An RPM event at The Beach

Hobby Events, RPM,
Here’s a portion of the Cocoa Beach crowd. Photo courtesy of Ross Dando.

The Prototype Rails Prototype Modeler meet wrapped up in Cocoa Beach recently. Railroad modelers attended from all over the United States and one flew in from Sweden. Fifty speakers offered a variety of presentations through two and a half days for the 250+ attendees. Four modelers sent along their impressions of the event and some photos. We hope these personal stories and images inspire readers to attend a railroad prototype modeler meet in 2016. Click on any image here to review a larger size.

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Milwaukee Rib Side box car upgrade

Models, Techniques, Upgrades, , ,

George Toman made a few upgrades to an HO scale Milwaukee ribbed-side box car kit. Click on any image here to review a larger size. Here’s George with his work.

Like many readers, I’ve been inspired by Bill Welch’s work here on the RCW blog and have rolled up my shirt sleeves to upgrade a plastic model. I worked to correct the side channel height and to increase the height for the sides of a Milwaukee ribbed-side box car. The model also features Stan Rydarowicz resin replacement roof, hatches and decals.

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Paint failure

Details, Techniques, Weathering,
Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Collection 12002-14

Just before Christmas, discussion on the Steam Era Freight Cars YahooGroup was focused on box car roof paint failure. Many felt the overall effect was interesting, but far less common in the steam era due to more accumulation of soot on freight cars. Nonetheless, paint does fail, most noticeably on galvanized metal roofs. The above image is a portion of a 1943 Jack Delano photograph of the Milwaukee Railroad freight house in Galewood, IL. Of the nine box cars in the edited image, three of the roofs show signs of paint failure. The most apparent example can be seen on a car in the second row and second from the left. The two cars in the front row on the right side also show some paint failure.

We invited modelers to share images and techniques to inspire others to add this detail to a few of their freight cars.

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Another MP gondola

Resin Freight Cars, Techniques,

Bill Pardie sent a note and some photos of his Missouri Pacific gondola build about the time Bill Welch posted his tips and techniques on the model. We thought it would be neat to show another Bill’s version of the same MP gondola kit! Here’s Bill Pardie with comments on his kit build.

My initial venture into serious model railroading was in detailing brass locomotives. I then wanted the rolling stock to be as well detailed as the locomotives. This started out with Ambroid and Quality Craft kits as these kits were the only way to have stand-off grabs and ladders without performing major kit surgery. I now want the trackwork to be as well detailed as the models, but that is another story.

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