Here are a few recent grab shots along my model railroad. Click on any of these to review a larger size.
– Frank
Fun Builds – 1
I need to get into the habit of posting stuff. Recent events around the home have conspired to make me completely forget about the blog. A big distraction has been the garden while a smaller distraction has been this Nickel Plate Road mill gondola.
I wanted something to build that wouldn’t take more than an evening and had this HO scale Chad Boas kit among the stash. This is a very nice, very simple kit composed of a resin underframe and sides, resin side braces, and laser cut wood deck and sides.
Prototype info
The Nickel Plate installed 500 of these gondolas in 1923 from the Standard Steel Car Company in the 70000-70499 series. These were the first 48-foot long mill gondolas on the Nickel Plate. Many were converted to all steel cars in the late 1940s.
My build
I replaced the resin ends with plastic ends from the extra parts bin to get a thinner part. As this is an operating model where the brake gear can’t be seen, I did not install any brake system. much of the underframe space was packed with weight.
The model was ready to paint in about an hour! I don’t believe I have ever built a resin car that fast. I think it took maybe ten minutes to paint. The most time was spent waiting for the Scalecoat l paint to dry. The decals are scraps from used NKP sets and the weathering was done with Pan Pastels.
This gondola build was so much fun I think I’ll get a couple of Chad’s flat car kits! Check out his current model list.
Frank
Frank’s Distractions – 1
Like many of us, I am often attracted to some neat prototype that happened to catch my eye. It’s the “shiny new toy” syndrome, maybe, but let’s call it “Frank’s Distractions.” I’ll present some of those on occasion here on the blog. Some of these may end up as resin models but many will remain the shiny distractions they are.
Here’s a tank car that caught my interest. Click on any image here to review a larger size.
I found this car from a link posted on the Steam Era Freight Car YahooGroup. The tank car is what I’m calling a GATX Type 22, 10,000 gallon car. This car has a new full platform but they left the support for the old platform on the bands. The existing running boards are still wood while the new platform has an open grate. While it’s not very clear in the photo, it seems the car was reweighed in 1949.
UOCX 10345 is a photo of a new car that was built 8-22. This photo came from Richard Hendrickson. Richard and I had several conversations on what to call these earlier GATX tank cars. The earliest we’ve seen the TYPE designation on a GATX tank car is on UOCX 10484. We figured that working the GATX system backwards was logical. The first year that underframe design was built determined what TYPE it was. Check out the great info in this 1925 Railway Review article, “Improved Design of ARA Class IV Tank Car.”
The 1943 ORER NMRA reprint lists UOCX 10000-10545 as 10,000 gallon cars. If this is a continuous series of cars, then it is the bulk of the 1943 UOCX fleet. A 1926 ORER lists UOCX 10000-10407 as 10,000 gallon cars. If this is a continuous number series, these tank cars would be two-thirds of the 1926 UOCX fleet. While these listings seem to be a continuous series of tank cars, these number series may not contain tank cars all built to the same design. private car listings can be squirrely like that.
The GATX Type 22 tank cars would be a “Someday” kit. There are just too many other items ahead of it right now. The model pictured above is a kitbash of an InterMountain tank. The only resin parts are the tank saddles and the running board/brake supports. If this GATX Type 22 goes into production, it will need to be a full resin kit due to the unavailability of InterMountain kits. The car is modeled from plans and measurements from a prototype car at the Monticello Railroad Museum. It’s GATX 7297 which was built 12-25.
I hope you have enjoyed this shiny new toy! It’s just one of many personal distractions.
Frank
Illinois Central Twin Hoppers
There was some recent discussion on the STMFC YahooGroups list concerning the likes and dislikes of cast on grab irons on resin freight car kits. The March 2015 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist mentioned in their news section that one of the future kits being considered by Resin Car Works (RCW) is an Illinois Central Twin Hopper with cast on grabs. One of my goals with RCW is to simplify the construction of resin freight cars to lower the cost and to make it possible for large fleets of such cars to be constructed. There are many freight car prototypes that won’t be made in plastic as the sales aren’t enough to recoup the cost of development and production. The only other economical means to produce such cars is with low production, low development cost, rubber molds and resin castings.
One of these cars is the Enterprise offset side twin hopper that was owned in large numbers by the Illinois Central. As a mid-fifties modeler whose layout is set in Central Illinois I need dozens of these IC hoppers for operations. I also have several friends that need dozens of these cars. My operations are based on coal mines around Taylorville with the coal being moved to dumpers at Havana Illinois. Click on any image here to review a large size.
These dumpers had a capacity larger then what the home road could supply so coal in other roads hoppers would be seen at this site. The two largest numbers of foreign road cars were from the New York Central and IC. If you look closely at the second photo you’ll notice a long string of NYC hoppers.
To have a large number of IC hoppers on any layout, the construction had to be simplified which the cast on grabs has done. As RCW is a basement type businesses very short on available time, the choice was been made to issue only one kit with the cast on grabs. Those modelers who only desire one or two of these kits can easily remove the grabs just like on a plastic kit.
Please leave a comment below and follow all of the required steps. All comments are moderated and will appear after approval.