georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on Feb 28, 2011 23:09:25 GMT -5
Ya'll,
Jim at Highball Graphics sent me my first decal prints on the FGC concept. I now have correct decals to finish a couple of locomotive units.
I just repainted two ex CSX Greenville chip cars in this concept and will post the finished ones in a day or so. If anyone wants to do their own FGC unit, you can contact me and I will get you all you could ever want.
The actual color is a match to Wisconsin Central Maroon for diesels and most cars. All others are black or TTX yellow.
Hank in AL
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on Mar 5, 2011 22:55:53 GMT -5
Some of the first full repaints of the FGC involved the woodchip car fleet. FGC acquired several dozen ex SP and ex ATSF PACCAR and THRALL 60ft rotary cars, along with similar cars owned by Alabama River Pulp (ARPX) that serve the ARP mill near MacMillan, AL. These cars could be seen all over the Gulf States region, usually mixed with CSX cars from various woodchip loaders , including purpose built ARP chip mills and chips brokered from Southeastern lumber mills. One of the first railroad purchases of the new FGC was the remains of the Apalachicola Northern RR (AN), a shortline once owned by St. Joe Industries. The road was known for its GP15 and SW roster, serving the St. Joe Paper mill and running coal from a Gulf side barge transload for Seminole Power to the CSX interchange in Chattahoochee, FL. AN lost the mill traffic when the St. Joe mill was closed and razed in the 1990s and CSX managed to wrestle the coal contract from AN using an all CSX routing with direct mine-generator rail access. The AN still rostered a large fleet of boxcars and woodchip hoppers, and FGC needed these to go to work for paper mills it served on the Alabama Central RR (ACR) side of the system. FGC put Stephens Railcar Services in charge of getting the idle fleet back into operations. Cars in bad shape were not only repaired, but repainted as needed. Those still in usable condition got a once over and returned to service. For this reason, woodchip and boxcars of the combined FGC-AN-ACR system are a mix of FGC maroon and original AN yellow. FGC opted to keep AN numbers and reporting marks, whether repainted or not.
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Post by m a y o r 79 on Mar 7, 2011 13:17:59 GMT -5
Looks great, very believable.
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Freightrain
Chairman
Modeling CSX from 1995 to present
Posts: 625
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Post by Freightrain on Mar 7, 2011 16:21:17 GMT -5
I am exstatic at what you have come up with, I live in DeFuniak Springs, FL and have been trying to come up with a Freelance RR, and believe it or not, I even ordered maroon paint for the color scheme, I would like to join in this endeaver, I have some undec loco's to use, M420 (to be americanized), HH GP30, GP15-1's will be adding HH on these and DB housings, you might could do like an East Div. and a West Div. and a Joint Line where CSX and FGC share the main across the panhandle, like UP and BNSF do from Colorado Springs to Denver.
I love the look you have come up with, and the heralds look fantastic.
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Post by cyclonecrew on May 2, 2012 13:04:31 GMT -5
Looks like most of your art work is with vector files. What software and what file type do you use? I've tried converting the bmp and jpg files from rail paint shop in Illustrator, but to no avail, your's are perfect!
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 4, 2012 21:46:21 GMT -5
Sorry for not checking in sooner. I only check this board every couple of weeks. That may change now that Alas Forum is history. If you are really interested in using all, part or even a variation of this theme, Jim Abbott at Highball Graphics has decals. You will have to ask for the FGC diesel decals. They are a full sheet. I have yet to work them down into the less costly strips. He also has my Georgia Road decals and some other stuff I have done along with other freelance railroads he has drawn recently. mgdecals.com/freelance_freight_cars.htmGlenn, you should look up Damon Curtis in Lithia Springs, FL. He designed the orginal concept, though I have taken it out much further than his original idea. I have to give him credit for a neat design and for allowing me to take off with it while he pursues other freelance modeling interests. I think I scared him when I started sending all the drawings. I told him it just got a life of its own. I added the slogan, redesigned the paint scheme, added the new services and built the roster you see today. It is so tempting to throw the Georgia Road by the way and run with this design, but I have already invested even more time there. The FGC will appear on my layout as a run through and interchange through the Alabama Central RR linking into Birmingham, AL. a quarry on the layout will load the Rock Trains and sand will come off the Florida Panhandle. The woodchip and paperbox cars will be spotted at an OSB plant and at a Gulf States Chip mill that sends chips south to the paper mills in the Panhandle. I guess I need to do a similar write up on the Georgia Road. It is the actual basis and model concept I am working on today. Doing the FGC was adry run. Lately I am painting and decaling rolling stock. Here are some examples of finished models... Here is the completed FGC Greenville woodchip car. I actually used boxcar decals printed by Highball to do this car. FGC bought the AN, MB and BAYL from Rail Management several years back. The AN was pretty much done after the Port St. Joe paper mill closed and was razed. Not soon after AN lost the Seminole coal barge-train contract also and only a OSB and chip mill remained. The chip mill was idled and moved off line, so the AN is mostly dead. FGC needed the chip cars and motive power on busier parts of the system, so the AN painted cars were repaired and repainted a few cases and sent to other assigments on the Bay Line, MB and the mill at Cantonement and at Perry, FL These regularly show up in North and Central Alabama at one of three Gulf States Chipping Mills for loading.
