Quarantine Project Boxcars

While under lockdown, I attempted to use my suddenly available time productively. I was able to land a number of Central Valley, Labelle, and Roundhouse/MDC kits. The CV and Labelle kits were craftsmen wood kits, while the Roundhouse/MDC kits were plastic and diecast. Sitting down, I started assembling these kits one by one, and in about a month, I had a nice fleet of new cars ready to enter service.

An Xacto knife and sandpaper is all you really need to put any of these kits together. The NWSL Chopper is nice, but not essential. I never used a miter saw for any of these. To help with the roof ends I made a carstock template to guide my carving efforts. One can make one from just a piece of heavy cardboard, or plywood, or Masonite, with the desired curve cut into it for the cutting blade. Use of a template helps to get both ends to look the same. Take it slow and frequently compare it to the provided documentation and you'll be OK. The worst that can happen is that you'll may end up building another piece of roof stock from leftover supplies on hand. (Don't ask me how I know that. Just know that I do.) Prototype wooden roofs were covered with a layer of canvas and then coated with tar. So, any mistakes can be simply covered.

Central Valley Ventilated Boxcar Kit.

Central Valley Boxcar Kit.

Central Valley Refrigerated Car Kit.

 

Central Valley kits are remarkably simple to construct and for their age are decent kits. These kits of Box cars, Reefers, Ventilated Box Cars, and Cabooses were basic wood kits which come with pre-formed and carved wood bases and blocks for the floor and car frame, the ends, and the roof. Traditionally these kits contained all the basswood and soft metal castings required. With pre-printed and pre-scribed wood sides, roof, and ends. The printing on these cars runs the gauntlet of quality. With some carsides being crisp and sharp. While others are dull and blurry. Metal details and the famous Central Valley Trucks with Snap on bolsters are included with each kit. The user was expected to buy trucks and couplers separately. Central Valley made the trucks, but alas they are no more, and it takes some scrounging to find appropriate trucks now-a-days. I tend to replace the metal details with Tichy NBW and brake equipment. As well as replace the brass rod with fishing line for the truss-rods. These make very nice cars that ride well and can be modified to fit a number of prototypes. On the downside, these are old kits. The printing on the carsides can be rather crude. The trucks that come with the kits are clunky and sometimes ride awkward and will require adjusting. A lot of the old casting have imperfections, and as I said before, I tend to use Tichy hardware for this very reason.

Central Valley Boxcar Kit

 

I've built a few LaBelle freight cars and while I love the results, the construction can be a bit of a headache. The kits came with everything except trucks and couplers. I found the destructions confusing, with drawings that are not scale to the parts provided, and the construction methods were straight forward, but made all the more challenging by wood parts and blocks that clearly were planed with old tooling. Warping, odd sizes, and uneven thicknesses abound with Labelle kits.
 

A LaBelle 34 foot boxcar

 

Labelle 34 foot boxcar

When it comes to painting these kits, one must remember that wood is porous. The varied grain of the scribed siding wood will absorb paint at different rates. LaBelle kits generally use a very good grade of scribed wood, but there is still a possibility that the grain will show through the first coat of any paint. Central Valley cars tend to be pre-printed, so too much paint will obscure detail and grain. One can either use a primer coat or a light application of your main color first - allow that to dry completely - and then a second coat. While the single coat may create a weathered appearance, that wood grain issue remains and I've found it better to use two coats of paint and then go back and apply light weathering if desired.
 

Also recall that dried glue does not absorb paint. Careful gluing is important on these kits to keep the glue from spreading out on surfaces that will be painted. The "second coat of paint" process can help to cover problems, but it is better to avoid the problem as the paint almost always appears more glossy on the spots covering glue. 

 

 

I also finished two more of the Crown Point flatcars kits. I covered these kits in an earlier review.  I put Tichy trucks under these ones. 

