1:29 Rolling Stock Rehabs for ‘70s North-Central PA Shortline

[TiogaTracks]

While I prepare to start a garden railroad based on the Wellsville Addison & Galeton RR, I’ve been working on upgrading locomotives and freight cars.  Some of these I’ve had for ages, and some I’ve bought new.  I expect to have about 20 to 25 pieces when I’m all done, and I want each to be at least close to a real prototype, and have some weathering.  I would start a layout engineering thread, but I want to focus on the rolling stock alone here.

I’ve been mostly out of the hobby since 2012, when I was modeling the PRR in N-scale.  My skills aren’t great, but I feel the knack coming back.  I don’t expect to raise the bar here, but maybe you’ll find some quick-and-dirty tricks useful.

Most of these projects are only made possible by K4 Decals, who I found on eBay.  His products work great, look amazing, and available in all scales.  I can’t say enough good about them, so I’ll just start showing you instead.



Enjoy!

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

My project for tonight was upgrading a new, stock Aristo-Craft covered hopper.  Their CNJ paint job is pretty good, but I wanted to make the car really look its best.

I started with this eBay item:

Or see https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/aristocraft-41204-cnj-jersey-central-1884544303 for more photos of an identical model.

Here’s what I changed:
- Scraped off Aristo build date markings
- Scraped off most of roadnumbers, leaving just “20”, then adding “5” decals
- Sprayed all unpainted details (hatch lock rods, stirrups) with Apple Red Rustoleum (on hand for a WAG F7A)
- Added ACI label decals
- light weathering with Rustoleum Stone Gray (on hand for a future B&M covered Hopper project) and textured brown
- Sprayed the sides with Satin finish to imply a fairly fresh paint job, but the roof and undercarriage flat, to mimic fading and dirt

Fortunately, decal sets I had laying around had close enough numbers to fix both the side and end roadnumbers, simply by adding a 5.






There are certainly things I could improve, like removing a hatch, filling the triangular openings on the sides, and shaving off the rivets on what looks to be a welded prototype.  But I’m satisfied with this.  I may try those more invasive changes to the coming B&M hopper, and maybe revisit this car later. 

But after a long hunt for a decent covered hopper, I’ll be happy to use CNJ 520 for hauling bulk filtering aggregate loads to the towns and industries along my future layout.

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

I have a couple completed projects to look back on, so here’s the one I’m proudest of.

This steel boxcar was a true parts bin special:
- started with a very old Aristocraft steel reefer (sprayed plain brown by a previous owner),
Then added:
- new roofwalk and roof end panels from Aristo covered gondola roof
- spare Lionel Large Scale boxcar doors
 
It all went better than it had any right to.  Layers of red and brown from Rustoleum rattle cans gave the car the look of faded boxcar red.

Then came the harder part... decals.  The WAG had 2 classes of steel boxcar, in addition to the much better known outside braced woodies.  Some were rebuilt former wood cars from the MP, and some were ex-Navy PS-1s.  I clearly had a PS-1 body on my hands, but the beautiful WAG Steel Boxcar decal sheet (thanks again K4 Decals!) was for the ex-MP cars.  So, I started cutting...



...and over 120 individual pieces of decal film later, I had a passable WAG PS-1.



The car lacked side grab irons and weathering, but more recently, I completed those items.  This car is THE steel boxcar I always wanted during my teenage years in N-scale, and WAG 8009 will surely be kept busy supplying the tanneries, freight stations, and Agway stores of my future layout.




-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

I really needed some suitable motive power, but still don’t have the parts to do a WAG F7, so... I made some interchange power instead!  Meet Penn Central 2504, formerly a damaged stock Aristocraft U-25b.

I didn’t plan too much detailing, but project scope creep set in fast.  I took a spare 3D printed RS3L air horn from Trainwreck Designs on eBay, swapped the two front bells, and mounted it to a new spot on the roof.  I also scratchbuilt the Sinclair radio antenna from 5 pieces of styrene sheet, and made a new bracket to hang the bell behind the cab.



Paint was simple, but I rushed a little too much.  Ended up ruining the side grilles and getting a rough finish... but heck, it’s Penn Central.  If it looked too clean, it’d look fake!  So decals came next, then re-wiring with a TCS WOW501 large-scale sound decoder.  I made sure to learn from others’ posts here and made the whole fuel tank into one big speaker baffle, sealed with hot glue.



