Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - Printable Version

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Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-05-2021

I posted in an 'upper bunk' thread that I had aquired 4 Branchline heavyweight coaches, all in Canadian Pacific but was a bit 'turned-off' by the color choices from the factory:
   

Since then I stripped three of them and have started to repaint them. One in Canadian national, two in a better Canadian Pacific color.
   

The CP cars are painted in CP Tuscan by Scalecoat. 

   

I painted the CN car with the last of my Rapido CN Green, just when I figured it out. Being in Western Canada, it's not easy to find without mail order from an eastern supplier. I used Polly-S engine black for the bottom. The built Pullman behind is another Branchline car I picked up at a swap meet a few years back.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - doctorwayne - 12-06-2021

Yeah, Glen, those Branchline cars look more like Boxcar Red than CPR Tuscan.

I got these two Branchline TH&B cars through Atlas, and they're at least a bit closer to the Tuscan/Maroon that they should be...

   

A friend gave me this TH&B baggage car (don't know who made it...might have been a scratchbuild, by the original owner, who was getting rid of an extremely nice HO layout and all of his trains and structures, for a move to O scale). It was one of my favourite layouts to visit when we had the Hamilton and surrounding area Layout Tours, now postponed because of the pandemic.

   

 I think that the colour is too light, and will likely repaint it

I also painted a couple of Athearn passenger cars for my son, but his interest in model trains was short-lived.  Those two cars now on Mister Nutbar's layout, wearing Scalecoat Maroon...

   

Wayne


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-19-2021

That's some good work there Wayne.
I got around to decalling the two CP cars this afternoon:
   

Not a lot to put on the CP cars, just the letter board and numbers. The most difficult part is that the numbers are all individual parts.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-24-2021

Well the Cn car is now caught up with the two Cp cars:
   

It's considerably more complicated with the stripes on the car body and the roof(not shown) represented as decals as well as the letter boards, car number and the CNR crests near the ends. It's taken a couple hours to get this one done and ready for clear coating. 
I repainted a Rapido sleeper a couple years ago but forgot how I laid the stripe decals and found I was making the same mistakes all over again. After some learning (or re-learning) I remembered that it was best to soak the strip decals until they were ready to fall off the backing paper. Then I could use tweezers to remove the entire long decal and place it. It seems if you try any other way the decal breaks into several parts as you try to remove it from the backing.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - doctorwayne - 12-25-2021

You're right, Glen, those long stripes can be difficult to apply, but the extra soaking does help somewhat.

I don't recall when or where I bought this undecorated Bachmann Skyview Lounge....

   

I did paint it, but put it aside for some other projects.

I later returned to working on it, but trying to put striping on a car with corrugated sides was more difficult than I had expected...

   

...and I eventually resorted to a combination decal stripes in short portions and brush-painted ones.  I had planned to use masking tape, in order to airbrush the stripes, but it was at least as difficult as applying the decals on the corrugations.  I eventually did get the job done, but I am somewhat disappointed that I couldn't do better.

   

It's too modern for my layout, but suitable for a good friend's layout, who was the intended recipient when I first bought it so many years ago.

Wayne


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-25-2021

CN sig was the group behind he decal set that I used. they designed the set and it was manufactured by microscale.
In the set there are several different sizes of stripes because the three stripes on the car sides are slightly different. the center stripe is actually a wider yellow stripe with black pinstripe bordering the top to separate the yellow and green on the car, something that you did with paint.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - doctorwayne - 12-25-2021

That decal sheet has a very comprehensive amount of lettering...likely enough to completely replicate what would have been seen on the real ones, including stuff for lettering inside and underneath the cars.

Most of my passenger cars don't even have occupants, never mind stuff for them to read.

Wayne


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-25-2021

Looking at your dome car photos, how did you paint the stainless window trim?

I spent a couple hours assembling the trucks for the three cars today:
   

At 20+ parts each these have got to be some of the most complicated trucks I've worked with.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - doctorwayne - 12-25-2021

(12-25-2021, 05:13 PM)cnrglen Wrote: Looking at your dome car photos, how did you paint the stainless window trim?

It's been quite some time since I painted that trim, but I can't recall if it's Floquil Silver Or Humbrol.  I do know that it was brush-applied, so it was likely Floquil...good luck finding that, although there's likely something even better nowadays.

Those are very nice-looking trucks and unusual in that they're in kit form...PSC perhaps?

Wayne


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-27-2021

Those are the branchline kit trucks, unless they were sourced somewhere else for the kit.

I assembled the three sets of stairwells last night:
   

They each come in three pieces. I also assembled the interiors. There's not alot to them but it's better than nothing.

Today was 'painting day'

   

I painted the remaining parts on their sprues. Most of them are underframe parts and I'll touch up anything later when I weather the cars. I used Polly-s steam power black. I also painted a the roofs, a lightweight car body of unknown origin, and a few other projects. It's less wasteful to airbrush everything in one lot. 

   

And I sprayed the clear flat onto the Tuscan parts to give them their final sealing.  I should be able to start assembling the CP cars very soon.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - Charlie B - 12-28-2021

Glen, I assembled several of these kits about 8 years ago and they would not run over a 40 inch radius curve, I cut away a lot of frame before I discovered it was the king pin socket on the car. I forget what the problem was but I think it was convex instead of concave so if you have the problem look there before you do any cutting for clearance. 
Those trucks are a job to build but they do run nice and look good. Worth the effort. 
Charlie


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-30-2021

Thanks for your input Charlie. I'm not quite sure what the kingpin socket is. Here's a picture of a completed Branchline car. It's the Pullman but it has the same basic underframe as the coaches.
   

   

To fit the truck in properly and let it ruin on 30" radius track, I removed the brake beam on the truck and some of the underframe. I'm using the mounting hole where the arrow is pointed. What did you do differently?

I did make some progress on the CP cars. 

   

I installed all the glass and attached the walls to the frame. I found that since I had repainted the cars the windows were a tight press-fit and didn't need to be glued. The only exception was the vestibule windows and the double windows on the side doors. the vestiblue windows needed to be glued and I had to use Micro crystal Clear to for the side door windows as the kit windows didn't fit.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - Charlie B - 12-30-2021

In this case it is the screw holding the truck that I called the king Pin. That is where I found the problem  I cut away the same as you and then found I didn't need to. I forget what the frame looked like (It has been 10years)but here is a photo of one of the cars with a truck removed that shows the area I had to smooth.     
Charlie


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 12-30-2021

Thanks Charlie. I'll do the same with mine and see how it works out.


RE: Branchline Heavyweight coaches in CN and CP - cnrglen - 01-02-2022

I built up the underframes on the two CP coaches. They are pretty detailed but sometimes the parts didn't fit very well so I had to open up some mounting holes and slots to accommodate certain parts. I suspect this might have been my own doing since I painted the parts before assembly.
     

The brake rigging is attached to the two center beams before attaching them to the model. Most of the brake parts are listed as 'optional'. 

   

and the two completed underframes. These took a couple hours to assemble as there's alot of small fiddly parts and some of the instructions were a bit lacking in parts. 
I have fitted the roofs to the cars but the side walls seem to have a warp to them so when the time comes, I'll be gluing and clamping things together to make the car straight. This was a bit disappointing as I had hoped to have the roofs removable.