Fenton Wells has shared his latest HO scale model from the Southern Piedmont shops.
The Southern Railroad ordered 200 steel-framed, 40-ton, steel center sill, truss rod, wooden stock cars from Kilby Car and Foundry in 1923 (car numbers 45200-45399). They added another 250 cars in 1925 from Tennessee Coal and Iron (car numbers 45400-45649).
The Southern Railway Historical Association graciously provided copies of the drawings of these cars and from those it appears that the underframes were identical to the 40-foot steel underframe (SU) automobile box cars the Southern rostered. These wooden cars were close in dimensions to the steel-framed cars built later. (Click on any image to review a larger size.)
Of the original 450 cars, 19 were still in service in 1953, the time my modeling era ends. I would guess these last cars never received AB brake systems and weren’t around for long in 1953. The stock car business on the Southern was rapidly disappearing at that time.
The model started out as a Proto 2000 stock car kit. I wanted to keep some structural integrity for the body with new scratch-built sides, doors, and roof. The ends and underframe were modified to match the drawings.
I built the sides with Evergreen styrene strips, while the roof was Evergreen scribed car siding. I used 0.012-inch diameter brass wire for the rods on the car sides and fishing line for the truss rods under the car.
A plethora of Tichy nut-bolt-washer castings were installed. Those details are a bit oversized compared to the prototype but were the smallest available. They don’t look too bad after the model is painted.
I wrapped up the model with Kadee Scale 158 couplers, InterMountain wheel sets, and Tangent air hoses with wire brackets. A Floquil paint mix of Southern Freight Car Brown and some Red oxide was sprayed onto the model for the car color. I used a set of K4 decals for the lettering.
The shop crew took a while for this project and there were many compromises and mistakes. Three sets of sides were made before the shop built a set that I was happy with. I think it turned out okay.
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