Finally, here are the pictures of the RKK IH Loadstar with its frame thinned. The work wasn't hard, and would have been easier if everything wasn't glued together. There were a couple issues, however, that complicated things. First, the axle mounts had to be left, so the frame had to be trimmed in two sections, fore and aft of the axle, without breaking the mounts. Second, the cab floor is glued in, and extends back into the frame. That meant that the front section of the frame had to be left as-is, or the cab floor had to be cut. I chose to leave it. It isn't as bad as it looks, as the fuel tank also extends below the frame, making it look like I trimmed less than I did.
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/7967/ihloadstarthinnedframe2.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img28/808/ihloadstarthinnedframe1.jpgThis is an older model, included for those members, like me, who tend to be intimidated by some of the expert modeling shown on Railwire. It started with one of the ubiquitous Herpa tractor-trailers, replacing the tractor with one from CMW. The trailer was shortened 5 feet by the simple method of cutting the front off, removing the extra from the body, and gluing the front back on. Any gap is at a natural seam and is easier to hide. The roof was shortened by cutting the rear, so the front still matched the curved corners. The door was scribed in, hardware is wire and styrene bits and pieces, and the reefer unit and tank are from a passenger car underbody detail set. The ladder is part of a late 60s stamped brass strip from Walthers, and the landing gear is from a CMW trailer. Basically, a collection of leftovers and scraps!
The inspiration came from a trailer seen in Charleston, WV, and the name is a common brand in Montana. Not having white lettering that looked right, I used black dry transfers as stencils, peeling them off after the paint dried using masking tape, an old trick found in a model magazine many years ago.
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/2451/meadowgoldtruck.jpgThe CMW trailer I stole the landing gear from? It came with the tractor, and was a body style I had no use for in 1974, painted for a company unlikely to be seen in Montana, so I used the wheels to build a another trailer.
And the answer to the trivia question I posted a while back is rather obscure. They're both made by Lone Star Locos, and came in the Treble-0 set I receved for Christmas 1967. The tractor was part of a tractor-trailer, with a trailer that might have been tall enough for an average N scale person to stand upright. Definitely not a "scale model"! It was rubber banded to a flatcar, one band each for tractor and trailer, attached to two hooks on each side of the flatcar. Since 000 is slightly larger than N, and the railcars were shorter than N, they also weren't "scale", but the flatcar was the closest, being about 42 N scale feet long. The boxcar was only about 35. The flatcar was also only about nine feet wide, but usable, so when I found real N scale, I took the trucks off, built new body bolsters from wood, and installed Atlas trucks and couplers. It ran for several years until I found, and could afford, replacements. At that point I used Atlas wheels and a lot of bits and pieces to make a truck trailer from it. It's a little too wide, but unless one looks at it from the end, next to another trailer, that isn't noticeable. The Atlas wheels came from the trailers on the 50 ft piggyback car, now in the Trainman line, which I converted to a general purpose flatcar. Along with the tankcar, which, after several uses, is now part of my narrow gauge roster, these are the oldest in-service models on my layout.
