1932 ARA Boxcars

Over the past few months, neighbour and fellow modeller Doug Currie has joined me in the workshop on Monday nights, for what we call Modelling Monday.  The project we undertook is the construction of 1932 ARA Boxcars.  We both picked up an F&C kit while attending the New England RPM in Enfield, CT.  Doug built a CP car while I built a MEC Car.  We finished them up a couple of weeks ago.


The cars were constructed according to the kit instructions, but with a few detail part upgrades.  We used Tichy wire in lieu of the floral wire in the kit for the air lines and brake rodding.  Yarmouth brake levers along with Tichy turn buckles cut down to resemble clevises and Moloco rubber air hoses completes the under body replacements.  Up top we used the excellent Yarmouth laser cut wood running boards and Kadee bracket grabs on the sides and formed our own cut levers attached with Yarmouth eye bolts..

Doug used the supplied kit decals, while I used a Microscale set to model a rebuilt MEC car in the pine green scheme,  representing a car in my 1966 time frame.

Weathering was done with Pan Pastels and artists oils using prototype photos as a guide.  We are both very happy with the finished models.  I had a great shot of the roof of the MEC car, so I went all out trying to recreate the rusted look on the raised panels.  After the photos were taken we cut off the trip pins on the couplers and painted the couplers and air hoses a rust colour and black respectively.

Doug has been involved in the hobby for a long time now, but he admitted that this is the first model he has built in over 25 years.  I'm happy that I was able to get Doug out of the arm chair and back into doing some actual modelling.  We've already started our next project, so I guess I didn't drive him too crazy!!