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 4, 2012 21:49:11 GMT -5
A quickly reworked TTX centerbeam is next. FGC stored a lot of these on the AN during the heart of the recession. It opted to buy a fleet of the cars to support its own lumber hauling industry in the Florida Peninsula around Tampa and Orlando. in most cases, repainting was minimal, getting logos and new reporting marks.
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 4, 2012 21:51:12 GMT -5
A good look at the first of many FGC paper boxcars. This one lacks the BIG BOX logo, indicating an early repaint.
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 4, 2012 22:00:11 GMT -5
The SD44-9 is coming along. It is now primered. This shot shows the actual kitbash. It uses a modifed Dash9 radiator, new exhaust from styrene and a new electrical cabinet with an EMD cab and nose. You will never mistake this unit for anything else! Second shot shows the two CSX chip cars right after an alcohol strip bath. I did not strip past the lettering since the WC maroon covers well the black residual paint which acted like a good primer coat. You have to time the stripping just right, or you lose all the color or have to scrub it off. I will post more later when the next batch of FGC cars are done. I have to get some of the newer BIG BOX strips. Thanks for the kind words and I hope I inspire as much as those on this forum inspire me! Back to decaling H
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Post by Nick Lorusso on May 5, 2012 18:44:55 GMT -5
Will the guy from highball produce these in n-scale? These would go great with my T&A (Tennessee & Alabama) that I'm starting to work on.
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 5, 2012 23:10:27 GMT -5
Email Jim and ask him. Remember that some of the data will be so small you cannot use it, as he will simply ratio it down for N scale if he is able.
H
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Post by stevef45 on May 8, 2012 16:29:04 GMT -5
dude your seriously making me jeolous with all these cool schemes. Do you come up with them for other people or yourself? If you do them for otehr people, can I contact you to see if you can come up with something for me?
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 9, 2012 9:48:53 GMT -5
I do work for others all the time...will be glad to help. I do decal artwork also, so what ever I draw can become decals quite easily...
H
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dave
Road Foreman
Modeling the Mid Atlantic in the late 80s
Posts: 90
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Post by dave on May 9, 2012 11:21:44 GMT -5
My only question is, why would CSX sell a major line that is located near it's home city of Jacksonville?
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on May 9, 2012 12:58:33 GMT -5
That is a valid question. You can actually ask them about the recent sale of one of their two routes to Miami which is being sold to Florida's Sun Rail. CSX will become a tenant and run local traffic at night. The rest of the traffic will shift to another route. CSX is composed of SAL and ACL in Florida. The duplicity was the reason for much of the abandonment and shortlining that went on. The PD and P&A lines were actually in the crosshairs when the current administration wanted to force ATCS on all Amtrak lines. They also wanted to resinstate the Sunset Limited back to Jacksonville, FL. CSX shifted nearly all of its traffic off the panhandle route to reduce the need, or divest if that came to fruition. It seems now that the Sunset will stay on its post Hurricane Katrina truncated route which has it stop at New Orleans and not go to Jacksonville, so the CSX line has seen most of the traffic move back. Amtrak and the US govt paid for most of the track and signal improvements on this line, so CSX is pretty much stuck since they welcomed it at the time before Katrina.
As for the Bone Valley, the Rockport export facility was actually sold by CSX to a private firm several years back when phosphate demand dropped considerably. Seems phosphate in washing powders promotes algae growth in rivers and streams when it is processed out of sewage into returning waste water. While this industry is still alive, it is a shadow of itself with many plants closed or consolidated under Mosaic. Acess from the Panhandle route is over that line that CSX is selling now. The line to Miami is pretty much a one train route anyway so letting someone else maintain gets CSX off the hook. This is one of the reasons the FGC depends on the Alabama lines. The sand and processed phosphate need an outlet and the loss of most of the AN shortline business pretty much gives you several hundred miles of track with very little supporting industry. Amtrak helps due to subsidy, but you have to find some way to get new business. FGC tried intermodal into and out of Pensacola, Tampa and Orlando. The trackage rights are only for CSX overhead trains and Amtrak. Nothing else is there . The idea is to link these smaller ports to the industry growing in Alabama and Georgia's midsection when the Panama Canal allows the big container ships into the Gulf.
