New Trainset Freigth Cars

The flow of second hand trainset freight cars seems to be never ending... in apparence at least. Louis-Marie's brother-in-law provided an old trainset from his childhood. While most of the stuff was garbage, even in the eyes of someone with low standard, a few cars were worth a second life.

Among them was a Tyco MoW flatcar. If you remove the pseudo-caboose end, you get a decent car. By the way, even as a child, I always found these cars to be highly dubious. Any prototype? As for the caboose, was it a bobber shell plugged onto a flat car... It's really weird.

 Another one was a generic 50ft flatcar. It was broken in two but could be repaired easily. It used to have holes on the deck to secure containers.

 
Finally, the last decent car was a 40ft Bachmann boxcar. While in really bad shape, this car has details that can compare with Athearn and Roundhouse except for the obvious lack of steel panel line. In fact, some of them are superior, particularly the roofwalk which is thin and well rendered for a 40-year model. However, the car has some serious defects, lack doors, door tracks, brake wheel and is broken.

All of them are in the process of being rebuilt and repainted. The flatcars will become Nickel Plate Road while the boxcar will be of Pittsburg & Lake Erie origin.

With these latest acquisition, I consider the fleet to be complete and want to thanks every people involved in building it.

I still have a few weeks of building, painting and weathering ahead. Some cars will likely require fine tuning, addition weight and metal wheels. For hoppers, I'm still investigating ways to add weight. At this point, I know the answer won't be aesthetical.

On the positive side, I'm glad to announce the illustrated rolling stock catalogue is progressing well. I hope to start publishing the content during the month of September.

Accurail Boxcars

As the fleet grow, a few last boxcars have to be done.

The first one is an Accurail 40ft combo doors boxcar. I have decals for a Baltimore & Ohio double door boxcar but not for a combo one. Anyway, combo doors weren't that much wide spread at that time.

The stock model

The combo door details were shaved off to make room for a new regular door salvaged from a kitbashed Intermountain boxcar. Removing the diagonal rivets and panel line required some serious work. To some extent, I'll have to live with the plug door raised frame. A more meticulous modeller would have shaved it off completely and used decal rivets to complete the model. It seemed a little bit excessive for my purpose.

Finally, after a good coat of Red oxyde primer, the surgery scars disappear nicely.

CDS Lettering dry transfers were used to add the B&O markings.

The last project was easier. It involved repainting an Accurail 40ft double sheated  boxcar without altering the details. Once again, CDS dry transfers were used for convenience and their cheap price tag.

Four other 40ft boxcars are also in the process of being completed (two Rounhouse, one Athearn and one Bachmann).

Hopper Time

Three "new" hoppers joined the fleet.

The first one is a Life-Like 55-ton coal hopper. It used to be lettered Union Pacific and molded in yellow plastic. Black paint and CDS Lettering New Haven decals gave it some dignity. It was from Jérôme's original toy train set from his childhood and now it's back in service. The car details are a little bit coarse, but someone could easily upgrade it with metal wire. For a black car, I feel it isn't required to make the grabirons slimmer because of the optical illusion. For a light-color car, that would be required and then it would be better to acquired a better car than fight with a this one. A good old Accurail or Tichy car would be a good way to go.

The second one is a black Accurail 2-bay coal hopper lettered to Nickel Plate using, again, CDS Lettering dry transfers. I'm now so accustomed to lettering cars in such fashion I don't miss the tedious process of decalling anymore!

The third one was previous presented when under surgery. It is an ex-Penn Central Roundhouse covered hopper. But now, it reverted back to its original paint scheme from the 50s under PRR tenure. I'm seriously thinking about replacing the running boards with Tichy ones because the stock ones are ugly beyond salvation, even with the 3-feet rule!

Before

After

 
I have many other cars to decal including 4 flat cars. Six other boxcars have been completed too including paint schemes such as Erie, Nickel Plate, Baltimore and Ohio and Pittsburg and Lake Erie. They will be presented in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, the weathering process is still halted because the Dullcote shortage at ULHS (Useless Local Hobby Shop) isn't yet addressed.

By the way, after lettering about 20 cars, I discovered black dry transfer are far easier to rub in than white ones. It seems the "paint" isn't the same. Also, very thin letters with serif are harder to transfer than bolder one or ones without serif.

Erie ARA 70-ton 4-Bay Hopper - Decals?

Like many modellers, I acquired many ARA 70-ton 4-bay hopper over my collecting life without even trying to do so. This particular design – while seldom used by most railroads – was very popular among model manufacturers. Most trainset were provided with this car, most of the time with wrong paint scheme. At some point, I came to outright hate the model for its lack of use since most of the time, generic coal hoppers are 2-bay and 3-bay.

However, the fun thing is that Erie was one of the few select road that used extensively the ARA-designed hoppers. Since my goal with Harlem Station is to get rid (read find a new use) for cars I no longer need and that up space, repainting them as Erie would be a great solution.

