Happy Holidays with a Milwaukee F9

Happy Holidays to all who has come to the blog

This is an older model I made out of an Atlas F-9 model.  It was not in the greatest of conditions, but was perfect for being converted into another engine for my 2-rail layout.  I needed to have some passenger engines for my Chippewa Hiawatha train.  I removed some of the incorrect details from the Atlas carbody and added parts that were found on the F-9's that were converted to Passenger service.   I used P&D, Red Caboose, Keil-Line, and Precision Scale parts and then added details using brass wire and plastruct pieces.  I equipped the headlight with a Mintronics Gyra-light unit to simulate the Mars light found on Milwaukee Road passenger diesels.  I used Floquil UP Armour yellow and UP Harbor Mist Gray for the paint.  The decals are Champion decals and Champion red stripes along with Microscale decals.  This engine will run as lead unit with a Central Locomotive Works E-7 I also rebuilt.  They will pull my Chippewa Hiawatha train in the future when the layout is completed.  Hope you like it and have a Merry Christmas!  Bill  

CNW Alco FA2

Here is a special post just for everyone

This model of one of the C&NW Alco FA2 and FB2 cab units was made from two Weaver units - both which had been used quite a bit and in need of repair and new paint.  I stripped the cabs of their old paint and also rebuilt the motor in one along with new wiring and repaired the electrical pickups.  Once the electrical work was done I found pictures of these units in service on the C&NW.  The four FA2 and FB2 cab units spent most of their time operating out of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Thus my desire to have a pair of them in operation on my Wisconsin Michigan Lines.  The cab unit is painted in the later scheme from 1959 and the B unit is in the original as delivered scheme.  Both units operate on my 3 rail layout.

These units took a long time to do research on because I am always trying to find pictures of the engines and cars I want to build. I found some pictures in a CNW book and the Historical Society Magazine and I used them to build the engines.

Milwaukee Road F3

Well another Milwaukee Road F3, and after building a few engines.

This Milwaukee Road engine is a Lionel F3 unit which was in bad shape.  After repairing the motors and the e-unit I repainted the frame and trucks to match the orange, black, and maroon scheme of the Milwaukee Road.  I decaled it with Champion Decals and Microscale stripes.  I also numbered it for the Milwaukee Road series of F3's that were delivered in early 1949.   I added the square winterization hatch similar to the ones the Milwaukee added to these engines.  This engine will operate on the 3-rail layout.

Ore Cars, Glorious Ore Cars

A while ago I promised to post some ore cars for you to view and enjoy,  but for some reason [old age] I forgot to post them.

most of these ore cars are old Atlas cars that were undecorated and I decided to make them into cars that would have been found in the area I am modeling.

 

The DM&IR cars were some I found at a train show here in Tucson that I changed to the correct numbers and added details such as air hoses and brake detail.  

The Milwaukee Road cars are undecorated Atlas cars that look very similar to the Milwaukee Road cars used in the Michigan ore country.  

The Soo Line cars are again undecorated Atlas cars with markings from some pictures I found of their ore cars in Michigan.  Hope you like these cars and have a great holiday season.

Pennsy's Freight Cars

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone

Enjoy this latest helping of freight cars that I recently built.

Here are two recent boxcar projects I completed.  Both are Pennsylvania X43b PS-1 boxcars.  I realized I had only two Pennsylvania freight cars on my layout.  Since I am modeling the Northern Wisconsin area and Upper Peninsula of Michigan I realized there were a number of Pennsylvania freight cars that came across the Straits of Mackinaw on the ferries to the UP (Upper Peninsula). 

First we have a model of a 1960 rebuild  of an X43b with the shadow keystone emblem and the larger Pennsylvania lettering.  This was a Reynolds boxcar kit that had the wrong lettering and markings for another Pennsylvania car.  I stripped the car and repainted it with this scheme  along with adding additional details such as cut levers, air hoses, and brake system details.  I used Selley Custom Finishes, Cal-Scale, Plastruct, and Keil-Line parts to achieve the details desired. 

