Bill Welch shares observations and tales from the recent Railroad Prototype Modeler meet held near St. Louis. Click on any image here to see a larger version.
It is has been over week since returning from the St. Louis RPM meet in Collinsville, IL, and thought I would reflect on my experience as this was a new meet for me. The Convention Center is small and easy to get around and there is plenty of parking. Food and drink were available at a decent price and nearby are several chain restaurants. Attendees were scattered around in three or four hotels/motels. Getting there from the airport was easy and there was very little traffic to negotiate once you are at the CC.
Charlie Duckworth joins the blog with his build summary of a classic Sunshine Models resin box car kit. Click on any image to review a larger size. Here’s Charlie’s report.
History
The Missouri Pacific and its subsidiaries purchased or built some 4,439 Howe Truss boxcars. The cars had a capacity of 2,926 cubic feet and used a Murphy radial roof. All of the 2,750 MP 46000-48749 series and the first batch of 1,569 cars for the International-Great Northern 6201-6950 were built with indented Murphy ends. These cars were built in 1926 by ACF with a few coming from Standard Steel Car Company. The I-GN 9401-9900 group was built by ACF in 1927 and used the indented Dreadnaught ends. The final 100 cars used Creco door hardware, whereas, the rest of the fleet used Camel hardware. Prototype painting was initially boxcar red with black underframe and trucks with the car body shade being modified over time to a medium brown. Stenciling was white.
A tank car model with components from Tichy and Athearn reflects a popular prototype.
Here are a couple more modified models that are in service on the railroad. The Warren tank car is a shortened Athearn chemical tank on a lengthened Tichy frame. The cuts in the Athearn tank are covered with 0.005-inch sheet styrene to represent the jacket over the insulation. The model has the rough overall dimensions of an AC&F Type 27 Class 105 propane 10.5K gallon tank car. The bonnet is a resin casting that I did maybe two decades ago and has been noted several times on Tony Thompson’s blog. The decals are from Sunshine Models but others are available.
This flat car is actually two Red Caboose flat car models spliced together just as the Rock Island had done. Take a flat car, cut it in half, add new steel in-between and “presto!,” a longer flat car. The splice plates were done with styrene with rivets harvested from an Athearn gondola. Today we would use Archer rivet decals.
The decal lettering were extra bits from other used sets. The deck was widened with styrene matching the existing deck thickness and then distressed. The stake pockets came with the Red Caboose kits.
The load is six Farmall 300 series tractors which were produced from 1954 to 1956, which falls right into my late August 1955 time period. These tractors are resin castings from a pattern done for Martin Lofton at Sunshine Models, but were never issued.
A recent discussion on the Steam Era Freight Car YahooGroup centered on an interesting Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern (WCF&N) flat car. Here’s one way to model a similar prototype.
Northern Pacific 5966, a 50-foot, single sheathed automobile box car built in 1926. Photo from the Jim Gerstley Collection, courtesy of Dan Smith.
Bill Welch is back with more tales from his workbench. Click on any image here to review a larger size. Here’s his latest report.
As a part of building freight car models, I enjoy collecting photos for car kits I already have or hope will be produced. I have found several photos of the big 50-foot Northern Pacific single sheathed cars that I used to aid in building an HO scale kit of the car offered by Speedwitch Media. After I had finished my assembly, I realized I have a colour photo from circa 1956 on my computer showing the galvanized roof panels devoid of any paint except for some misting of overspray along its edge from the last time the body had been painted. The roof ribs did appear to be painted or perhaps coated with a “freight car red” car cement. I decided I wanted to try and recreate this appearance, which meant I needed to mask the roof, a chore made more tedious because I had already glued the Running Board System in place. Oh joy!