  

A few kitbash projects were likewise knocked off the shelf. Such as this tankcar built with a brass shell found in a parts bin at a local hobbystore atop a scratch built car-frame and body. The flatcar with load was built from an AHM flatcar lettered for the local "Stone Mountain Railroad" 

Roundhouse/MDC boxcar

Roundhouse/MDC, and later Roundhouse under the Athern banner, produced a number of 34foot wooden boxcars with trussrods. These cars are typical of 1890-1920 construction, while easy to backdate into the late 1880s. The kits are easy to put together, as they often come with a cast metal frame, plastic spru of parts such as the running board, queen-posts, and brake equipment, an a large body shell. I tend to replace the plastic parts with Tichy hardware, and use fishing line instead of thread for the rods. Otherwise, the cars go together as instructed. Sometimes with a few small details car to car. These are cheap and cheerful cars, and make fine runners. 

Well, that's all I have for this post. I'm back at work, so long spans of hobbytime are over. I have plenty of projects in the works though, and I can't wait until the pandemic lifts so I can return to the model railroad club and give my new freight train's worth of rolling stock some run time.

Great Basin Carshops

Ah, feel that in the air? It's springtime, and the weather outside is just beautiful. It's also still full of the dreaded Itus known as Covid19. Since the quarantine is still in effect, I've turned to a number of projects that have been sitting on the back-burner.  

Great Basin Carshops is a product line started by my friend Josh Bernhard. They provide lettering for 19th and early 20th century model railroaders. What makes their products unique is that all prototype artwork is traced directly from photographs, lettering diagrams and drawings to provide an absolute accurate letter-style. He offered me a set of his decals to try out and sent them to me, because he's an awesome lad.  

I could have just slapped his decals on any old kit. However, I decided that I wanted a unique car for a particular set of decals he offered. More on that set later and what makes them interesting. 

Open platform boxcars where pretty common in the Northeast prior to 1870s. With the NYNH&H, The The Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway, O&W, L&M, and many others counting them among their rank. I started this kitbash atop a Mantua flat roofed passenger car frame. Taking the body and cutting the sides off but leaving the ends in place. New sides where made from crescent board that I scribed and cut. I really like using crescent board due

to it's ease to cut, ease to scribe with an X-acto blade, and it's ability to take varnish, paint, and sealants very well. New end railings were made from brass, a roofwalk, and a stemwinder handbrake round out this car. The car is not equipped with airbrakes. Mostly because I couldn't find the appropriate K-brake casting. This will change once the small box full of them that's floating around my workshop turns up. 

For this car, I chose the "Wickham Whale Oil Company" decals. 

Now, a little context this these. In 1890, the Utah Enquirer published an article titled Whales in The Salt Lake. According to the article, two juvenile Australian whales, one female and one male, were “planted” in the Great Salt Lake in 1873. 

According to the story, James Wickham imported them and commissioned special rail cars filled with seawater to transport the whales from San Francisco to the lake. His intentions being to start a great basin whale oil industry. Mr. Wickham “planted” the whales in a small bay with fencing he installed to keep the animals corralled. Much to his chagrin, the whales broke free and swam to deeper waters. Six months later, an associate of Mr. Wickham’s spotted the whales not fifty miles from their intended home in the Great Salt Lake. 

Of course, the whole whale of a tale is fiction. However, the tale had rooted itself so deep that today there is a Great Salt Lake Whale Watch Society, and a commemorative plaque placed at the location of the 'planting'. 

This set of decals represents a "what if", based on real private owner boxcars. With operating and reporting marks traced from prototype sources. The packaging is nice, and include a little leaflet with the decals both explaining prototype information (In this case, the story behind the Wickham Whale Oil Company) which is a very nice touch. The decals are of very high quality. You will have to cut them as close to the lettering as you can, as unlike the Microscale decals, these are built atop a single paper sized layer of film. 

Going on the car, working time is quick but effective. I had no problem moving the decals into position with a brush. The only complaint I have is that one of the decals actually had a small printing defect in it. One of the Master Car Builder markings had the lettering smudged. However, it was small and didn't effect the overall look of the decal set. A little bit of weathering covered it, and the defect did not appear again on any of the other sets. 

Overall, I give this product a solid thumbs up. Looking forward to more offerings. 

Check out out the offering made by Great Basin Carshops. They have a lot of promise, and I'll be returning to them for sure in the future. 

Tichy Arch Bar Trucks

The archbar truck was the most commonly found truck during the 19th century. They were composed of pressed steel and bar components that were bolted together and could be found on 40 and 50-ton capacity freight cars. Although they worked well, archbar trucks required a lot of maintenance. The bolts that held them together tended to work loose with the shocks and jolts of heavy operation and would require frequent tightening. They were gradually replaced by more advanced designs starting in the 19-teens. Eventually being banned from interchange service entirely in 1940.