The second car in a Pennsylvania X43b in the as delivered paint scheme.  These cars were first introduced to the PRR in 1950 through mid-1951.  This was another rescued Athearn boxcar found at a local train show for a couple of bucks.  Again it received the "Thayer" treatment of stripping to the bare metal and restoring the paint job.  I used Scalecoat paint and Champion Decals for the detailing and lettering.  The other details on the car were added using Selley Custom Finishes, Cal-Scale, Plastruct, and Keil--Line parts.

Milwaukee Road Units and Green Bay Western

After looking at all the post of Freight cars and a few passengers cars I have done I decided that it was time to show off one of my Engines.

This locomotive is a model of one of the Milwaukee Road H16-66 units they operated in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the ore lines operated with the C&NW to Escanaba Michigan.   The basic model was an early William engine with a bad motor.  Then I found another early Williams engine with the early plastic truck sideframes and plastic pilots.  Bothe of the motors in the second unit were in good shape.  One Williams locomotive had a Virginian shell in great shape.  The other shell had been painted in a paint scheme of unknown identity with no number or roadname.  I stripped the shell after rebuilding the motors and mounting new die-cast sideframes and pilots to the frame.  Once I had the shell down to the basic plastic I primered the shell and then selected the bright orange paint that would have been found on a Milwaukee Road locomotive that had just returned from the shops with a new paint job and renumbered in the new 3 digit number system vice the older 4-digit numbers.  I added details to the engine and painted the handrails as the engine would have been given with the new coat of paint.  I did not add the "X" marks on the frame as these units did not get that done to them initially until the following year, when the "X" marking were added to most Milwaukee Road hood diesels for grade crossing safety.  This engine will be used on the 3 rail layout as a trailing unit to handle longer trains of ore cars or general freight. 

This is  model of the Green Bay & Western's larger 8000  class boxcars which were delivered in 1930 to increase the GB&W's ability to haul paper products out of Green Bay and Wisconsin Rapids.  These cars were copies of similar boxcars delivered to the Milwaukee Road in the same year.  GB&W's subsidiary Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western also received similar cars in the 5100 series at the same time.  These cars were used for transporting larger shipments of paper and forest products outside of Wisconsin.  This car was built using photographs and drawings of these cars I found online.  I used Northeastern scribed wood for the sides as well as Selley Custom Finishes, Cal-Scale, Walthers, Keil-Line, All-Nation, and Scale City Design parts.  The paint is Scalecoat Boxcar Red and the decals are Champion decals.  The trucks are Athearn die-cast sprung trucks and the underframe detail is made from K&S brass wire.  The catwalk was made using wire window screen material to duplicate the modern catwalks added to these cars.  I enjoy building these outside braced boxcars and they were found in the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan areas up to the late 1960's and early 1970's on both the Green Bay and Western as well as the Milwaukee Road.  This care will operate on my 3-rail layout.

Soo Line Coach

Okay, this is what a few months of late night builds and Aerosmith was able to create.

Another one of my favorite railroads is the Soo Line.  While going through some old broken passenger cars looking for a part, I found another badly abused Walthers short coach kit.  It had been built many years ago by another modeler and I came across it and several other short Walthers passenger cars in a box.  All total there were 25 passenger cars in the box. Since that purchase, many I have built and sold and some I have kept building them for the C&NW portion of my layout.  C&NW had several of these short passenger cars having them built by ACF in Jeffersonville, Indiana at there large plant there in 1910 through 1912.  I did a little research and found out that the Soo Line owned some of these short ACF coaches purchased in the early 1900's.  After my research I found the numbers and the paint scheme for these cars.  I decided then that a Soo Line car was a great idea and here is the final product.  I stripped the car back to the bare metal and wood, replacing some of the broken parts with new.  There was no interior detail other than the seats, which also had to be stripped of old paint and then repainted.  I added the lavatory and the furnace unit along with a tile floor and baggage racks in the roof portion.  Most of the detail parts came from Selley Custom Finishes, Plastruct, Walthers, Cal-Scale, and Keil Line.  The passengers are Woodland Scenic with some from Bachmann.  I found some brake system blueprints from ACF that I used for the brake system under this car along with photographs of these cars that have been preserved.  This gave me enough information to complete the underframe detail that is pictured here. It took the better part of 4 months to build this car and detail the underframe and the interior, but when done it turned out rather nice.  Hope you like it too

