doctorwayne's 2021 Do Something Challenge - Part 1

[doctorwayne]

Wayne, I love the looks of that CN mail express prototype.

Yeah, it's a neat looking car.  One of the friends who have donated cars and parts for this Challenge bought the photo at a train show, and asked me if I could build a model of it.  I agreed to do so, but explained that I had a lot of other stuff (not all model railroading stuff) that would take priority.  That was several years ago, and I figure this is an opportunity to finally get it done.  I like that car so much that I'm going to make three of them...one for the requestee, one for the other friend who has donated stuff, and one for me.
I was curious about the car's history (the photo seller who provided the picture noted that it was difficult to read the car's number, but he wrote on the back that it was likely 7866).
I had borrowed the Lepkey/West book on CNR Passenger Equipment 1867-1992 from the other friend in the triumverate (I think that qualifies us as the 2021 version of the three stooges), so searched for that car number.

It turns out that there was never a CNR 7866.  However, there was a 7666, formerly-owned by the Grand Trunk Pacific, which was folded into the CNR when it was formed in 1923.  It's listed as a 60' mail/express car, originally numbered 108.  The picture, by the way, was taken in 1954, and the car retired in December of 1961.
It originally had a full truss-rod underframe, but the CNR put a fishbelly underframe under it in 1925, leaving the outboard truss rods in-place. 
Note, too, the Pintsch-gas tanks under the car, for in-car lights.  I'm guessing that the one nearest the underframe is likely lower than the other in order to accommodate the brake rigging, so that's likely how I'll model it....I also suppose that a few days after the three models are finished and in their owners' hands, someone will provide proof of why that tank is lower, and it won't be what I was thinking.

And....while still browsing through the book, I came across photos of two other GTP postal cars, 102 and 110.  Both have fishbelly underframes and Pintsch gas tanks, and it looks like I'm sorta right and sorta wrong on the tanks' placement...it's likely lower in-part, to clear the brake gear, but it's also lower because the cross-bearers on a car with a fishbelly underframe are almost as deep, where they connect to the main frame, as the fishbelly portion, hence the lower position of that other tank. DOH!!

Wayne