I had mentioned before (about 6 years ago) my wife had gotten me a MTH DM & IR 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone for Fathers Day. Now you may be wondering what the heck this has to do with anything. Well I’ll tell you.

For the last six years I have been going through all the “stuff” in storage around the basement looking for a DM&IR caboose that I received as a child. That and a S & S Hobbies RR crossing stencil that a came across just before I needed it. But to no avail.

My next thought was to just buy one. Again to no avail. You would think someone would make one, but no. Won’t even mention the fact that no one is making DM & IR oar cars anymore. In my search I did come across a Monroe Models laser cut caboose kit, but I just wanted simple.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and order the Monroe Models kit.

It does not include couplers, trucks or decals.  The couplers and trucks weren’t a deal but the decals were.  I found a set from Microscale, their part # 87-854. The problem was they deal in minimum orders, so I ended up ordering decals for containers that I didn’t have (I have since found some undecorated kits).

The Monroe Models Kit # 2214 is a work of art. It is a model of the the DM & IR standard wood caboose produced from 1909 to 1921 and lasted into the early 60’s. You can build it in it’s original configuration or as a “Modernized” version with the rear generator with access door, exhaust stack and vent. In addition, steel side frames were added. I opted for the “Modernized” version as it seemed right behind a Yellowstone.

First, the engine without a caboose:

Finally, the kit build…

The kit comes flat packed in a plastic sleeve.

And in that sleeve is a lot. There is the caboose core with outer wall veneers. Clear plastic for windows, a cast metal sprue with vents, stacks and marker light. There is also wire for the grab irons and rails. In addition there is a jig that needs some assembly for bending all those grab irons and rail. It also has a spot to hold the ladder frames to add the rungs.

The laser cutting is excellent, as the pieces released from the scrap wood with minimal cutting. The instructions are very well written and logical with minimal exceptions (will touch on one later).

I started with the caboose core and frame. They went together quickly (again fit is great) and I probably should have slowed down and gotten more photos, but…

When you assemble the subframe you have to already know which version you’re building. The cross pieces on the frame are tapered to outside walls if building the standard version and not tapered to support the side frame on the modernized version.

A step out of order…

As I had said, the instruction are laid out logically. That said, I noticed that where the caboose truck mounts looked a little low for clearance. There are two thick spacers and four thin spacers that looked like they would attach at this point for wheel clearance. I glued on the thicker spacers and tried the trucks, I ended up adding the other four to get proper clearance and coupler height.

I found in the very last step of the instructions they are mentioned. It is said to add these if building the modernized version. This would be better mentioned when doing the frame, before paint. Additionally, for proper wheel clearance the cross brace (where the arrow sticker on the left side is) had to be tapered. It would have been better to use the the tapered pieced here initially.

Back to the build…

 

Next step was to start adding laser etched side wall veneers. I started with the ends. I added the veneers and then built up the end doors and added them also.

The doors are built up three layers plus the window sill. Next was the side veneers and the side windows. On the left side I used the side veneer with two windows and the space for the generator compartment. The side windows are comprised of a frame and sill.

Side note: the instructions flip back and forth with the caboose body mounted to the floor/frame assembly and separated. I had decided not to mount the body to the frame until after it was all painted. The instructions show mounting the clear acetate to the windows when you are initially building them. I left the body off so that I could add the glass after painting.

The roof was next. This is done as a sub roof and then a finishing skin that is added to the sub roof. I also built the cupola at the same time so that I could test fit it into the hole as I added the roof. When installing the sub roof, because of the curve, I glued into place and held it with rubber bands until the glue had set.

As mentioned in the photo captions, all grab iron and grab rail locations are laser etched. Took all the guess work out of where they go and it also eliminates Monroe from including templates for those locations.

Time to paint…

Then it was off to the spray booth for primer.

While waiting for the primer to dry I took the time to assemble the grab iron jig. The jig is a laser cut piece of acrylic. Some assembly is required. There are angled and curved pieces that are glued on to aid in bending the various grab irons and rails.

