QRL&PCo Boxcars

[sailormatlac]

Once again, I strike back with MDC boxcars. But this time, I'm trying to reproduce a QRL&PCo prototype in HO. I had an interesting discussion about it with Doctorwayne earlier this year and now I feel I have enough information to tackle the project. I would like to thank Thomas Grumley, Doctorwayne, Ian Cranstone, Jean Breton and Denis Jalbert for their invaluable help. Without them, this project would have been impossible.

QRL&PCo boxcars were an oddity when they were retired from revenue service in the mid-50's. Most of them were old 36' wood boxcar, some with truss rods underframe and even a few 34' boxcars. According to photographic evidences and ORER, one can retrace a plausible story behind these museum pieces.

QRL&PCo was a well-know monopoly in transportation and energy (gas, electricity, domestic appliances, name it) in Quebec City area. Respected and hated equally, it had absolutely no rival and felt no threat until the parent company, the Shawinigan Power, was nationalized to end the unscrupulous price policy of the company. Rail service in the northeastern Quebec Area was lucrative but on limited scale. Topography and geography would have made the arrival of a rival company unlikely. QRL&PCo only owned the first section, leaving the eastern most subdivion (Murray Bay) into CNR care. They originally planned to build it, but it was financially unwise. Politicians worked hard to get it done, at a high cost!

In these condition, QRL&PCo had absolutely no reason to replace its old cars which saw limited interchange (if not!). They only rebuilt them when necessary. A few of them were in revenue service for 63 years!!! Could it be what they mean about a "green business policy"!!! By the way, an original Jackson & Sharp coach was still preserved (rotting) at Steamtown until few years ago and was for sale. I don't know what happened, but I must saw it's a shame it didn't end up at Saint-Constant Museum. This coach was part of what was called "The Good St. Anne's Train", a famous pilgrim service that existed from 1889 to 1959 and carried millions of Canadians and Americans.

Few boxcar series existed, I'll try, at least, to represent a few of them. All cars were rebuilt with lap seam roof. I will probably model about 10-12 of them. Finding good decals will be the hardest challenge. Paying for custom decals would be overkill. What do you think? Maybe I should since I'll have well over 20 QRL&PCo cars to do in the near future.

Cars 1001-1015 were 34' boxcars with wood ends and truss rod undeframe. I have good reasons to believe they are from the original rolling stock bought in 1889. They were rebuilt in 1918 and were retired in 1952. Pocher/AHM old time boxcar is a good stand in for it and I'm actually in the process of kitbashing one. They wore the 1918 paint scheme until the end. They ran on archbar trucks.

This photo is taken from 1959 Omer Lavallée's brochure. The car I'm talking about is the one in the background that we only see the end.


This photo is taken from Château-Richer's Archives. According to the disrepair state of houses behind the cars, it was shot somewhere between 1950 and 1952 when they started "urban renewal" and destroyed Henderson Street, Ramsay Street and Place d'Orléans' market in front of Palace Station. Another great stupid move from the postwar era. My father remembers when he was working in this borough during the 60's and 70's. Each week, a new suspicious fire started in an abandonned building. Sooner or later, everything was gone.


Cars 1016-1029 were the biggest 36' boxcars the railway owned. They were rebuilt between 1925 to 1927 by Canadian Equipment Co. An educated guess would place their original built date in early 1900's. Excellent pictures from the builder exist and will provided enough data to reproduce the paint scheme which seems to have been boxcar brown. They were retired between 1952 and 1953. The rebuilt version had composite ends and steel undeframe. They ran on trucks similar to Andrews. MDC/Roundhouse old time boxcar is an excellent starting point to model this serie.

Pictures are from Château-Richer's archives, donated by a former QRL&PCo employee's widow. This car serie is the best documented so far.




Cars 1100-1109 were 36' boxcars rebuilt in 1928 and retired in 1957. They kept their truss rod underframe and ran on trucks similar to Andrews. Car #1100 is the only one depicted in a color picture. At this time, it was painted in a bright orange color with white lettering. Data and company name were painted over, indicating it was now in company service. These cars had Murphy 7/8 ends. MDC/Roundhouse old time boxcar is an excellent starting point to model this serie.

This picture is photoshopped from Thomas Grumley's QRL&PCo, Montmorency Division book. His book is really worthy to buy, including great pictures of a long lost story.



Cars 1110-1119 were also 36's boxcars rebuilt in 1928 and retired in 1957. It is the only serie of boxcars I couldn't locate a sole picture. However, they were probably very similar to serie 1100. I wouldn't be surprised they had steel underframe. MDC/Roundhouse old time boxcar is an excellent starting point to model this serie. I probably won't model this serie. If I do so, I'll make they run on Bettendorf truck to have some variation. They probably were painted in the bright orange scheme too.

In the past, I modelled "created" serie 1200 to repaint 40' steel boxcar in QRL&PCo bright orange scheme. Many of you have probably spotted it in WPF.

I'm actually in the process of converting a MDC/Roundhouse (again!!!!!!!) 36' old time boxcar into serie 1100. It should be a straight forward conversion. Most work include modifying Tichy 8/7 Murphy Ends and altering the rood into a lap seam model. Andrews trucks are Tichy castings.

The donor is this Chicago St. Paul Minneapolis and Omaha boxcar:



The lettering was easily wiped out with 90% Alcohol. MDC/Roundhouse paint is really easy to strip, quickly and without strong products.



Cast on details were removed and roof plank seams were filled with automotive putty. It was a lame attempt at getting a smooth surface. I also thought about using .1mm styrene but it would also be to thick and difficult to cut around the roofwalk supports.



Meanwhile, metal stirrups were filed to make them look more thinner. I'll keep them since they are correct and bullet proof.




The roof was designed in AutoCAD, printed on high quality paper (recycled from the job) and cut to fit roofwalk supports. It was glued with CA. The first try didn't work. I put glue on the plastic roof and tried to paste the paper. Wrong!!!! Finally, I cut a another paper roof, put it in placed, then added the CA. Capilarity took care of the rest. Lap seams are made out of .2mm styrene strips. If you look carefully at the red pen doodles, you will recognize Lairet sub trackage! Honestly, I was in a hurry and didn't want to wait until tomorrow to get a blank sheet... I'll have to seal the ink with a lacquer because its water soluble.



The paper glued in place.



Lap seams applied according to the same method described in my MDC boxcars thread.



Lap seams cut to length with roofwalk put in place. Later generation Roundhouse cars had sharper details than their older siblings. It's a shame this company went under and was turned into a pricey ready-to-run spinoff.



The reassembled car with Tichy ends. Ends were shortened and adapted to the metal coupler pocket. A very straight forward operation. They will have to be enlarged with a styrene strip too.



All in all, this kitbash is easy to do. It shouldn't take a lot of time doing ten of them at the same time. However, about half of them will need new styrene undeframe because I have more shell than underframes.

Matt