GT Wheel Car part 2

This post details the construction of the wheel rack and finally details of the GT wheel car I have been working on.

To construct the wheel rack I started with strip styrene, which I cut to length, stacked and clamped together. I then used a ball end mill in the milling machine to create the grooves for the wheels to rest in.

The next step was to replicate the sheet metal lining the wheel grooves.  This was done with 0.005" styrene.  I came up with a method to form it into the semi circle grooves.  The pictures pretty much explain the method.

First glue strip into circular groove(I used an Xacto knife handle to push them down in the groove.)

I then clamped the remaining strip portions with a couple pcs of wood.

Four of these wheel groove parts were assembled into the rack with various sizes of sheet, strip and angle styrene. Resulting in what can be seen in this photo.  Rivets harvested from an Athearn boxcar and NBW's were used to detail the rack.  The NBW's are not yet installed in this photo.

The car was painted with True Color Freight Car Red.  I pieced together decals from sets I had on hand.  Unfortunately none of the  'CAPY', 'LD LMT' or 'LT WT' decals I had would fit. I will look for a N-scale set to see if I can make that work.   The car number is made up and some of the decals don't perfectly match the CV prototype car, but the number chosen is consistent with other GT service cars of the time.

Weathering was my normal routine of Ak Enamels and Pan Pastels.  

The deck wood was simulated by first spraying it with Tamiya Sky Grey.  I then mixed up four different washes using Valeo Acrylics. A couple of greys and a couple of browns/sand colours.  The wash is very thin.  I would guess 80% water and 20% paint.  Individual boards are then painted with the washes using a micro brush.  After letting it dry for an hour or so, I use Hunter Line Cordovan Brown stain and give the entire deck a light wash.  I applied two light washes in this case. I think it simulates old grey wood. This is by far my best effort yet at simulating old grey wood and it is mostly covered up - figures it would work out that way.....

The wheel sets are from Tichy.  I wanted them to look like wheels that just came out of service and are on there way from a remote RIP track, back to the wheel lathe in one of the online shops.  After assembling the wheel sets I dipped them in Pledge and let them tack up.  When ready I dusted on powders to simulate rust.  The treads were then painted silver. (If Idid it again I would use a silver Sharpy marker instead.)  The finally step was a AK enamel wash (Dark Wash in this case.)

This was a fun project and will ad an interesting freight car to break up the string of endless boxcars in a consist.

  

CV / GT Wheel Flat Part 1

   I am always on the look out for photos, of interesting company service freight cars.  When I came across this photo, at Bob's Photos I new I had to build one for my layout. The picture was taken in 1955 at New London Connecticut.

New London Connecticut - Bob Photos

   The GT and CV had very similar freight cars in company service.  Most likely similar, if not exact copies were rebuilt from older cars at the same time, for both roads. I don't have a photo of a GT wheel car, but this CV photo was enough proof for me to consider building a GT version.  The length of the car is stencilled as 36' 10". I am not sure if this is the overall length, or inside measurement between the two bulk heads.  The CV and GT both had 40' flat cars of this design. Never the less, I think a kit bash of a 40' Tichy flat car can make for a reasonable facsimile.

    The changes I made to the kit are as follows.

- remove all cast ribs on each stake pocket(6 per).  I cut and sanded these ribs away.  The rivets were removed in the process, so I also installed 4 rivets per pocket. I also filled the small holes in the stake pockets.
- replace kit sill steps with ones from Yarmouth Model Works.
- remove various rivets from the side sill.
- add a small piece of styrene on each side sill corner, to represent how the end plate wraps over onto the side sill.  Add three rivets per corner.
- make a brake staff base, from a bent up A-Line sill step.
- add air hoses and small 'U' shaped attachment strap.
- detail the brake rigging with wire and chains.
- trucks are Kadee HGC Arch Bar. The extra mass of the HGC trucks really helps to get this very light car up to spec. some extra lead will also be added between the fish belly center sills.
- coupler cut bars attached with Yarmouth eye bolts.

