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. 

Chicago & Northwestern MOW Gondola

This is a model of an early C&NW convertible gondola.  Several of these cars survived into the late 1950's in MOW service.  My model is scratchbuilt from various pieces of basswood, plastruct parts, with Auel Andrews trucks.  The car was built to operate on my Proto Hi-Rail layout in a train of various MOW cars.  Decals are Champion and there is a load of treated wooden railroad ties.