In the past, I've used the MDC/Roundhouse archbar on most of my builds and cars. As I happened to have had access to a large stockpile of these, and most of the roundhouse cars which at one point made up my fleet came with them stock. However, as time went on, these started to become harder and harder to find and my own stock pile diminished. 

Both Kadee and Tichy offer an arch-bar set that comes as a pair of trucks. Tichy's come as a kit, while Kadee's are ready to run. I decided to snatch up a number of the Tichy sets as these can be modified to make a broad variety of truck styles. Including the body-hung brake beams since the brake-shoes are a separate part and don't need to be placed in between the wheelsets. I also like that the journal box covers are separate parts. So I can model a few either ajar, or cocked on their hinges. (Darn lazy carmen.) 

Each truck comes on it's own sprue. Included are a number of nylon bearing caps (thankfully Tichy was smart and kind enough to include some extras...for the inevitable cut that send one spewing off into the ether.) as well as the side frames, center bolster, and brake-shoes and beams. The finely molded styrine is easy to cut, and the directions simple to assemble. 

I like to build a number in quick succession. The brake-beams as provided slot into the bottom of the bolster after the truck is anchored to the car. So, unless you are ready to place the truck onto it's car as soon as it's finished, you will have to hold off on this final piece until you are ready.

Overall, a fine product from Tichy and one which I now have in large number thanks to the low cost. 

 If one is interested in this product, the kits can be obtained direct from Tichy or you can order them in bulk from Train Life

(Please note I am not associated with these companies; links are provided for modeler's convenience and not sponsored.)

Morning In The Shops

With Covid19 keeping us all home on these beautiful days, I started going through some of the photos taken on my old Atlanta Locomotive Works Diorama. I built the scene originally as a place to take photos of my locomotive projects. However, rebuilding it to include a turntable is what set me off on my modular layout build. 

Just for fun, lets wind the clock back and take a look at the Atlanta Shops. 

 As far as models go, the scene was very small. It was built on a 2x1' foam base with wood side walls. The shop building itself was made from spare Revell "Superior Bakery" wall segments. The same wall segments that would go on to be sourced for the Marceline Roundhouse. There was very little interior detailing. Rather just shapes painted black to give the impression of size and mass. 

The diorama was easy to take outside and pose equipment on. These photos are rather old, and show some of these models in prior shapes and detail packages. Some models, such as the Telegraph, have been rebuilt entirely into new locomotives. 

Still, it helped to take one back to sunny summer days. When the air was full of smoke and cinders. 

Looking at these old photos builds enthusiasm for the current projects. The new layout will be far more then just a diorama, and hopefully scenes like these will be seen again on the W&A RR.

The Kipcha

I've owned this Bachmann Spectrum high boiler ten wheeler for almost 7 years. This model has the distinction of being the first sound equipped steam locomotive I ever owned. Equipped with a Tsunami medium steam decoder, it's sound system is acceptable at best. The B-mann claims no particuler prototype for this model other then being a representative of Baldwin Locomotive Works designs of the early twentieth century. Its size and proportions indeed reflect that era. The locomotive retains the slide-valve cylinders of the era when it was supposedly built, but has more-modern Walschaerts valve gear, a MASSIVE USRA tender, electric lighting, and a steel cab which as stock suggests a locomotive that was modernized in the 1920s or later, and may have run into the 1950s. 

The locomotive as she appeared under a previous rebuild.

When I did my original backdating upon purchasing the locomotive, the first thing I did was alter the tender. I got rid of the USRA tank, and instead cut apart a Mantua ten wheeler tank from their Sierra Railroad #3 model. The new tank went on the original frame, and was further detailed. Over the years, the locomotive lost all of the modern detailing, such as the cooling coils for the air lines, the Walschaerts valve gear, and a box headlamp found it's way atop the boiler.

She has carried three names over the years. First named “Enterprise”, she later gained the name “Vitani”, and finally “Scamp.”

Kipcha, looking spic and span.