   I've been waffling back and forth, on priming of freight cars before top coat.  I've decided to prime all my cars in the future.  Before priming, I also used a mini grit blaster I borrowed to blast the entire car, except for the deck.  I think, I'll get one of these as I really like how it prepares the surface. Here is a photo with it in primer.  I used a new to me product from Tamiya, their surface primer in a bottle, thinned with lacquer thinner.  I actually failed to read the bottle and thinned it with Tamiya acrylic thinner, right in my airbrush paint cup.  Opps.....well that made a gooey mess that took about an hour to thoroughly clean up. 

   In my next post I will show the construction of the wheel rack.  No commercial decal set for CV/GT MoW or flat cars exists.  I will be piecing the decals together from letter sets again unfortunately.

GTW Caboose Part 2

  I finally finished painting and weathering GTW 77964.  The first of at least 6 or more Cabooses I will need, for operations on the new layout.

  I used True Colour Paint. CN Morency Orange for the body and CN Freight Car Brown for the underframe, roof and end platforms.

 Weathering was done with AK washes and Pan Pastels.  Then everything was sealed with Testors Dull Coat.

 The decals are Microscale from the GTW Caboose Set.

The windows are microscope cover slides, cut with a diamond scribe and glued in place with Kristal Klear.

I added a Woodland Scenics figure who is waving to some one......

Center Cupola Cabooses

The Grand Trunk (NEL) rostered three centre cupola cabooses, all wood sheathed.

Numbers:

77964
77965
77971

Jim Parker Photo, Portland Maine1968

They were leased from the Grand Trunk Western(GTW) in 1934.  Built by GTW's Port Huron shops in 1927, as part of the 77958-77977 series.

In 1953 they were officially transferred to the Grand Trunk (NEL).  They all wore GTW white lettering on Morency Orange bodies until the late fifties, when they received Grand Trunk within a horizontal green leaf.  In the sixties they were repainted into the GT version of the CN noodle scheme.

I decided to model 77964 for my Caboose fleet.  This will be primarily used on the South Paris Switcher.  Being a centre cupola design, it lent itself for better branch line use, as it would not need to be turned.

A Walthers Grand Trunk Western wood sheathed, offset cupola caboose was used as the starting point for a kit bash.

First, I corrected the well known issue of the trucks hitting the end steps while swivelling even the slightest amount.  This was accomplished by cutting the bolsters from the under frame slightly inward of the bolster.  Then turning them 180 degrees before reattaching them.

I cut the roof in three parts and moved the cupola opening to the centre.  The pieces were glued back together in a jig to keep the new roof square.  The cupola had the windows muttons removed all around. New muttons were constructed from strip styrene for the front and rear.  The cupola side window muttons were created using Tichy muttons from one of their work car window sets.

I removed the sides using my milling machine and made new ones from V-groove styrene sheet.

Tichy work car windows were spot on replacements for the side and end windows.  Openings were cut in the ends and the new sides to accommodate them, by first drilling holes and using my nibbler tool to finish up.

The sides were attached and the roof fitted.  The roof was sheathed in 0.005" styrene to cover up the grooves of the kit roof.  The prototype was covered in some sort of roofing material.

The end ladders also looked bulky so I fashioned replacements from strip styrene and phosphor bronze wire. The wire grabs from the Walthers kit were reused and mounting holes drilled where needed.  A Stove stack from Custom Finishing was fitted.

RPO Part 5

Well here it is CN RPO #7810.

I used ScaleCoat CN Olive Green Paint for the body. Tamiya Flat Black for the roof and under frame bits.  The decals are from Microscale, the CNSIG set in particular.

The rivets are a combination of MicroMark and Archer.  There's at least 2500 of them on it!

It sounds like a lot, but it was only three evenings work to put them all on. One evening for the ends and then one for each of the sides, spending about two hours or so per.

The Mail room windows are Tichy Work Car frames, with the sill removed.  Using 0.010" x 0.030" styrene, a frame was added to the top of the outer portion to make these into single hung windows.  The Tichy muttons were not used. Clear styrene representing glass, was slid between the new upper framing and the rabbet in the Tichy window frame.  It would normally receive the muttons.