I mentioned the stock U25 was damaged, and that meant no front or rear handrails.  Trainwreck Designs saved me again, with their replacement Aristo U-25b stanchions.  I re-bent RS3-style handrails to match a prototype U-boat.  Then, I realized... ALL the handrails were wrong around the steps!  So, I re-bent all them too, and I love the results.





All that was left was detail painting, cleaning the wheels, and programming the decoder.  2504 is running well, and is all done.  Maybe I’ll weather it more later.




Video from an indoor test loop:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/oTxq78ckQL75ywyP8


-Steven

[pjm20]

I'm unable to see your first few photos.

[TiogaTracks]

Sorry!  I’m not sure what’s wrong with Google Photos, but I see some missing too.  I’ll make sure to re-upload them once I have enough posts to use The Railwire’s photo uploading.

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

Images should be fixed now.  I pulled the links from publicly shared Google Photos pages, which are supposed to never expire.

-Steven

[davefoxx]

Lookin' good!  I'm happy to see you resurrect a damaged U-Boat.  One suggestion, which I found really improves the look of large scale rolling stock is to convert them to #1 scale Kadee couplers.  That's what I installed on this G scale ET&WNC caboose:



Hope this helps,
DFF

[TiogaTracks]

Thanks Dave.  I was actually thinking the same thing last night, but for a different reason.  Aristo couplers take substantial force to close reliably.  Even though I have so many now, I suspect I’ll end up changing them all out once I start operating.

Nice Tweetsie bobber, too.  It really makes me want to get to work on another upcoming project, repainting a Lionel bobber for the Coudersport & Port Allegany.  The body and end railings are darned near a perfect match to the preserved C&PA caboose in Coudersport, PA.

-Steven

[pjm20]

I see the pictures now, looking good!

[TiogaTracks]

An old switch list from the real Wellsville Addison & Galeton indicates a tank car NJZX 830 was interchanged out empty to the PC at Ansonia Junction Feb 6, 1968.  So when an Aristo-Craft tank car painted for New Jersey Zinc came up at a price I could afford, I grabbed it and rehabbed it!

First, fixing the lettering, as mentioned in the Weekend Update.  None of my decals fit, so I alternated scraping off lettering with an Exacto blade and adding white with a paint pen.  Just make a 3 into an 8 six times, and I have what I presume is a plausible number.

Before:
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After:
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Next, I wanted to weather the car moderately, like my previous job on CNJ 530, or lighter.  So I made one end panel rusty as if it wasn’t painted well, added gray fading to the top and brown mottled grime streaks to the bottom, and sprayed everything flat except for the satin sheen on the still-sorta-clean sides.  I like the results!

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The Lehigh region will be well represented here!

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Not sure what the next project will be.  Chalky CB&Q Centerflow?  Ancient but cared for WAG orange-and-cream wood boxcar?  Very faint chemical tank car weathering?  Or will I bite the bullet and Penn Centralize the B&O RS3?  I’d accept tie-breaking votes from the crowd here.

-Steven

[pjm20]

Unfortunately I can't see your photos again. I'd recommended the "add image to post and upload to gallery" option, I never have a problem with it vs linking from a hosting website.

[TiogaTracks]

Photos fixed again.  I’ll stick to Railwire uploads from here on out.

But I completed my tank car fleet today!  4 cars, each weathered to varying degrees.  The last of them is this 1990s Aristo single-dome car.

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I took a new approach to weathering:  I kept it light overall, just undercarriage dirt, minor fading up top, and rusted wheel faces & couplers.

Then, I let a major spill and some incident with a heavy falling or dragging object leave their mark on one side.

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This leaves one side clean but not strangely clean, and one side fairly worn.  Extra variety while remaining plausible.

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I was pretty proud of the results of masking off the spills & rust streaks before spraying satin finish.

Here’s the entire tank train.  Now I guess it’s on to more covered hoppers!


-Steven

[Ed Kapuscinski]

So while you're messing with big stuff, and then changing couplers... one of the things I really like about some of my O scale stuff is the working air hoses that I rigged up by putting NARC glad hands inside larger hoses.

Might be something worth playing with.

[TiogaTracks]

So while you're messing with big stuff, and then changing couplers... one of the things I really like about some of my O scale stuff is the working air hoses that I rigged up by putting NARC glad hands inside larger hoses.

Might be something worth playing with.

That’s an interesting idea.  The larger scale makes it seem easy.  Maybe someday!  First, I have a railroad to build.

-Steven