New Freight Car Projects

Greetings All,

Some new freight car projects to report today. All are factory painted cars and all but one are shake the box kits. Let's take a look at the new cars and some of the techniques I use to ensure the cars look good and run reliably.

Penn Central 50' boxcar #149613 arrived in January 2020. The car floor has been rattle can painted brown to simulate a wood floor. This is an Athearn BB model that was custom painted by C&M Shops.

The car was painted at the Hollidaysburg Shops in March 1976 as indicated by the P62 3-76 under the reporting marks. 

The 149613 is one of 600 ex NYC 965B boxcars on the PC roster  numbered 149000-149630. 

Kadee #27 under set shank couplers were used to meet the Kadee height gauge and not raise the car height.  

The steel weight, under frame, trucks and coupler pockets were painted rattle can flat black and the car received Intermountain metal wheels.

NIRX 50' RBL #42886 leased by Dresser Magcobar to haul their Superior Foundry Products is an Athearn BB model.

I picked this car up at my L.H.S. after seeing a photo of a similar car in the 1st Quarter 2020 TRP Magazine. The photo caption reported that the full name of the company was "Magnet Cove Barium Corporation". They produced high quality drilling fluids utilizing bentonite clay from Wyoming and East Texas. Magcobar was acquired by Dresser and has since been picked up by Haliburton. Why the shipper went thru the expense of using an RBL to transport clay is explained that bentonite is highly  absorbent and benefits from the stable environments of the RBL.

This car received Kadee #27 medium underset shank couplers and Proto 2000 metal wheels.

The weight, underframe, coupler covers and trucks were painted with rattle can flat black. One Kadee gray fiber washer was needed to meet the height gauge.

B&LE 40' Boxcar #81203 is an Athearn BB product. The Bessemer & Lake Erie was a Class II railroad running from the Lake Erie port at Conneaut, Ohio to the Pittsburgh area delivering iron ore and other products to US Steel mills.

The Bessemer & Lake Erie interchanged with the New York Central and later Penn Central at Erie PA and Osgood PA. Owned over the years by US Steel and now the Canadian National RR the B&LE has been in continuous operation since 1900.  

This car also received the Kadee #27 medium underset shank couplers and Proto 2000 metal wheels. 

Following my common practice the underframe, coupler covers, weight and trucks were painted flat black.

Watching videos of the 60s and 70s open door empties were common. To take advantage of that I rattle can paint the floors with a brown color called leather boots.

Lehigh Valley 40' Boxcar #62082 is an Accurail boxcar painted and sold by Branchline Trains. The car was shopped at Sayre in July 1963 as noted by the S 7-63 under the XMF classification. Of note is the return empty to LV agent L.V.R.R. at Sayre PA under the flag and the "Caution rock salt loading. Open door carefully" lettering near the door.

According to the LV Modeler site this car had roof hatches and floor chutes added sometime in the 1960s for rock salt service.  (Sayre 7-1963?) Neither is present on this model. 

The hatches are now! I found some spare Athearn covered hopper hatches in my parts box. I painted them rattle can white and added them as seen below. Here is a link to a photo of a similar model with roof hatches attached.

I discarded the truck pins and push pins from the coupler boxes and used 2-56 screws for both. New Accurail kits now use 2-56 screws as well. The car received Kadee #5 couplers and Intermountain metal wheels.Trucks, underframe and coupler boxes are painted rattle can flat black.

The distinctive roof hatches are easily spotted on this car and I'm glad I took the time to add them.

LV 62082 rolls thru Empire City with another load of Rock Salt.

A pair of freight cars came my way recently from 1:1 scale Sir Neal inside of a larger box as part of a joint APRR-EBRR paint project. The first cars is this Athearn BB 50' gondola lettered for the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. 

C&EI 82005 is an AAR code GBR which is a basic gondola with a cover. I could not find any prototype C&EI equipment in this number range and it appears they did not have many gondolas. 

The car received Kadee #158 couplers and Proto metal wheelsets courtesy of Sir Neal. Each truck bolster needed one Kadee red fiber washer to meet the  Kadee height gauge.

A Bachmann Tri Level Auto Rack is the second car from Sir Neal.

The ramps and upper rails were painted red to match the rest of the model. The car received body mounted long center shank              Kadee#26  couplers, Intermountain metal wheels and was ready for service. 1/87th scale Sir Neal not included!

A close up of the coupler and wheel installation. The push pins holding the trucks in place have been replaced with 2-56 screws for better tracking control.

Body mounting the long shank couplers allows the 89'ers to be shoved into the Ford Plant and into Bedford Park Yard.

A couple of quick notes on these cars:

Some older Athearn kits ride notoriously low. The Kadee medium underset shank couplers work much better than the standard shank coupler with a lot of washers on the bolsters to raise the car height.

In many cases Proto and Kadee metal wheelsets work better in the Athearn BB cars than the Intermountain metal wheel sets.

Intermountain metal wheelsets work great in Accurail, Roundhouse and Bachmann cars. I find they can be a bit sloppy in the Athearn BB trucks but they do not fall out.

If spraying the truck frames and coupler boxes flat black or any other color use an old set of wheels and a pair of old couplers to keep the paint out of the axle holes and coupler pockets.

Nothing says an empty boxcar like an open door. If you have cars with opening doors take advantage of the open door era!

I strongly recommend having all of your rolling stock and motive power meet the Kadee Height Gauge standards as best as possible. 

That's it from the workshop pulpit. Remember they are your trains and the more reliably they run the more you will enjoy running them.

Thanks go to 1:1 Sir Neal for his generosity. Much appreciated my friend. The joint paint project is now done and will be a blog post in the near future.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See ya soon!!!