Tag: details

Weathering Ideas

Photo X4939, Railfan.net ‘erielack’ E-Mail List Photo Archive

I recently came across this 1926 image featuring a couple of boxcars on the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad in New Jersey. Let’s take a good look at the weathering on these cars. They have obviously seen some mileage as the lettering is faded. Some streaks are visible from water and a little dust is apparent. But there’s much more here that we can model. Click on any image here to review a larger size.

The images on this blog post were originally taken by William B Barry, Jr., in his service as a DL&W company photographer. Thousands of historic DL&W photographs have been scanned my NPS Steamtown and can be found through the Erie Lackawanna E-Mail List Photo Archive.

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Southern Ventilated boxcars

A Southern ventilated boxcar can be seen in the lower right of this circa 1925 image. Keefer, Potomac Yards, Alexandria, Va. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/npc2008013406/>.

Fenton Wells has presented an interesting kitbash at a couple recent RPM meets. He shares his tips and techniques to transform an Accurail 36-foot boxcar into a Southern ventilated boxcar. Click on any image here to view a larger size.

Ventilated boxcars were once a common element of the freight car fleet. Several southeastern railroads had thousands of ventilated boxcars on their rosters to move fruits and vegetables from packing plants to wholesale grocers in northern areas. Distinctive screened doors and end vents set them apart from typical boxcars. Most of the ventilated boxcars were older cars of double-sheathed wood construction, thereby standing out all the more over the years as the national freight car fleet modernized with taller steel-sheathed cars.

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Vintage Vehicles

Let’s face it, we are all suckers for older cars and trucks. What reader has not walked through an antique car show? As a modeler with a 1926 focus, my eyes are always keen on finding vintage vehicles whether they are autos, earth movers, commercial vehicles, or farm equipment. We continue down the research path with this post as we never have enough data.

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That moment

I’ve just spent much of my morning on a special resin kit a friend has created. The sides and ends were glued into a box yesterday and I wanted to complete the brake hardware on the underframe today. I’ve been excited to push this model along so it will be ready for display at the upcoming RPM Chicagoland event.

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Pushing ahead

I send a big Thank You to the readers who shared comments on The Blahs post last week. I started work on a couple of box cars the next day. I also broke out some stored equipment and ran a coal train on the Salt Lake Route club layout in nearby Nolensville on Monday evening. The lead image shows the coal train en route from Ogden to Los Angeles. Continue reading “Pushing ahead”