Mechanically, this locomotive has been a very reliable performer. Never missing a beat, nor giving me any real trouble. However, she is starting to get one in years, and a small quirk has started to emerge where if the locomotive is left to sit for an extended period of time, as she often does in my display case, the decoder doesn't like to respond to commands properly upon the first run. However, this quirk vanishes after a few rotations of the drivers. As well as vanished completely if the locomotive is run regularly. She has been slated for a new LokSound Version 5 decoder.

In the meantime, the locomotive was starting to look rather shabby. So, looking for quick projects to do while I sit at home hiding from the Big Bad Itus, I felt it was time to pull her out of service and go through her with a fine toothed comb. The locomotive underwent a full servicing that involved the removal of the boiler and cab. The boiler may be removed by unscrewing four screws, one between the cylinders and three at the rear of the frame and under the cab. The two deck braces must also be removed from the sides of the smokebox. The cab can be removed by releasing two screws and loosening the upper ends of the rear handrails. Use care to avoid damaging the piping and railings running into the cab's front wall.

The motor and flywheel are enclosed in a metal housing that fills a cavity in the boiler casting. A cogged belt drives a worm shaft that runs horizontally below the motor, and the worm drives a worm gear on the main (second) driver. All moving parts where cleaned and greased. The old paint was stripped, and the old detailing removed. A new wood MDC cab was fitted to a newly detailed and painted backhead. Finally, a new coat of paint and new paper decals were applied to the cab and tender. The box headlamp was scratch built over the end of the LED post.

As a last touch, she received a new name to go with her new look. “Kipcha”, follows my railroad's tradition of naming locomotives after characters from the fantasy book series “The Sight”. A tradition that goes back to my Middle School days.

Hopefully she will give me many more years of pleasurable operation.

The 2-6-0 Project. Part 1

Steam locomotives are impressive, captivating, ingenious, complex, and dangerous devices all wrapped within a single frame. Nothing else in railroading has ever been quite as alluring. 

Prior to the turn of the last century, the 4-4-0 class of locomotive was perhaps the most successful, and most common wheel arrangement. These ran the gauntlet of design from colorful and gilded trimmed machines of the 1850s and 60s to the robust and
conventional units of the 1890s and the early 1900s.

According to Wes Barris' authoritative website, SteamLocomotive.com, there were around 25,000 of the little buggers manufactured from the mid-1800's through the following century. More then any single class of wheel arrangement before, or since. No surprise this class gained the name “American”.

The archetypical 4-4-0. Baldwin built. Circa 1870

Before I go any further, let's touch up on locomotive classes. On this blog, I toss around a lot of numbers. 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 4-6-0, and more. The technical term for this is the "Whyte Notation," developed by Frederick Whyte, which classifies a locomotive by its wheel arrangement. The system counts the number of lead wheels (non-powered, found at the head-end to negotiate curves), driving wheels (located directly under the boiler, providing all power and adhesion), and finally the trailing wheels (also non-powered these are located near the cab for support of the firebox and weight displacement), all of which are separated by dashes. 

The 4-4-0 in all it's mechanical glory

The American's Whtye Notation is broken down as follows: "4" lead wheels (two axles), "4" drivers (two axles), and "0" trailing wheels. Thus...a 4-4-0. (And the “0” is pronounced as “oh” not “Zero”. If you see a friend pronouncing a class as “four, four, zero”, and not “four, four, oh”...well, you need better friends. ;-) )

The iron horse continued to grow in an effort to meet demand and as boiler building technology and metallurgy allowed larger boilers and stronger frames to become available. Other popular 19th century wheel arrangements included the 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler, 2-6-0 Mogul, and 2-8-0 Consolidation. These successful designs gave way to the technologically advanced variants of the post-1900 period.

A roster of the W&A RR Circa 1862. All 4-4-0s.

So far, the motive power fleet of my W&A RR consists of six 1860s-70s 4-4-0s, one 4-6-0, and one 1890s 4-4-0. Historically, the real life Western & Atlantic mostly ran with 4-4-0s, although a batch of Baldwin 4-6-0s was obtained in the 1880s. Part of why I wanted to model a fictional version of the W&A was to expand upon this fleet with "could have been" pieces of motive power.

