Weekend Update 12/29/13

[up1950s]

[BCR 570]

A number of models went to the paint shop in late November, and a custom decal sheet arrived in December; unfortunately so too did the hectic Christmas concert season.  During the current holiday period I finally have some time to move some projects toward completion.

A trio of GHQ grain trailers are receiving Cargill decals to serve the company's elevator at Dawson Creek, and a pair of trailers and a tractor are receiving decals for Motorways Ltd:




My trio of ex-CPR 2200 series coaches for the Provincial Museum Train and my two work coaches for the Prince George Auxiliary are now in primer and gloss, and ready for the application of some Archer rivet decals:




And as the two work coaches approach completion, work begins on the next car for the Prince George Auxiliary - cable car BCOL 6504.  The prototype was an unusual 40 foot boxcar with early Dreadnought ends, exterior post sides, and 10 foot wide Camel plug doors.  Several friends identified the car as a former Great Northern 4400-4699 series boxcar rebuilt for grain and lumber service.  The BCR added cable doors, side windows, roller bearing trucks, and removed the door on the left side:




The correct ends and roof are available from Intermountain, and I replicated the Intermountain boxcar underframe and inner ends in styrene.  I then built new sides from sheet and strip styrene to match the prototype.  Here are the parts prior to assembly:




Inside ends attached to floor:




Sides attached to ends and floor:




And trial fit of Intermountain outer ends (with end personnel doors added) and roof:




Now onto all those rivet decals . . . . .


Tim

[BCRail_FSJ]

Over the last week I have been installing the matboard backdrop mounting sections along the bottom deck.  I thought my layout room was tiny until I realized that wrapping a backdrop around 3 walls of it requires 33 feet of matboard material.

This is was a fairly tedious process but paves the way for the far more exciting prospect of composing, editing, printing and mounting 33 feet of photo backdrop for the Beatton siding and Beatton River bridge crossing scenes which will occupy the bottom level.   

[RockGp40]

Tim, do you have any proto photos of those Cargill trailers with 3 hoppers? I have only seen two hoppers on the grainers in my part of the world. I am just curious to see.

Brian

[Ntrainz1]

Bob.

[Theteejmiester]

hmmmm....well in the Christmas spirit I pulled out one of my Kato mid production SD40-2's and well...started drooling over the detail possibilities with a few BLMA parts...I know I was going to focus on Japanese steam but damned if those SD's don't just look so tempting to detail up in BN paint...

[Guilford Guy]

Tim, I'm soooo envious of your scratch bashing skills!

I did a bit of of weathering on my 3rd MV roster addition, a spectrum mountain, as well as some more scenery work on a diorama.

[bbussey]

I revised the New Haven west-end template to include all of the mainline trackage, and arranged the wood ties for the merge of tracks 7 and 5 into track 3.  The mainline tracks are numbered (top to bottom) 7, 5, 3, 1, 2, 4 and 6.  Tracks 1 and 2 are for through freight, since I don't have room for the freight bypass and NYNH&H did run freight consists through the station on two isolated tracks during lulls in passenger train activity.  Track 6 will merge into track 4 and tracks 1-4 continue westward toward New York City.  Still waiting on my .009" thick cutting wheels to isolate the frogs and cut the gaps in the copper ties before gluing the rails to the wood ties.  I'll start on track 1 in the mean time.

[Guilford Guy]

So Bryan, when will ESM be releasing NYNH&H catenary kits?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I discovered two of my engines actually had decoders in them... When I went to go out new ones in. Whoops! Looks like it's something else's turn then!

[bbussey]

So Bryan, when will ESM be releasing NYNH&H catenary kits?

Bob at TrainCat has that covered.

[strummer]

I did a bit of of weathering on my 3rd MV roster addition, a spectrum mountain, as well as some more scenery work on a diorama.

That looks so real...

Mark in Oregon

[Guilford Guy]

Thanks Mark, though I think it may just be the cell phone pic doing it justice. One day I'll have a scene worthy of a DSLR photo.

[jmlaboda]

"The prototype was an unusual 40 foot boxcar with early Dreadnought ends, exterior post sides, and 10 foot wide Camel plug doors.  Several friends identified the car as a former Great Northern 4400-4699 series boxcar rebuilt for grain and lumber service."

These were rebodied rebuilds that were originally smaller capacity (typically early USRA) boxcars with the frame and trucks being all that was retained from the original cars.  They were unusual in being outer braced 40' cars.  The Seaboard Air Line and Norfolk Southern (original) also had cars like these, both going on to serve Seaboard Coast Line and Southern Railway respectively.  I remember some time back that someone had shared a model of one of these GN cars that he had built... maybe we will luck out and he be a part of the uses here and can share that shot with us.

[BCR 570]

Tim, do you have any proto photos of those Cargill trailers with 3 hoppers? I have only seen two hoppers on the grainers in my part of the world. I am just curious to see.

Brian

Brian:

No I do not, and I do not even know if Cargill operated its own trucks at Dawson Creek.  The Cargill elevator was quite a bit larger than the others in town which were served by much smaller trucks, I thought that this elevator required something bigger, and I liked the GHQ model.  A rare example of modeller's licence on my part!

"The prototype was an unusual 40 foot boxcar with early Dreadnought ends, exterior post sides, and 10 foot wide Camel plug doors.  Several friends identified the car as a former Great Northern 4400-4699 series boxcar rebuilt for grain and lumber service."

These were rebodied rebuilds that were originally smaller capacity (typically early USRA) boxcars with the frame and trucks being all that was retained from the original cars.  They were unusual in being outer braced 40' cars.  The Seaboard Air Line and Norfolk Southern (original) also had cars like these, both going on to serve Seaboard Coast Line and Southern Railway respectively.  I remember some time back that someone had shared a model of one of these GN cars that he had built... maybe we will luck out and he be a part of the uses here and can share that shot with us.

Thank you for the additional information, Jerry; identifying the car's heritage was helpful in deciding how to model it, and it was definitely an unusual car with the exterior post sides and the grain doors inside the plug doors.

Tim, I'm soooo envious of your scratch bashing skills!

Thank you - all acquired through much trial and error; fortunately styrene is cheap!


Tim