Champlain Valley Custom Models

08/22/2026

Happy Saturday folks! I just updated my eBay page with a bunch of curiosities that have been languishing around my shop that may be of interest to y'all. Check them out here:

Follow champlainvalleycustommodels on eBay. Buying, Selling, Collecting on eBay has never been more exciting!

08/13/2026

Hopped up on hoppers.

A collection of various covered hopper weathering projects that I've done recently, and a nice variety of models from Rapido, Kadee, and Athearn. These were all done for one person who is using them in cement service on their layout.

08/07/2026

"We have Lake State at home"

Another freelance railroad brought to life with a Bowser MFG CO INC ALCo/MK RS-3 rebuild. I bet y'all thought I was done with these things. Not yet! This was painted with Tru Color BAR Blue and a white lightning stripe. The decals were done by Circus City, and this features some additional details from Gotham Rail & Marine and Athearn. Weathered with a light layer of dust and grime, this is now ready for service!

08/02/2026

That's one famous Mogul!

If you're in New England of course. B&M #1455 is the last surviving B&M class B-15 2-6-0. This is an old PFM Brass model that came to me looking a lot worse for wear. I installed a new can motor, then fully stripped, repainted, decaled, and weathered it for an in service appearance. The coal load is real coal that I crushed up and sprinkled atop a foam base and secured in the tender with clear drying glue. Inside, this thing is fully loaded with an ESU LokSound 5 Micro DCC/Sound decoder, ESU PowerPack, LED headlights, and one heck of a good speaker that takes up pretty much all of the free space in the tender.

This is the first brass steam locomotive that I've fully done up, and while it sure did take a long time to do, the results are well worth it. This locomotive will look and run great for years to come.

07/27/2026

Penn Central Photo Dump!

Three recently completed projects here; a brass N8 caboose that I repainted from PRR into jade green, a Rapido GP38 that received some light weathering, and a Rapido X72 boxcar that also got a light weathering treatment.

07/21/2026

Howdy folks! A reminder that I still have these two models for sale; Rapido HO ALCo RS11, Maine Central #802 and Bowser HO ALCo/MK RS3u #505. Both have ESU LokSound 5 DCC Sound. The RS11 has been upgraded with a new motherboard, ESU PowerPack, and better speakers. If you're interested, send me a message!

07/20/2026

Another week, another Bowser D&H RS3u! This one came to me with custom decals applied for 508's big number era and I weathered it to suit. To fade the blue out of the logos I used a very small paint brush with Tamiya white paint. From thereon the usual paints, powders, and pastels were used. If you were wondering, these haven't gotten old to work on!

07/18/2026

CP Saturday!

I got a new photo studio booth yesterday and needed to test it out, so here's a Rapido Canadian Pacific ALCo FA A-B pair that I weathered a couple of months ago for my personal collection. I'm pretty happy with the results of this! It will give me more flexibility in taking photos of completed models at home which means faster turnaround times for commissioned projects.

07/04/2026

Another locomotive outshopped for the Modern DT&I! This time a very special one for America's Semiquincentennial. It's all paint except for the logos and numbering, no decals used. I went through plenty of masking tape on this one. This is by far the most complicated paint job I've ever done, but it was well the effort to see this locomotive come to life.

Happy 4th. 🇺🇸

06/25/2026

As seen at NERPM!

I finally got around to getting my Rapido Trains Inc. Boston & Maine SW9 in the photo booth for some glamour shots. The goal was to replicate 1231's 1969/70 appearance with a decent amount of paint failure and grime. I don't know if they painted the truck sideframes silver on this unit at some point or if the black paint peeled off, but to start I essentially dry brushed silver paint on the sideframes. From there I used MEC Harvest Gold to replicate the maroon paint failure. To make it look more natural and streaked, I brushed some paint thinner over top of it. From there, the usual paints, powders, and pan pastels were used for weathering.

From a detailing perspective, as we all know by now, Rapido messed up the rear handrail situation. Their customer service was gracious enough to send parts to correct the issues, however I didn't feel like waiting so I made my own solution using the handrails off of a Proto 2000 SW9 and a Gotham Rail & Marine MU plug box. The one part from Rapido that I did use was the additional step to bridge the gap in height between the back of the cab and the drop step. I also swapped the horn for a Cal Scale M3, moved the cab vent to the proper position, swapped the bell for a Gotham Rail & Marine one, added the missing grab iron on the hood, and made my own spark arrestors from a piece of round styrene.

Internally, I completely redid the factory DCC installation. There is now a NixTrainz decoder buddy mini, a larger sugarcube speaker, and an ESU PowerPack.

Lots of work for a factory model that was meant to be prototypical as delivered, but hey that's what modeling is all about! The manufacturers do their best and leave the rest for us rivet counters. But it is now ready to go into service so I can make Alex Formanek swoon by replicating the VTR/B&M interchange in Bennington.