Two wheel arrangements I wanted to tackle were the 2-6-0 Mogul, and possibly the 4-8-0 Mastodon. Both projects I put off as I worked on perfecting the 4-4-0s. Part of the reason being that there really aren't good representations of these wheel arrangements available as ready-to-run 19^th century locomotives. There are some older models, such as Mantua open frame motored varieties, all based on the movie diva-I mean-star, Sierra Railroad #3. However, these older models have very poor molding, open frame motors, and the amount of work to re-motor them and deal with their running issues would be paramount to building from scratch.

The typical 1870s 2-6-0. As built by the Brooks Locomotive Works

There is the Model Die Casting/Roundhouse 2-6-0 “Old Time” model. The kit was pretty common from the 70s on through the 90s, and to this day you can find dozens on ebay. 

An MDC 2-6-0 with the fat boiler that was present on all MDC old timers.

I had never really liked the MDC/Roundhouse models because they were kind of odd— odd-drivered, with a high-mounted, straight, fat boiler. (The same boiler across the line of available models) It was hard to find a prototype that resembled it. Definitely not a typical 2-6-0 for my 1880–1890 modeling period.

John Otts, owner of the wonderful Miskatonic Railroad published an article on building his own 2-6-0 using the MDC/Roundhouse 2-6-0. His site is a gold-mine of information, and well worth a look. This got me thinking about the possibilities in the MDC frame.

Marco's 2-6-0 project loco

Then, as I did research into the idea, my friend Marcos Hizizal started working on his own 2-6-0 project by combining a MDC/Roundhouse small driver 2-6-0 frame and running gear with an old AHM 4-4-0 wagon-top boiler and cab. He nursed and developed the idea enough to get a model up and running of his own design. Watching him, and witnessing his trial and errors gave me enough thought to attempt a similar style bash on my own. 

I started out by obtaining a second hand MDC model from everyone's favorite online auction website. It came as "new-old stock", and had never been out of the package. I pulled the model from it's packaging to instantly discover that it had an odd knocking noise coming from the mechanism, and that it ran with a clear "thump". After much diagnoses, takeing things apart and putting them back together multiple times, some fowl language, and a beer, it turned out it had a cracked spur-gear that needed replacement. 

Well done MDC, well done.

I already had a AHM 4-4-0 boiler and shell, from a model that I picked up second hand. While Marcos took the original 2-6-0 and worked some voo-doo magic to rebuild the spur-gear.

The general idea of the build was to graft the AHM boiler to the MDC frame. This required a little butchering on behalf of the AHM boiler. I stripped the boiler of all components and paint, before giving it a good solid cleaning. I massaged the boiler so it would snuggle down more on the frame, and rebuilt the running-boards out of styrine so that they lost the "diamond plate" pattern that was cast into them. 

Test fitting the frame and boiler.

While this was happening, Marcos determined that the spur-gear was a loss, and quickly magicked up a 2nd MDC 2-6-0 doner. I assume he had to sacrifice a virgin and a lamb to do so. Either way, I'm indebted to him for popping another MDC out of then air. Once I had the MDC loco back, I disassembled the model down to it's frame, removing the pilot and lead truck. A new pilot would be fashioned and I added a new lead truck using a the old MDC lead truck assembly with a NWSL 26" flush end wheelset. To help with weight, a stick on lead weight was added between the frame. 

 The locomotive has a real Civil War look to her thus far. Which I really do like. I've started aiming for a locomotive that looks like a Manchester or Rogers product of the late 1860s or early 1870s. The big balloon stack helps to hide more weight. There is still a lot of work to be done. Such as a tender to scratch build, wiring to be done, and a decoder and speaker to fit. 

The boiler and runningboards

 

The weight between the frames.

 

Freshly painted cab!

More on this project as it develops...

 

Iron Horses

I recently put a new finish on the jackets on a few of my locomotives. So, to see how they looked in natural light. I took them outside on the back porch and took a few photographs in the fading twilight. 

The Texas, fireman's side. Head on

The Texas, fireman's side, tender on. Note the new finish on the boiler jacket

The Texas, basking in the sun.

Sometimes, it's just nice to look at your work and relax. I took both Texas and Dispatch outside, and I sat in a rocking chair and enjoyed a winter's sunset while enjoying the view of these two miniature iron horses. Thinking of the projects to come in the future. 

The Dispatch, looking down

The Dispatch, tender first

The Dispatch, head on