After the primer had dried it was time for the finish paint.

With the paint on I added the window glass and assembled the basic caboose. Copula to body and body to frame. Then I did a test fit of the various cast metal parts.

I then started making the various grab irons and rail parts. Side note, in places where I could use commercially available pieces, I did. As I added the parts I painted them as I went.

In the last photo you can see the ladder. This is also assembled in the acrylic jig. I had some concerns how well it would work, but as everything else, it is well thought out and works beautifully.

Time for decals…

Once everything was added and painted it was time for decals. My preferred method is to cut out all the decals for a side.

Then, it just applying the decals.

One other side note, there are decals for the red and white stripe on the curved grab rails. I opted to paint them and save myself the frustration of trying to apply these.

And then it was done. On the workbench, it seemed kind of small for  caboose. But behind the engine it truly is a rather diminutive caboose.

I loved the kit and the build. Now I just need to find a bunch of ore cars to fill in between the engine and caboose.

With the the caboose done it was on to the next build.

Till then, happy modeling …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I said I have been busy with the home improvement projects. The biggest being the wall shelf system for my wife. Below are pictures of what I started with and where I’m at.

Since the last photo was taken I have also added a set of drawers across the front for silverware and serving pieces. All that’s left is to add the doors. And enough with the home improvement update, not why you’re here. (Although maybe it is.)

What I have been able to do is get a bunch of new/old cars onto the layout.

First…

I finished the lone Gunderson well car that was lost than found.

Second…

I also finished up the set of Thrall well cars. The set is now all decaled.

The last photo shows the end unit with the generator and fuel tank mounted on it. I used a little creative license on it. The “DO NOT HUMP’ and the info decal should have been on the end sill. However it is covered by the walkway on the end, so I moved the decals up onto the base of the generator.

For some reason this set has been a PITA as everything has been a struggle, right up to and including getting them on the rails. Having painted and then finally getting them decaled, I went to place them on the tracks. However I experienced a fit issue on the shared trucks. Though I didn’t have a problem with the first set I finished, this sets female pieces had to be filed down to fit on the truck screw that holds them in place.

Of course then they had to be touched up before service. But they are now done.

And then…

I completed three TOFC flat cars from Front Range Products. These are also from the “inherited fleet”. The cars themselves are pretty basic and go together rather well. The problem is their weight. The cars themselves are very light. With adding the metal wheel sets I got their weight up to 1.2 oz. The weight needed to come from the trailer that rides on them. I added 1 oz. to each trailer, with them riding high I was reluctant to add more. This brought the flat car/trailer weight to 3.5oz. It’s a little light for a car this length but I’ll run them at the end and they should be fine. The problem is, that by adding weight up high I had to replace the push pin style truck mounting with a screw. Actually would have done it anyways, but oh so important on this setup.

And lastly…

Also part of the “inherited fleet” were a couple of Front Range Products Front Runner cars. Again, fun and interesting cars, but not without their problems. Mainly the close clearance  in the truck mounting. The single axle truck mounts into a “cutout” in the floor of the car. They are also a push pin mount (obviously Front Ranges go to), but the location of the pins was nothing but a blob on the sprue.

My solution was to drill and tap the center sill for a 2-56 screw. Nothing unusual there. But I had to modify the bogie as well. The bogie is a two piece assembly. With the two pieces stacking at the mounting location. I drilled the top piece so the it would clear the screw body, it’s pivot location. The lower piece was drilled out so that the screw head would sit down in it. This was necessary as the axle is right there also and would have rubbed on the screw head if not recessed.

Though these cars did have weight to add to the center sills, still came out the same as the TOFC cars. Again, added the weight to the trailers to bring them close to weight. Ended up around 3.5 oz.

But they’re pretty cool when done and are fun to have as they are different than what you usually see.

