Workbench Wednesday: Take a Number

    My collection of VIA Rail passenger cars started with some Walthers Budd coaches.  Before Rapido started producing Canadian rail cars, it was all about buying generic passenger cars with VIA's paint scheme.  These cars went into storage as my collection of Rapido cars started building, however I decided to get the Walthers cars back out of their boxes to be used in a very short run on my layout.  The Montreal to Senneterre, Que. train consists of leaving Gare Centrale and moving to the fiddle track on that part of the layout.  It's a quick move on the layout but adds some variety to the train schedule.  Since my Rapido Budd coach collection is limited and used by The Canadian, my Walthers cars came out of retirement for the job.

    The Walthers cars all came unnumbered but with a decal sheet.  I numbered my coaches 101 and 111.  The problem with this was, these were original numbers for these coaches when they were owned by the Canadian Pacific and used in the early days of VIA.  By 2006, VIA had renumbered the coach cars to the 8000 series.  I needed details that could turn 101 to 8101 and 111 to 8111.  The Walthers sheet (which I still had) only had the three-digit numbers.  Luckily, Highball Graphics had just the set.  

    I applied Micro Sol to the decals on the cars and let the film soak for a few minutes.  I then used a piece of Scotch tape to get the decal off the side of the car.  It worked without a problem.  It's the same method I use to remove pad printing from my models.  

    The new decals were applied and given the night to dry after using Micro Set and Micro Sol.  The following morning, I masked off everything around the number boards on the sides of the cars.  I then sprayed Testors Glosscoat and then Testors Dullcoat to seal the decals.  

I now have up-to-date car numbers.

    My Rapido Budd coaches were also purchased without car numbers.  They got numbered 103, 124, and 129.  Again, I wanted post-2006 car numbers (although the models are based on when VIA first took ownership of the cars.  So really the car numbers are accurate).  My decal removal method did not work of these cars.  I think it is because unlike the Walthers cars, these have a layer of Dull coat protecting the decal film.  I decided to leave these cars along for the time being and do a little more research to see if there is another safe way to remove the decals.