helium car

[railandsail]

This is one of the many tank cars built for the US Navy for the shipping of Helium to various locations for their lighter than air craft, they were later transfered to the US Dept of Mines for transporting Helium for various uses like NASA and research facilitites. The cars were extremely heavy due to the steel tubes used for storing the Helium, they had 100 ton trucks. The model was an old AHM one that I picked up, removed all the cast on grabs and replaced with metal grabs, also replaced the cast sill steps with A-line Steps. Replaced the roofwalk with a wood one from a 1937 AAR Boxcar kit. The trucks were a problem but I found a couple of old MDC ore car kits with the proper truck that I needed, plugged the holes from the old trucks and drilled new holes for the truck attachment. Painted the car with Scalecoat II UP Hopper Car Gray and lettered with Tichy Decals. I did these cars as the NASA Glenn facility here in Cleveland used to get a couple delivered every so ofter on the old B&O (now CSX) to a special siding with unloading piping.

Thanks for looking!

Rick Jesionowski

Hello Rick,
I have quite a number of these cars, and was hoping to develop a method to make them look better than their stock condition. I took note of your modifications, but I had several questions for you;
1) How did you make it appear that the long tanks are individual units? You seemed to have gotten those dark lines pretty straight and consistent

2) Did you ever attempt to try making the cross-bracing separate from the tanks??...like this photo (did it show up, as it was posted on another forum?)