 with water as a batch, or only as you use it? I just think a batch lot in a sealed bottle would save time. Thank you for sharing, it has been very inspirational, and the final model is fantastic. Cheers, and stay safe, Michael

You mentioned spraying the boxcar with a flat clear coat in the past video. I may have missed you mentioning which one it was, is it possible to share that information?

Fantastic Boomer!!! Quick question... What did you use on the initial coloring of the styrene ties? Did you just use an initial wash of a few of the colors you use to continue coloring the ties?

Once join the Dark (O scale)side. Forever it will control your destiny. LOL

Hello Boomer, have you realized, that you have produced an ASMR Video with the rustling paper on your workbench. It sometimes fellt, that I can feel the fur is growing on my neck and on my back. Bat anyway, it is a very nice base for the boxcar.

Wow. I learned a lot. A lot to learn. What is your best practice for painting or coloring the rail?

A piece of straight Kato Ho track glued down with white glue some weathering powder an bada bing bada bang! Ok, im not a pro but I can fake it! 😂

Wow! Just... wow! But, you left out the part I was waiting for when I saw what spikes you used. Way back, and I mean about 20 years ago, ME spikes were quite nice. The last 5 or 6 years now, I notice the heads of their spikes are very poorly formed. Too long, raised ends, etc. Looking at your finished product, you obviously either selectively picked out some good spikes, or you cut and reformed the heads of them. C'mon, own up, what'd you do?

👍👍👍👌

PS this channel gave you a mention. Gaz3801

👍🤠👍

It has been about three weeks, and I'm still trying to understand the opening statement in this video. You said " Prototype Accuracy and Realism are Mutually Exclusive". I just don't seem to be able to get my head around that, unless you mean selective compression, which doesn't seem to fit in this instance. Perhaps a mid week video showing examples of exactly what you mean? You are, after all, the final word in all this. At least, in my opinion.