Upgrading MDC/Roundhouse boxcars

[sailormatlac]

They look really great. By the way have you seen these grab iron drill templates from BLMA.

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I noticed that many of your cars have different shaped steps on each corner. Did the prototype have a habit of doing that sort of thing when they replaced a step on a freight car?

Hi Russ,

Thanks for the link. Templates will be particularly useful when I'll work on my double-sheated boxcars. I was thinking about making mine from a thin aluminium plate.

Different stirrup steps are effectively modelled according to prototype practices. When I could, I used prototype pictures to check out stirrup steps shape. It varied from railroad to railroad and from manufacturers too. As you pointed out, we can also assume that they could be changed when cars we reshopped. A canadian practice was to have angled steps on the ladder side, many american roads had also there own standards.

When I had no picture, I just used similar shapes for both ends. It's an easy way to personnalized similar looking boxcars without overking yourself.

Matt