The Bars are brass wire held in some styrene blocks that I milled grooves into. The grooves space them correctly. The assemblies are then simply glued to the inside of the car.  The mail room windows, got a coat Testors Dullcoat to frost them.

The roof is held on with magnets, a method I will be using again.

I am very happy with how this car came out. It's the first passenger car I have modelled and I can't wait to get started on some more.  It really pushed my modelling skills up a notch. Here is my lessons learned.

Being a more complex build, it forced me to slow down and put more into the planning before each step was taken. 

At a minimum I have new found skills in working with styrene and decal rivets.  I also have a better understanding of passenger car details, and figured out a method to reproduce roof panel lines.  

All of these new skills will make tackling other projects easier while resetting the bar for what I can achieve.  

I even spent some time figuring out the white balance settings on my camera, so I can take better pictures.  Hopefully this has removed a road block, in me submitting a magazine article in the future.

RPO Part 4

Trucks

The Branchline under frame is designed to work with the kit supplied 3 axle trucks.  ACF built these RPO cars with short wheel base, 2 axle trucks.  The Walters 8'6" passenger car truck was selected as the closest to the prototype.  In order to mount these trucks, the under frame was modified in the following manner.

1. Mill off the bolster even with the surounding material.

2. Install a block of styrene for the truck to rest on, that provides for the correct coupler height.

3. Drill the truck mounting screw on center and the correct distance from the car end.  To ensure the screw is centered, I coloured the block with some pencil graphite and then used my dividers to scribe two arcs using the moulded holes near the end of the car, on either side of the coupler.

4. The smaller piece of styrene helps to keep the Branchline swinging coupler box wiskers,  flat against the under frame, improving the coupler mounting box angle.

5. The openings were filled with sheet styrene from the inside.

The trucks were modified by adding a small washer to fill in the large hole to size it for a 2-56 screw.  These were glued using ACC.

 
The underframe was detailed the best I could figure from my reference photos and a photo supplied by one of the blogs readers, of his Bethlehem Car Works kit of this car.

 
The Sill steps were formed from Details Associates flat stock in a simple wood jig and soldered together.

 
The roof was sanded of all detail including the panel lines, as they were in the wrong location for this car.  The panel lines were recreated, by first priming the roof, then masking off the half of the panels, followed by adding 4 more coats of primer.  The masking tape was removed shortly after the last coat, while the paint was still soft, so that it would not chip.

The roof was detailed with Custom Finishing Vents, brass bar stock for the drip rails above the doors and a brass wire with mounts for the Gas Lighting Pipe.

In the next installment I will show the final car so Stay tuned.....

RPO Part 3

These CN RPO's feature an Arch Style roof with rounded ends.  An Athearn 70' Round Roof Coach was sacrificed to provide the roof.

First the roof was separated just below the upper rivet strip using a large razor Saw.

Next I scraped and sanded the roof even with the rivet strip.

It was determined that this point the roof was too wide to mate with the RPO body.  I calculated the point at which the roof narrows along the arch profile where it would be the correct width.  I used my height gage and scribed a line around the roof at this point.

Then I used a small modelling plane and my plexiglass mounted sandpaper to remove this material.

I now had an Arch roof of the correct profile and width to match the car.

The forth step was to shorten the roof to the correct length.  A razor saw and miter box were used to cut out a section from the middle of the roof.  I then used my milling machine to end mill the roof sections to the correct length to match the RPO body.   These were glued together using Testor's model cement, as it has a slow cure time compared to MEK.  I used my machined gluing jig to keep things lined up.

The final step was to reinforce the joint from the inside with some sheet styrene.

Next steps will be to detail the roof correct for the 7810-7812 series RPOs.

RPO Part 2

Over the weekend I made substantial progress on the RPO.

I scratch built new sides from Evergreen styrene sheet and strip.  Commercial sized strip was used to keep things simple.

In the first photo you will see some finger clamps I constructed to assist in the process of making the sides. I saw these over on Joe Smith's Blog and thought they were just great.  Mine are made of mild steel with a piece of Tig welding wire pressed into a drilled hole.  They are basically a mini finger to hold things while your gluing etc.  What great idea and now that I have them, I can't live without them!!  Construction is done on plate glass set against a metal scale.