I actually own about 7 of these cars, mostly Bachmann and Lionel (HO). Once converted with Kadee couplers and metal wheels, they are good runners. Also, painting them in black as Erie did is a good way to minimize the oversized ladders and grabirons.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any suitable decals for larger Erie hoppers. It could be done using several sets, but before ordering anything, I’d like to know if some readers are aware of good decals that could be used for this project. The recent BLI release gives a good idea about what I’m trying to achieve.

Adding Weight to Flatcars

Adding extra weight to flatcar isn't funny at all. I recently got an old Athearn flatcar which was lacking a weight plate and few parts. However, the model was in good shape and fitting perfectly the layout theme.

After thinking how I would add weight while keeping the underframe detail, I came to the conclusion the easiest way was to simply remove the it where it can't be seen, i.e. behind the fishbelly. I cut the undeframe in three, removing the central portion and glued in place the end sections and bolsters. Stripes of lead weight were attached under the shell. Easy as 1-2-3 and undiscernable for an operation oriented model. The weights can be painted and it wouldn't be a bad idea to glue brake details on top of the lead if they are visible on your prototype.

I plan to convert in such way a few other cheap flatcars suffering from low weight.

By the way, the rolling stock catalogue is progressing at a fast pace and I hope to inaugurate it by the end of August.

Lettering 46ft Gondolas

I recently lettered my four 46ft gondolas with CDS dry transfer. Some Pennsylvania and some New York Central.

I also made new wood floors out of scribed styrene sheets. They aren't yet weathered and I plan to glue them when the cars will be completely weathered.

The more I look at that kitbashing project, the more I think it could be tremendously improved to represent many different types of gondola using similar technics. Sure, I took a very casual approach, but I see a lot of potential at a nominal cost by splicing cars and changing their dimensions. So no longer I'll laugh at these ridiculous 40ft trainset gondolas... With some metal grabirons, they would look nice belong similar Walthers 46ft gondolas.

Harlem Station Moved To Its Final Destination

Last week, with the help of my father, we moved the layout to its final destination in Jérôme's basement.

While the layout was design as two modules, we didn't felt great about the idea to cut the rails and risk to cause much more problem than required.

It was finally decided to move the layout as is in a trailer. Yes, we had some doubt and the streets weren't in great shape but I'm happy to report nothing broke during the move. I must admit I'm really impressed by the sturdiness of the waffle-type module building technique. It's very strong, lightweight and gives plenty of "handles" to grasp the layout when moving it. The final coat of paint on the fascia and last coat of acrylic gel on the water will soon be applied.

 
Meanwhile, the freight car fleet is now completely assembled, totally 60 cars including boxcars, gondolas, open hoppers, reefers and flatcars. 20 out of 60 are in various state of completion from adding details and weight to final weathering. The shortage of Dullcote at my local hobby store hampers greatly my progress. I missed the days when more than 4 of 5 local shops used to carry Dullcote. Anyway, I still have to wait to get all the CDS dry transfers I ordered last week.

Documenting the Fleet

As the project is steadily nearing completion, particularly in regards to freight cars and locomotives, I added a new feature on the side bar called "Motive Power & Rolling Stock Catalog".

Each link will lead you - in due time - to a page recensing all the cars and locomotives specificially used on the layout with a short description and accompanying picture.

The pages will be available at the moment when every car will be weathered and photographed, which shouldn't take too long. And don't worry, a dedicated blog post will tell you when each category is online or updated.

I feel it will be easier to scroll through the numerous cars that were built, detailed and weathered for Harlem Station. While selecting the cars, I made sure they were relevant in term of era and roadname using actual archives pictures to build a prototypical fleet. I'm relatively satisfied given most freight cars are generic Athearn, Roundhouse and Walthers models.

More hoppers & Quest for Decals

I had a pair of Walthers 2-bay ribbed hopper in Southern Pacific scheme in my pile of unused rolling stock. I'll probably never have any use for them and they were intended to be bashed as QRL&PCo coal hoppers until I found out they were unsuitable.

Instead of leaving them to their sad destiny, I decided to repaint them and given them another chance. The fact they had the same number of panels than a Pennsylvania GLca hopper made them an easy job. Sure, they aren't exact replica of the prototype, but it means I can use available decals.

Among improvements, I replace the oversized grabirons with very thin stripes of styrene. Modeles usually make good use of wire for that purpose, but I was a little bit lazy. Drilling thinny hole on hopper ends can be time consuming and I didn't want to put to much effort on a car that is otherwise obviously unprototypical. I think the styrene stripes are a decent compromise between accuracy and oversized details.

Cars were painted with Krylon Red Oxyde primer and lettered using CDS Dry Transfer. A few minutes later, the cars were complete and ready to be weathered, which will occur when I'll resupply on Dullcote.

Quest for Decals

I'm actually in the process of locating old Erie Railroad decals to complete the fleet. Unfortunately, most of them are long out of production and unavailable. Sure there is Ebay, but buying decals from the States and adding the shipping cost makes it so uneconomical it makes restoring old cars a folly.