One other thing, on the car in the back I had to make a new diagonal strut as the kit one was missing. The original was square. I had no square tubing, so the replacement is several round tubing pieces that telescope. The ends are .080 x.100 cut to size and filed to shape.

Next up…

My goal is to return to the layout and start adding more scenery. Moving south from Addison towards Jackson. This means the Drive In theater is next. I have picked an animated sign from Miller Engineering for it. And that’s my next work bench project.

Till next time, stay safe and Happy Modeling…

 

 

 

This week I wasn’t able to complete any cars for the layout but I was able to complete some loads for the intermodal cars. I came across four American Limited Models Bulktainers that I had sitting around.

These were 20 ft. tanks used for shipping liquids on intermodal cars. A search on the web will show a variety of such tanks. These make a great addition to the container fleet.

The kits themselves are pretty simple, with a piece count that is relatively low. There is the tank, two ends, a walkway for the top of the car, and an accessory sprue that has a ladder, placards and valves. In addition there is a piece to help align the ends so that the finished tank sits flat. And a decal sheet.

The first step is the ends. They go on with very little clean up and attach easily. The next step is the decals as they need to go on before the upper walkway.

One other thing I did before starting the decals was to paint the raised edges on the ends of the tank. As you can see in the photo the end decals are white with a silver border. I didn’t want to try and get these to snug down properly with the raised edge.

So I carefully trimmed them down to just the white portion of the decal so they would properly sit within the raised portion.

As you will note in the first photo are the black bands for the tank. There is a placement gauge in the instructions for there location on the tank. This is the most time consuming part of the build. Keeping them straight and in alignment is a bit tedious and I know other modelers that have just left them off. With them in place you then add the “BulkTainer” decals over them. The other dimensional/capacity decals then go on.

After the decals are in place and dry (I used solveset to set them, then waited overnight) it’s just a matter of adding the end ladder, placards and valve to the ends.

Like I said they make a great addition and add variety to a container train. Though these are no longer available from American Limited, I have seen them readily available in the hobby stores and may pick up a couple more.

The prodigal well unit returns.

Additionally while searching for unbuilt/unfinished kits on the shelves I came across a Athearn BB diesel engine box in the middle of freight car boxes. Thinking it odd I popped it open and low and behold there it was. One of the reasons I probably missed it before was because as well as the car there were a couple of containers and a bunch of stick on weights. The heft of the box would lead one to believe that there was an engine in the box.

With it located I can now finish it off and complete the five unit set.

That’s it for this week, as promised up next is running the wiring for the lights in Addison. And all the drama that was involved.

Stay safe and we’ll see you next week…

This weeks freight car is another ACF 3 bay hopper. It is from Accurate Finishings Inc. Actually I thought the car itself was from again, Front Range Products, as it was the same as last weeks cars and it had their stampings on the car. I figured Accurate Finishings was like Bev Bel from the late 70’s, early 80’s. Bev Bel would buy undecorated Athearn cars and do limited runs with them.

Started doing a little research so as to give you a little background. Wow, what a rabbit hole that was. Tried googling Acccurate Finishings and all I got back were old kits for sale. Either online stores or Ebay. Tried it again with the mailing address and that where it got confusing and interesting.

With the mailing address I got two things. First was some patent application numbers/dates. The second thing that popped up was Accurail. Thought that it was kind of weird and then I noticed that the mailing addresses were the same. Further research turned up that after Front Range Products went under, Accurail bought a bunch of their molds.

Without contacting Accurail I not sure of the actual connection between Accurate Finishings and Accurail. But, I’m going to go with Accurate Finishings being a division of Accurail doing limited runs of cars and it didn’t work out.

The car itself is just like the cars I talked about last week except that the weight for the car was now a one piece stamped steel plate instead of two smaller ones. With the new one piece weight the car came in at exactly 4 1/2 oz as recommended by the NMRA RP-20.1 weight standard.