More tales from the Workbench

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Well I have been working almost non-stop on all of my freight cars and models for the last few months. In fact I have been working on them so much that I am actually starting to get a tan from the Fluorescent Lights over my workbench. Well here are some of the more recent models I have built under those lights to the sound of Buffalo Springfield and Kansas.

This Monon boxcar is another one of my favorite projects. I found this boxcar during a local train show and again it was another badly abused Athearn boxcar that underwent the "Thayer" treatment! Again I stripped it down to the bare metal and cleaned up the car.  I then added the missing detail parts that were needed to make the car a model of one of the early Monon rebuilds from 1960.  I found a nice photograph on George Elwood's Fallen Flags website showing an Erie AS-616 switching and behind the locomotive was this same boxcar.  The car has Plastruct pieces, Selley Custom Finishes, Cal-Scale parts, and is painted with Scalecoat paint.  Finally I decaled it with Microscale Decals.  When I was a teenager, my family moved from Wisconsin to Kentucky and for a time we lived in Southern Indiana along the Monon mainline in Campbellsburg, Indiana.  Since I model the years 1959-1960, I felt this would be a great car for my layout.

This is a Fort Dodge, Des Moines, and Southern rebuild boxcar that I made a few years ago.  It is a combination of train parts I had in my shop, so I decided to build the car using photographs of similar cars.  I used various parts from Plastruct, Cal-Scale, Keil-Line, Athearn, All-Nation, and Walthers trucks and ends.  The decals are Champion Decals and the paint is Floquil Oxide Red.  This car will be operated on my Hi-Rail layout.

Well that's about it, most of these cars take a few weeks to make so I will post more as more and more cars are built. Well I better back to building, along deciding what car I should build next I need to decide what I should listen to on my record player. Any suggestions?

Another build and another post

After spending a few days combing through some pictures of older cars that I had built I found a few more that I wanted to share. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section.

This is a Fort Worth and Denver boxcar I build from another derelict freight car found at a local GDP train show for a couple of dollars.  This one went through the "Thayer" process of being stripped and reassembled with Cal-Scale, Selley Custom Finishes, Plastruct, and Keil-Line detail parts.  I also added grain boards to the doorways to show it is grain hauling service in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  Boxcars were used throughout the great Plains and Midwest for transporting grain shipments in this period prior to the introduction of the larger covered hoppers like the Southern's Big John hoppers.  This car will be operated on my 3-rail Proto Hi-rail layout.  I used photographs from George Elwood's RR Fallen Flags.org website to model this car.  I recommend George's website for modelers who are  doing prototype modeling.

This is an Illinois Central 2-bay covered hopper painted in a early boxcar red scheme.  Originally these early cars were used for sand and bentonite loads.  After a few years they were painted in the light gray scheme to better hide the spillage found in cement, gravel, and bentonite loadings.  This is a early Weaver Quality model undecorated kit.  There are some added details and this car will operate on my 2-rail layout.  It rides on Athearn roller bearing trucks.  This is another train show acquisition that was obtained for a couple of bucks. 

Making up for lost time

Hello Everyone

Well as I promised there has been a lot of model building and I need to get them on the blog so you all can see what I have been building.

This Chicago Great Western gondola is an old brass car I found in a box of broken trains I used for parts.  I have had it for several years and one day I took it out of my projects cabinet and decided to create a car to carry a load of structural steel.  There are Kadee couplers and Athearn diecast sprung trucks under the car along with Plastruct, Selley Custsom Finishes, and Cal-scale detail parts.  It is painted gloss black with Microscale and Champion Decals finished with Testors Dullcote.  The Chicago Great Western is a railroad often overlooked by modelers and I am guilty of the same.  With so many other roads in the Midwest some of us forget there were unsung heroes who moved the freight right under our noses and we did not recognize their existence.  This is the first of two CGW cars I had planned to build. 