I'm mainly looking for decals suitable for ARA 70T 4-bay coal hoppers, 40ft boxcars and 41ft gondolas (I have two old Roundhouse gondolas that would be very useful on the layout).

From what I've seen, Champ Decals, CDS Lettering and a few others including Campbell did produce suitable sets.

Kitbashing 46ft Gondolas

In a time were $30 to $50 are now the norm and where pressure to make everything you build is almost 100% prototype, it's normal to feel crushed by the humongous amount of effort and money required to populate a layout. No wonder a few people contact me or commented about my effort to turn old cars into decent stand ins.

While I'm not into the "It's my railroad" mindset - which is too often a lame excused given to overlook blatant lack of efforts or self indulgence - I do agree we have to take shortcuts some times. Depending the scope of your project, maybe 100% accuracy isn't required by your project.

In the case of Harlem Station, nothing exceptional ever happened there. The fleet of cars was mundane and generic: boxcars, hoppers, flatcars and gondolas. Nothing worth writing to your mother. The only thing that stood out was the motive power and it's why I made a lot of effort to get it right. It's an attention grabber easily identifiable by anybody having a minimal knowledge of New York harbour operations.

On the other hand, it's not worth putting to much time on the freight fleet. In fact, mixing high quality model could be a mistake because the huge difference in quality will show off. It's why I decided to keep the investment in such things as metal stirrups and grabirons minimal.

Nevertheless, even if you use foobies to populate a layout, there's a few rules to follow if you want the global picture to be believeable. Let's break them apart:

1) Dimensions / Proportion

Your car can have the wrong grabiron, the wrong doors, the wrong brakewheel or roofwalk, but you won't fool anybody if the general dimensions are wrong. In my case, a 40ft high side gondola is a poor stand in for a 46ft low side gondola. For boxcars, I'd say paying attention to door type does pay off in the end because it is one of the most identifiable detail on a car.

2) Colors & Paint Scheme

Color is the most recognizable aspect of any objet after its shape. There is no shortcut here: get the right color and paint scheme according to your prototype. Any cheap but mildly decent car with a good paint job will look good. Tyco Forums' user Srenchin prooved it one for all by to improving Tyco 50ft plug door boxcars. In fact, it's worth scrolling through the entire thread because he develops new technics and approaches to improving fifty of them. There's a big lesson in humility there since the final product is far to be a botched pile of scraps.

Also, remember when I talk about using regular oxyde red paint? Here's a comparison between two identical cars. The bottom one was faded then covered with a coat of road grime. You can see how a not so prototypical color can be altered easily to match any other shade of boxcar red required.

3) Weathering

Anything looks better with a good coat of reality. Without minimal weathering, a plastic car will always looks like plastic. You need some fading, grime and flatness to fool the eyes believing it is steel. Once you reach that step, you know you're on the right part.

By following these 3 rules, your cars are already better than any accurate model out of the box. It also reminds us prototypicalness isn't only achieved by reproducing accurate details, but also by making the model realistic.

Now, let's look at my current gondola project.

I need gondolas for Harlem Station, but I have no suitable prototypes. On my shelves, I have a bunch of five cheap Model Power 40ft high side gondolas bought years ago at 5$/each. I lettered them CN, applied some weathering back in my experimenting days and operated them on the previous Hedley Junction layout. Unfortunately, I no longer have use for them since I have acquired better CN gondolas.

Meanwhile, I found discounted CDS dry tranfer for Pennsylvania and New York Central gondolas which would be suitable for my era. Unfortunately,  they are for 13-panel 46ft low side gondola. But while looking at the Model Power gondola, it's clear I can extend it by adding few panels cut from another shell. Adding two panels makes it a 48ft long 12-panel gondola. Not exactly a perfect match, but far better than the original model. With minor modification by following PRR G22-class car, we should be able to build good foobies.

Thus, out of 5 gondolas, one was sacrificed and sliced in 4 parts (2 panels long). The other gondolas were cut in the middle and spliced together. When dried, I lowered the high sides using my trusty table saw. It can sound a little bit overpowered, but trust me, it makes it a quick and dirty operation. Once again, always work with extreme prudence when cutting styrene with a table saw. Plastic is treacherous.

Once done, I glued styrene stripes on top of the car, added characteristic steel sill on end and relocated the weight. The underframe was extended with styrene bits while an Accurail handbrake was installed on a brass rod.

On the future NYC gondolas, I removed the upper rib on the car ends to leave more space for the decals. The NYC cars are equipped with lower brake staff than the PRR to follow some prototype pictures I saw. New Kadee coupler pockets embedded in the end sills were added while metal replacement wheelsets were installed. Model Power trucks aren't very well defined, but they are not that ugly either and they operate quite decently. I see absolutely no reason to replace them.

To be noted, new wooden floors will be added inside the gondolas to hide the savage surgery that occured!

And now, here's the final product when painted and awaiting decals. I must say there is very little evidence that can tell the origin of the car.

That said, more cars to come in the following weeks as I try as much as I can to complete a decent fleet. More coal hoppers and boxcars.