The only problem with the kit was the trucks were warped. Not sure if they originally came like this or they warped over time. Fortunately I had a pair of 100 ton trucks on hand to replace them with. Additionally, the supplied scale couplers had to go.

The models info.

And the finished car.

If interested, there are a lot of Accurate Finishing cars available. On Ebay there were quite a few different hoppers for smaller roads, private industries and grain Co-ops. Also there are some box cars for again, smaller roads and industries.

Thanks for following along. I’ll see you next week.

Happy Railroading…

This week we have not one but twelve cars. They are Front Range Products ACF 3 bay Grain Cars. Front Range Products were around in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Their demise is something of scandal, but their products had some of the nicest detail at the time.

A side note. Most of the Front Range cars that I have are “inherited”. I was working with a guy back in the early 90’s who was “in search of a hobby”. After talking to me and another coworker about model railroading he thought it might be for him. Doing some research he decided on the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range. He bought a bunch of engines and cars. I helped him finish off some space in his basement for a small layout and work bench.

One day he walks up to me and tells me he’s getting out of the hobby. It’s just not for him. He was able to return some of the stuff to the LHS. Sold some of it off. And he gave me a bunch for helping him out. Thus, “inherited”.

Anyways, I pulled one of the boxes out from the “to be built” shelf. It was a Southern grain car. No Instructions in the box. Although the only thing I really needed to know was the correct placement of the triple valve and the brake actuator. Remembering that I had seen some more FRP cars down in the “completed” section (I keep the cars grouped pretty much by manufacturer) I went and looked. Turns out there were a dozen cars there. Going through the boxes I found that they were in various stages of disarray. A couple were not assembled, some were OK and others had various things broken off.

And so the construction and repair began. FRP used pins to hold the trucks on. My friend used super glue to hold the friction pins in place. Most were either too tight or not tight enough. He also used super glue to secure the draft gear boxes. Some of the couplers were glued in place.  I assembled the cars that weren’t put together, the one Southern car, a Chicago & Northwestern car and a CanCarb car. On these I tapped out the truck mounting hole and used 2-56 screws to hold them in place. The draft gear boxes I went with the friction fit covers and if they were a bit loose I used canopy glue on them. Canopy glue is great, it’s tacky and sets fast, dries clear and you can remove the part without damage if you need to.

The rest were handled on a case by case basis. All had the truck pins removed (ie. broken off) and then I drilled and tapped the hole and mounted the trucks with screws. The couplers that were free moving I left alone at this time. The ones that were frozen (glued) in place or didn’t move freely were handled like the trucks. I broke the cover off and then drilled and tapped for a screw.

As it turned out, the Southern car was one of a six car set. Each had it’s own separate reporting number. There was one car I tossed. The weights inside had come loose and he had glued the car together. So no fixing it. It was also missing a bunch of parts. So rather than having it sit around, away it went.

And I present to you the cars…

And that’s not all…

Rather than a separate post, I’ll just include them here. I came across another bunch of center beams. It’s a three car set from Walthers. Same as the others, I added a load and secured it using thread to simulate cabling holding the load in place. Because the cars were a lighter paint color, I painted the spool of the ratchet black so that it looks like more cabling is wrapped around it. The single thread stood out as just that, a single thread stuck to the side of the spool. It looks pretty good painted.

Have a great weekend, I’ll see you next week. Till then…

This weeks freight car Friday is a bit late, sorry, small family emergency.

This week I have a Con-Cor PS-2 covered hopper from 1989. Grabbed it off of the shelf thinking it would be one of those quick builds. Turns out back in the 1980’s the cars had pin mounted trucks with the coupler as part of the truck. It’s my understanding that these cars were originally from AHM and that Con-Cor had bought the molds.

Didn’t want truck mounted couplers and the trucks themselves were horribly out of scale.

The first step was to drill out the pin hole and put in a new styrene post. Once the glue had hardened I made a spacer out of .060 sheet styrene. This gave me the correct height for the thickness of the new trucks to be mounted.