The first layer is made of a piece of 0.010" thick material with 0.060" quarter round on either end. The second layer is all made from 0.010" strip of varying widths.  A piece of 0.100" and 0.080" strip is attached along the top and bottom of the sides respectively.  The top and bottom of the three doors are made with 0.080" strip centered on the pencil lines.  These are made longer than actually needed.

Here is a close up of the side as described above.  The strips are set 0.010" off of the top and bottom strips to leave room for upper and lower door sills.  The top of the side is against the scale in this photo.

Next I applied the mutton's to the upper half of the door to frame door window openings.  The mutton's are 0.040" styrene and the outer edge is 0.080" which will be covered with a 0.040" quarter round door jamb that will leave a 0.040" door boarder to match the mutton size.

Here is both sides with the doors and windows all framed up.

Next the remaining areas were filled with 0.010" sheet to complete this layer.

The third layer starts by adding 0.040" sheet on top of the second layer using individual pieces followed up with 0.010" x 0.040" strip set vertically at the top and bottom of the door openings.
Unfortunately I didn't take a close up photo. Finally I added the 0.040" quarter round on either side of the door to form the door jamb.

Next up is to cut out the window and door window openings, followed by adding the belt rail and letter board using 0.010" strip.  I will fill any seams with putty and sand if needed before mounting on the car floor.

Railway Post Office Service on the Grand Trunk NEL

The Grand Trunk (NEL) rostered  three Railway Post office Cars #'s 7810-7812.  They were built by ACF in 1929, possibly for subsidiary GTW and transferred at a later date.

The Canadian National Historical Society magazine CN lines Volume 9 Issue 1 has a article pertaining to these cars and similar RPO's used on the Central Vermont and Grand Trunk Western.  Here is a picture found in Morning's Sun Colour Guide to Northern New England Cars.

I am going to kitbash one of these cars using a Branchline Coach as the base model.

I recently discovered Joe Smith's Blog "Signal Station 199" regarding his efforts in building a New Haven themed layout. He has a set of blog entries showing his techniques to kitbash a similar RPO for the New Haven.  Go take a look, but I warn you Joe's modelling and blog are top notch so your  going to be there for a while.  Here's the link...

https://signalstation199.blogspot.ca/search/label/RPO

Now that your back, here's where I'm at with this project. Follow along as I put what I learned from Joe to good use.

First off I enlarged a drawing provided in the CN lines issue and copied the dimensions over from the soft copy, that were blurry when enlarged.

Next I cut the floor and spliced it back together to give an length over the couplers of 66' - 61/2".

The floor is braced with a sheet of styrene and some square stock.

The second photo shows the floor sections I removed.  I also removed the side vestibule doors and walls on either side of the end doors.

Grand Trunk 25 Ton American Ohio Model E Crane

The Grand Trunk(NEL) had at least one 25 ton locomotive crane that I know of.  It spent most of its time in Island Pond moving coal around.  For my work Train I wanted to include a crane as part of the consist.  So I kit bashed this model using the one and only picture of the crane stationed in Island Pond as reference.  The picture can be found in the John Ames Grand Trunk Trackside book published by Morning Sun.  I believe the prototype to be an American Ohio model E.

The model uses a Walthers 25ton crane for the mechanism and deck.  The rest of the kit is in the trash  bin.  I scratch built the Cab from Sheet styrene.  The Smoke box was made from acrylic turned on my jewellers lathe.  The boom is a brass etching from Custom Finishing Models, and hook is a pewter casting from the same manufacturer.  I made all the pulleys from brass tube and washers.  All the brass parts are soldered.

The big challenge with this project was the windows.  On the prototype they are fine metal bars with glass inserted and have 9 or more panes.   I tried and failed a few times before I came up with a solution I liked.  

I designed the windows in Draftsight and then printed them on overhead transparencies using my laser printer.  This captured the fine look of the mutens on the prototype.

This was a fun project and much different than the endless string of Boxcars I have been working on. Now that the fun is over, its back to more Boxcars!!  

