Seen in Houston

[Gary S]

[tetters]

Was the CSX dead in tow? Certainly looks like its seen better days.

[Gary S]

Tetters, the lead loco was a N&S unit, then the CSX was behind it. Those two were the only power in the train, and it was headed south. I have to assume that the unit was in use.

I thought the SOO LINE boxcar was really a neat find, I can't remember ever seeing one of the white ones down here before. Have seen some SOO covered hoppers on occasion.

[Steamtrains]

WoW...Talk about rust-buckets...!! And the power units are on their way to getting there. Awesome diesels...!!

What are they..?? :oops:

[cnw1961]

I saved that pic of the SOO boxcar to my hard disk. It will make an awesome model!

[Gary S]

Kurt, that's the main reason why I take photos for the most part. I hope that some day I will replicate the cars for my layout.

Oh... I would love to see an HO scale version of that car created by you!

[railohio]

Those Soo boxcars are made by Fox Valley Models in N scale. I don't think they offer them in HO scale, however.

[Gary S]

Looks like Fox is going to do them in HO, coming out in mid-2011. But the $32 price tag is more than I would be willing to spend. A kitbash of something else wouldn't be too difficult. Maybe it wouldn't result in an "exact" model, but I'm not counting rivets anyway - just looking for the overall effect.

[bdw9535]

Gary,

You may want to look at this, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.sooline.org/models/index.html">http://www.sooline.org/models/index.html</a><!-- m --> , Accurail did some 7 post cars decorated and undecorated for ther Soo Line Historical and Technical Society. Still not perfect but with your abilities would make a good starting point.

Bruce

[Gary S]

I checked out the site. They sell two of the cars as a package for $31 which is still a bit much for Accurail cars. But I guess they consider it as a custon painted car. I assume that Accurail doesn't provide their own version of the white car.

Here is a photo from the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society website:



Looks like some bashing of the sill at the bottom would get a decent match.

I wonder if the SOO ever had cars which match the Accurail car, because if they didn't, it surprises me that the historical society wouldn't have tried for a better match to the car shown in the original photo.

[Russ Bellinis]

I checked out the site. They sell two of the cars as a package for $31 which is still a bit much for Accurail cars. But I guess they consider it as a custon painted car. I assume that Accurail doesn't provide their own version of the white car.

Here is a photo from the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society website:



Looks like some bashing of the sill at the bottom would get a decent match.

I wonder if the SOO ever had cars which match the Accurail car, because if they didn't, it surprises me that the historical society wouldn't have tried for a better match to the car shown in the original photo.

It was probably a fund raiser for the society. The cost to make an accurate car, if no one already makes it would be prohibitive. The extra price is probably because it is a limited run specially decorated model. I wonder if the undecorated version is available form, Accurail. It looks like the roof is correct from what I can see. The bottom sill is a little short with the wrong angle at the ends, but might be modified with styrene and a little filler. The side posts that are there seem to have ok placement at first glance. Adding the additional posts between the model's existing posts would seem to make a nice stand in for that car.

[Gary S]

Russ, it would be pretty easy to change the side sill to be more like the proto. As for the ribs, they are both have 7 posts on each side of the door. Accurail does make the car in an undecorated version.

On another "Seen In Houston" note, I saw this on January 12th. Was going south on Mykawa at around 45 mph, didn't see the train coming from behind me, it caught up and zoomed past, didn't hardly have time to take a photo. It must have been doing 55 mph or more, there was no way I could catch it. The 7 cars had a geographical name on each of them, the only one I can remember is Raton Pass. The loco was a big orange and black modern BNSF diesel, think it was a C44-9W.

[Russ Bellinis]

Nice catch, Gary. That is a version of the BNSF business train. Was something going on in Houston at the time? It might have been some sort of outing put on by BNSF for their customers.