doctorwayne's New Years Resolution Challenge...

[doctorwayne]

While I started on some of my entry a week-or-so ago, I wasn't aware of the Challenge until yesterday. I'm afraid that my offering is yet more boring freight cars, but I'm hoping that this will compel me to finally finish-off all of the projects left in this area. As always, this is HO scale and involves mostly detailing of older rolling stock.
First up are some recently painted (last year, I think) Train Miniature boxcars. I had done them as ARA 1932 steel boxcars, since the CPR bought 700 of this type of car in 1936. I discovered, belatedly, that the prototypes had a 9'4" inside height, making them too tall to use the TM model. I then discovered that the TM car is a model of a widely-used steel car from the 1920s, and represents a car with an inside height of 8'7", the exact same height as CPR's so-called "minibox". A simple number change from the 220,000 series to the 240,000 series would likely do the trick. Here's one of the three cars as they were originally done:


The "minibox" was CPR's own design, and was actually a vast improvement over both the USRA-designed steel car used extensively by the New York Central and many other roads and the Pennsylvania's similar X-29 (both among my favourites). The CPR car's design changed the method of fastening the side sheets to the car's sills (this was the major weakness of the USRA and X-29 designs, as it resulted in premature rusting-out of the side panels due to trapped moisture). CP's version used tabbed side sills, which are one of the very distinct characteristics of these cars, and probably the most noticeable. In addition, they featured reverse Dreadnaught ends, radial (arched) roofs, and doors only 5' wide.
The height of the TM car is right, but it uses a 6' door, has a peaked flat panel roof, and no tabs on its sills. It does have a similar style of Dreadnaught end, but with the corrugations sticking out rather than in, as on the CPR cars.
I hadn't really noticed the radial roof (these cars were first built in 1929, and they had an exceptionally long service life - of 7500 cars built, over 6800 of them were still in revenue service in 1965) so didn't plan to alter it at all. The cars were originally equipped with "K" brakes and vertical brake wheels - mine had AB brake gear and "power" brake-wheel equipment. Well, that wasn't of great concern, as the real cars began to receive AB brakes in the mid-to-late '30s, my modelling era. I could also live with the slightly incorrect ends, so all the cars really needed was tabs applied to the sills. I also opted to overlook the door width - changing to a 5' door would necessitate filler pieces on both sides of the new doors, something that would throw-off the panel spacing, and likely make the car look as bad or worse than one with overly wide doors.
After adding the tabs and changing those second "2"s to "4"s, I brush painted the new tabs with a boxcar colour and dirtied the new digits slightly. Some touch-up with the airbrush would blend everything together. Unfortunately, I started working on some of the other cars, leaving my not-quite-done miniboxes on the test track. Every time I looked at them, I had the feeling that they still weren't quite right. I finally decided that the existing doors were too short, making them look even more too-wide than they actually were. After making some new doors by splicing together some Athearn doors, I added new lower door tracks (strip styrene) and decided that they should be "good enough". Here's the state which they're in at the moment:


Another related project was to add underbody detail to about 20 boxcars and reefers that still lacked suitable brake gear. I usually add only what can be seen under a passing train, so gondolas and flatcars with fishbelly sidesills, along with hoppers and covered hoppers, don't have this. Among those 20 cars were these three Pennsy X-29s, all Train Miniature cars. The centre sills have already been cut down, and I will also alter the cars' lettering somewhat to reflect re-weighing, etc. I also hope to tone-down the weathering a little bit.


Other cars to be addressed include an old, but newly acquired X-29, shown below awaiting brake gear:


These cars, also recently acquired, are more TM cars and represent the ARA 1923 single sheathed design. I stripped the factory paint and have begun to modify them. The two in the rear still need brake gear, while the one in the foreground will be modified in a manner similar to the others, but will also get new Murphy ends (from Tichy):


More TM cars: the one in the back is a USRA steel car, while the two in the foreground are based on the 1923 ARA design for double sheathed cars. All of these cars were bought to match specific prototypes for which I already have lettering.


These two are MDC 36' truss rod cars and were recently bought new for a couple of bucks. The reefer, top, will likely become an EG&E car (if I can find a few more to make it appear as if there's a class of such cars in operation), while the lower car will be modified to represent a Southern class SU double sheathed truss-rod boxcar. Southern had almost 15,000 of these cars in service and mine will have, I hope, the correct Hutchins-type steel ends.


To wrap things up for this challenge, I'm hoping to modify eight Athearn Blue Box boxcars (all bought used for next to nothing) into representatives of the EG&E's first order of steel boxcars (these are theoretically the ones which would have predated the ones which several of you bought from me some time ago). The cars will get new underframes and floors (modified Central Valley parts), new ends and doors (modified Tichy parts), and new trucks (Proto). They'll also get new Viking roofs (from Des Plaines Hobbies), but I'll first lower the eaves on the original cars. This will involve sawing off the moulded-on roofs and their attached rivet strips immediately below the eaves, then lowering the car sides to represent an earlier car. The original roof and rivet strip assembly will then be cemented back in place, and, once the cement has fully set, the roof will be cut-away, leaving (I hope) the rivet strip atop the lowered sides. The new roof can then be cemented in place. All cars will also get built-up running boards and metal sill steps and grab irons.
Here's one with the major parts included.


While I could probably buy eight suitable cars, why would I?

Wayne