Turning a 15 minute shake the box kit build into a two day affair

 Greetings All,

How To Turn Building A 15 Minute Shake the Box Kit

into a Two Day Affair

or

Another Installment of the 

Hello, My Name Is John and I am a Trainaholic Series

 

I came across this old school Roundhouse kit in a saved searches email from ebay several weeks ago that was for a specific item. This car was one of those "other things you might like" additions. I made the mistake of clicking on it. The kit was still new in the box, the price was right and I thought it would make a nice addition to my rolling stock fleet. 

To no one's surprise here it is. I think my trainaholic sponsor Sir Neal will understand.

Here is the kit as it came out of the box. As we can see the manufacturer skimped a bit on the painting. Under body details, brake wheel and coupler covers will be need painting The underside of the roof walk will also need painting.

The bottom of the car is just barely painted and the interior not at all. The overall paint and lettering on the car however is nicely done and this is an inexpensive kit. These kits feature a metal frame and coupler pockets which I like.

Prior to starting the build I checked online sources for possible photos of the D&H boxcar. I came across this photo of D&H #22019 from Jim Parker taken in 1974 at Montreal, QC.

In the photo the D&H 22019 appears to have had its roof walks removed and had the addition of an ACI label. I remember a conversation from years ago with PC Ralph where I learned about the removal of boxcar roof walks. Ralph wrote an excellent blogpost on this topic in 2016. See link below. 

Here is PC boxcar #104478 with its roof walk removed that was a gift from the aforementioned PC Ralph for use in our PCCM virtual operations. It is one of my most prized freight cars.

D&H Freight Car Roster

According the the Bridge Line Historical Society freight car roster D&H boxcar #22135 was one of 231 XM boxcars that were part of a 237 boxcar order placed in October, 1970. The other six are classed as XL. 

Roof Walk Removal

The ICC imposed legislation in 1964 that roof walk removal on boxcars was to be completed by 1975 for freight cars in revenue service that was later extended to 1979. Below is a North Stratford RR boxcar with its roof walk removed. Note the ladders to the roof are still in place. The wheel dots at the ladder indicates this car has steel wheels which was another mandate from the ICC to remove cast iron wheels from interchange service.

"Boxcar, North Stratford RR" by Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D. is marked with CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=openverse.

Just what is an ACI label?

ACI is short for Automatic Car Identification that was part of the Kar Tracker program started in 1967 to track freight cars around the nation. By 1975 90% of the US Railroad freight cars are reported to have been labeled with an 80% success rate in reading the labels at the various car reading locations. This system however fell out of favor in the late 1970s due to continual dirt buildup on the labels impacting the efficiency of the label reading. Here is an example of an ACI label.

"Image" by Rob Swatski is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/?ref=openverse.
Ralph wrote another excellent blogpost on the ACI labels and Kar Trackers in 2017. See link below.

My layout employs two Kar Tracker readers, one at Terminal Yard and the other at North Side Yard. Both were built by PC Ralph following an old Model Railroader magazine article. Below the silver Terminal Yard Kar Track reader reads the labels on Train SK-5.

Back to the build!!! 

I used a 5/32" drill bit to enlarge the holes in the roof to accept the Plastruct rods I used for the plugs. The rattle can Colonial Red that I had on hand looks to be a good match for the D&H red color. Having to paint the car parts and roof will add a day to the build as I wait for the paint to cure before proceeding with the build.

The following day the car has been released from the Patti O Paint Shop. The Plastruct plugs look good and the Colonial Red is a nice match.

I chose to paint the underside of the car and brake details Colonial Red as well. I've added Walthers Proto 33" metal wheelsets, Kadee #5 couplers and better 2-56 screws to hold the trucks in place. 3/4 ounces of additional weight has been added to the top of the frame.

 

Painting the frame gave me a nice looking coupler box when seen from above. The painted brake wheel looks good too.

 

The finished car is at Terminal Yard with a car card and waybill to get into revenue service on the layout. Once again the Colonial Red is a pretty good match. The ACI label is placed in a location similar to the prototype D&H 22019. A shot of  Testor's dullcote and some weathering powder was used on the car.

The D&H 22135 has arrived at North Side Yard in Empire City, NY for interchange with the Long Island RR to reach its consignee, Gertz Department Stores, in Jamaica, NY.

A day later in a non staged coincidence the D&H 22135 and PC 104478 are on adjoining tracks at North Side Yard as actual operations meet virtual operations.

 

Look ma, no roof walks!!!

The D&H boxcar #22135 has been interchanged with the LIRR and is on the move thru the westside of Empire City in LIRR Train MA-4 that is using a "borrowed" PRR focal orange caboose.

I briefly toyed with the idea of cutting down the ladders on the right side of the car as some RRs did. Looking at the prototype photo of D&H #22019 I see the D&H did not do that on this similar car. If it's good enough for the D&H it's good enough for me!

The new boxcar also sports factory painted reporting marks on each end which I like. 

 

The car heads towards Fresh Pond Yard for further movement to Gertz Department Stores in Jamaica, NY. The extra work and time has paid off. The car is a good looking, reliably running somewhat prototypical model that I'm happy to have in the fleet.

Final Thoughts and Comments

I enjoy building the old shake the box kits and like having them in my fleet. They are rugged cars that withstand handling and model railroad operations very well. The molded on details won't fall off or break and with some additional work these freight cars can become even better looking workhorses that will reliably move the freight on the layout for many years to become.

PC Ralph's Roof Walk Blogpost

PC Ralph's ACI and Kar Tracker Blogpost

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!