Also, if FGC could bid and gain traffic to the Crystal River Generating plant above Tampa or get the Orlando trains from CSX, then at least they long stretch of track through the panhandle coould pay for itself, but FGC would have to break the CSX hold by finding a new interchange outside the traditional points. FGC acomplishes this by using the ACR into Birmingham where it meets NS, Georgai Road and BNSF. Once more, ACR has more industry and chip mills in central Florida can supply mills on the ACR, rather than lose out as the paper industry shakes out due to foreign pulp imports and the shrinkage in demand for paper in general due to email vs. paper mail, reduction and elimination of much packaging and increasing paper recycling.
Does that make sense? It is hard to follow unless you know the ecomonics of the areas. I follow this closely and am a student of regional and southeast transport and industry as a whole. Railroad fortunes turn on a dime when manufacturing trends change. A good example is the Obama administration promise to reduce coal fired electric generation. This stance, plus a very warm winter and unseasonable early spring requiring less HVAC has reduced power consumption in a major way. Loss of heavy manufacturing that has not been replaced also has reduced the over all demand for power. Generators are closing old plants instead of upgrading their emissions since they are not needed and they get credit for doing so. Southern company is storing some Powder River Coal trainsets and some sets are even being sold off to third party lessors, the thinking being that this reduction may be permanent. Natural gas and oil furtures both are tanking so energy prices are down in reflection of the fact that we are out of the deep recession, but have not recovered anywhere near the level we were at its start. Is a gain, really a gain when you are only recovering lost ground?
Look at manufacturing and energy. These are indelibly tied at the hip. Where I live, we say the largest domestic producer of bed and bath literally fold up and go overseas, idling over two dozen large plant operations in less than five years. KIA built an assembly plant nearby, recovering some of those jobs, but not near all of them. The old mills are being demolished. KIA has a big electrical footprint, but wanes in comparison to what was in the textile operation. Southern Co is dismantling more high voltage transmission systems than they are adding. The capacity is reduced, and after ten years they realize it is never coming back.
Obama is right in one respect, in that there has to be the next big "thing" such as the dawn of the computer age to grow the economy. We have given so much away in the name of cheap goods that we have lost whole sectors of the economy. Now we are paying the price in loss of whole sectors of jobs. With the jobs go the infrastructure that we right now take for granted. You cannot pay for maintaining all this built in good times when there is nothing to produce the revenue. The current goverment seems to have lost that truism. The Southeast is booming right now due to foreign automakers. The gas fields in PA and SD and even the Southwest are fueling booms in these areas---BUT--what of all the lost jobs in the Rust Belt around the Great Lakes. What about all the coal related jobs in the Appalachians and the ports and power generators that support them than are no longer needed since gas is cheap in the short term and there is no industry to demand to power or the steel the coal drives.
Well, I am on a tangent, but you do see how I work out my concepts. The scenario is realistically based, even if not real. CSX is or recently has considered my FGC scenario mainly as a way to remove extra cost and liability due to economic or regulatory fears. Let the shortline try to work out the numbers. CSX can always write the sale agreement so they can buy it back if the locals find a way to make it work in a big way. IC bought back the CCP for the same reason. CN bought the IC and WC for that reason too. Twenty years ago any of these lines were a waste of time to any Class One. IC had pretty much lost its Class One status. Trends changed and overnight the value flipped.
H
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Post by jbovinette on Jun 19, 2012 22:13:29 GMT -5
I have been following your threads and your work for a while. It is absolutely unbelievable! Beautiful art work and wonderful ideas. I am stuck with trying to find ideas for my freelance railroad. Mine is based in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. Basically First Coast Railroad and St Mary's railroad terrortory. Can you help with this? I'm stuck without a name.
Thanks, John
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Post by icghogger on Jun 20, 2012 6:38:06 GMT -5
John, for a railroad name, I would pick a prominent geographical feature (such as a river) and a regional theme and start with that name, or a variation of it. Example: the Leaf River becomes the Leaf River & Southern Railroad
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Post by antlorch on Jun 20, 2012 8:12:33 GMT -5
John,if you are going to be modeling a shortline railroad you might have already named it.. What about naming it either the Northeast Flordia Railroad or the Southeast Georgia Railroad,either one of those sounds believable and they could still travel into the other state. It would be based on which state you have more rail in.. Just my opinion And if not Robert is on the right path also..
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georgiaroad
Chairman
Purveryor of all things of the prototype freelance GEORGIA ROAD
Posts: 250
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Post by georgiaroad on Jun 21, 2012 13:00:36 GMT -5
John,
Anthony has a good idea. Also, your concept lives in the "Gold Coast Region" of Georgia so how about Georgia Gold Coast Railroad (GGCR). Another might be the Atlantic and Gold Coast RR (AGC).
H
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Post by jbovinette on Jun 21, 2012 20:31:16 GMT -5
Thanks for the ideas guys. Sorry to disrupt the topic you had here Hank. I'm thinking about freelancing my railroad as well. I really didn't know how to really start doing it until I saw your topics on this forum Hank and others. Thanks for all your post and sharing your awesome ideas.
Thanks
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