This Chicago and North Western boxcar came to be after I watched a CVision video showing a C&NW train passing through Peshtigo, Wisconsin.  I noticed a boxcar with these same markings in the train and I decided to search through my decals to see if I had the correct ones to make a similar car.  Well I did and here is the car.  The car is another badly worn out Athearn boxcar found at a local train show for a couple of dollars.  I stripped it down to the bare metal and completely rebuilt the car using Plastruct, Selley Custom Finishes, Cal-Scale, and Walthers detail parts.  C&NW had several of these 40-foot PS-1 boxcars on their lines throughout the Midwest and Plains states serving grain elevators and wood products customers.  Many began to be rebuilt and upgraded in the late 1950's after the Clinton, Iowa car shops were opened. This car will operate on my 3-rail layout and is equipped with Lionel die-cast sprung trucks.

Thank you for visiting the blog, and more will be coming soon so stay tuned.

Time to play catch up

Wow, February was the last time I posted.

HOLY COW!!!!!

I am so sorry that this has taken forever, some amazing things happened. I have been churning out a large collection of freight cars and other projects. I also had an amazing chance to go to the St. Louis Railroad Prototype Modelers show. I have had a very busy few months so let me start to make things better by showing you some of the cars that I have built and were able to show at the St. Louis RPM.
This C&NW 50 foot single door boxcar was scratch built from some metal sides I had found in a box of parts and cars bought several years ago.  The remainder of the car was salvaged from various boxcar components that I had accumulated over the years.  It rides on Pecos Valley Brass 2-rail trucks and contains Walthers, Selley custom Finishes, Cal-Scale, Plastruct, and  All-Nation parts.  The car is lettered in the as delivered paint scheme for these cars that were assigned to freight service.  Several of these cars were also assigned to express service when delivered in the early 1940's.

This Milwaukee Road diesel fuel tank car is scratch built from parts of a Walthers tank portion and a Thomas brass tank car frame.  It includes parts from Cal-Scale, Selley Custom Finishes, and Plastruct.   It rides on Auel Bettendorf sprung trucks and will be used on my Proto Hi-Rail layout.  The Milwaukee Road used several of these diesel fuel tank cars in outlying terminals to save costs on building large, expensive fuel tanks in smaller terminals were only 2-4 engines were being fueled during a 1 week period. 

There you go everyone, and trust me all my recent builds will make it to the blog as soon as I am able to post.

OSL Boxcar

Another edition of Scratch built Sunday's

I picked one of my Union Pacific boxcar projects to enter this next time.  Here is the story:

This boxcar was another badly neglected Athearn boxcar I found at the local train show.  It was missing most of its detail parts and had no trucks or couplers on it.  After stripping the sides of their old markings and paint, I sanded them down to remove the rust and then painted them with rustproofing primer.  I will often do this with badly rusted car sides I find.  Several years ago when Richard Meyer passed away his widow Connie began to sell off the remainder of the Champion Decals they still had on hand.  I picked up several Union Pacific decals from the 1950's.  After doing some research online I found some Oregon Short Line boxcars and thought these would be a neat model to create with this car.  So here is the completed project.  The trucks are USH diecast trucks with MDC couplers.  There is Plastruct details, Selley custom finishes, and Cal-Scale parts to complete the detailing under the frame.  I use brass wire to complete the piping and brake details along with small sections of chain and other brass pieces for the underframe detail. 

Milwaukee Road Caboose

Here is another edition of Scratchbuilt Sunday's

This caboose is a model of an old Chicago, Terre Haute, and Southeastern caboose the Milwaukee road had relettered for service on its rail lines.  THe caboose is made with scribed sides and has Plastruct parts, along with brass details parts, and wooden details.  This car is equipped with Monarch couplers and will operate on my 2rail layout.