It was then just a matter of cutting off the excess post.

I then drilled out the post and tapped it for the 2-56 screw. In the photo you can see the shim for the coupler mount. The styrene for the shim was included in the kit. Con-Cor had not yet started to change over the kits to body mounted couplers. They did offer very basic instructions for mounting Kadee #5 couplers and boxes. In the instructions they wanted you to cut off the coupler mounting portion of the truck. That would have made an ugly truck just that much more ugly. That’s why I replaced them.

Adding the coupler mounting draft gear (the box the coupler goes into) was very easy. The shim was the proper height so it was just a matter of drilling a hole and then tapping it for the mounting screw. Once mounted I gave it a quick coat of Green Zinc Chromate paint as it was the closest to BN green that I had.

After that it was ading the trucks along with 1 1/4 ounces of weight to get it to NMRA standards.

Con-Cor is still selling HO scale cars, however the PS-2 hopper are not currently something they offer. And the couplers are now body mounted. It really is a rather nice basic car and will be a nice addition to the road.

Thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you next week. Stay safe and Happy Railroading…

 

In a couple week, something of a marathon session I have gotten all painted intemodal cars decaled. The process got off to a slow start as I tried to figure out how to keep track and apply so many different, small decals to each car. With the first unit it was locating and identifying each small decal on the sheet. Then cutting out and applying the decal. Time consuming and tedious. Plus I had to use a magnifying lens to read most of the decals.

After doing only one side of one car I figured there had to be a better way. My solution was to grid off a sheet of paper. Then each square was labeled with each decals text, large enough to read.

Once this was done I then selected the needed decals for the car side I was working on and laid them out as they would go on the car. This sped up the process greatly. I would do a side, hit them with Solvaset and while they dried lay out the decals for the other side. With this method I was able to get a couple cars done in an evening.

Side note, the decals are from Proto Power West / A-line and I bought them at the same time as the cars. For their age I had very few problems. I had considered buying new except that PPW/Aline was only selling off what they had left and I figured what they had left might be as old as what I was using.

After each car was decaled it then moved to the paint booth for a coat of Dullcoat.

The first problem…

One thing that did slow me down for a night was that I found one of the SeaLand mid unit cars was missing the brake piping along the side. I had to add the brake piping, piping protectors and then paint that side of the car. After letting it dry for a day it was then ready for decals.

After the cars were all Dullcoated it was time to add the wheel sets. The wheel sets on the ends of the 5 unit set are 33″. The wheel sets on the shared bolsters are 36″. I had use a  spacer washer on the 33″ trucks to get the cars to set level.

And then the second problem…

As part of the construction process I ran a drill through all the holes in the metal parts that act as bolsters or car connectors. I then tapped any hole that would be receiving a screw. And that was working perfectly till I was screwing on the last (why is it always the last) truck. The screw got stuck. I could not screw it in and when I tried to back it out it broke off. I removed the bolster from the car with the thought that I would try and grab the screw with a pliers and turn it out. There wasn’t enough to grab onto. My thought then was to drill it out. The problem there is that the screw is harder metal then the bolster.

The bolster was toast. So I built a new one out of styrene. And I believe that it turned out rather well. For your consideration.

Anyways, the Sealand cars:

And the BN Gunderson set:

And finally the Thrall well cars:

I still have the set to be painted, but I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment getting these done after all these years.

Maybe next time I’ll have the last set done. Till then, take care…

 

About a week ago, I was contacted by a gentleman who was building a Quality Craft Model of the GATX #96500 whale belly tank car. He was having trouble deciphering the drawings/instructions for mounting the bolsters to the tank. He asked for some pictures of the bolsters. I have tried emailing these to him but have had the emails returned.

So, Danny, if you stop by again here are the photos that you requested. I will try again to email them to you also.

And to everyone else. If you have questions, need clarification, additional photos or my opinion on something, I”l be happy to help you out.

Till later…