Weathered Boxcars

  Here are some pictures of my latest efforts.  I pulled out the weathering supplies and finished off a few projects that have been built, but not weathered.  Other than the Grant Trunk Tool car these cars are projects which I started in the spring but only recently finished.

  They are all weathered with MIG products washes and Pan Pastels, except the BAR car which just got an India ink Alcohol wash and some artists oils (I scratched the paint. So I  added a rust spot to cover it up.)

  In the pictures the cars all look glossier than they appear to the eye.  I need to work on my lighting a bit more to get the dusty look of the models to show up.

First up the Grand Trunk Tool Car. 

Next is a P&LE Steel Side Rebuilt Boxcar based on the Tichy kit, with many upgrades including but not limited to doors and decals from Speedwitch media.  I went heavy with the weathering on this car as it would be nearing the end of its life for my future Grand Trunk(NEL) layout time frame.

Third is a EJ&E car.  This is a Branchline Car kit bash.  It's based on an Article from the August 2013 issue of RMC.  Decals are from Tichy.

Finally a BAR PS-1 using the Intermountain kit and Highball Graphics Decals. 

Grand Trunk Tool Car part 2

I made good progress on the Grand Trunk Tool car this week.  Its now painted and the decals are done.  I used True Colour CN Freight Car Red.  The decals are pieced together from and old Steam Shack Kit for a Central Vermont Single Sheathed Boxcar, which also had GTW decals included - the rest are cobbled together from a Microscale lettering set.  In my previous post I forgot to mention I removed the sill from the window to the right of the door to better simulate the flush frame as on the prototype.  The car needs weathering and brake line hoses, but I will hold off on the weathering until I get the MoW train complete as I plan to weather them all at the same time.
 

The Picture was taken in my new Photo Box.  My son and I put this together last weekend.   Its based on an article found in the April 2017 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine.  Basically it's a cardboard box with cut outs and tissue paper applied. The light fixtures are clamp on units from the hardware section at Lowes.  For bulbs I used LED's.  I can't remember what Kelvin, but I purchased them to match a White Balance setting available in my Camera.  Total cost was around $50.  I took these blog pictures with my iphone.  I've taken a bunch with my camera but couldn't remember where the cord was last night to download them to my computer.  The photo box really helps in taking higher quality photos.  My son loves taking photos and he spent a hour or two doing just that on the weekend.  I'll share some of his work in a future post, when I track down that cord..........

Grand Trunk Tool Car

My current project is another piece of rolling stock for a typical Grand Trunk (NEL) work Train.  Inspiration came from a picture I purchased from Bob's Photos at the New England RPM in Enfield a couple of years ago.  It's from 1971 and is taken at St.Albans Vermont. 

My friend and fellow modeller Pierre Oliver suggested scratch building the sides and ends from styrene car siding, and using Accurail's fish belly under frame.  Tichy Train Group work train doors, windows, and  wood boxcar doors make up the basic assembly.

Just need a roof then.  I could not find a suitable roof in my stash or on the internet.  I could substitute a different roof, but roof's are so visible on the layout, so I wanted to get it right.

 I put the project back in my stash and then about a year later by surprise Pierre presented me with a resin casting of the correct Murphy flat panel roof.  He had just purchased the masters for the line of Canadian prototype resin detail parts formally marketed by Sylvan scale models and this roof is one of the offerings.  Pierre's Yarmouth Model Works doesn't yet have these parts ready for market but I'm sure it wont be to long.

After a evening and an afternoon of modelling here is where I'm at.

It has my usual level of detail, K-brake and all associated rigging/plumbing, wire grabs, nbw's, laser cut running board and some rivets for the bolster connections to the side frames. The vents are from Grant Line and City Classics.

I painted the window frames and surrounding areas, before adding the window glazing and gluing on the roof.  I will now just mask off the window frames and paint the rest of the car.  I don't like just masking the glazing as pushing to hard can send it into the car while masking.  I learned that lesson on a previous project......

I'm not sure what the car actually was used for though.  Is it a tool car or something else?  The three roof vent stacks sure are interesting.  The label on the door in the prototype photo says "Flamable"  -  "keep lights and flames away".  Hopefully one the blog's reader will know?