Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads
A hobby adventure
I journeyed to metro-Philadelphia last week for the RPM Valley Forge railroad prototype modeler meet. A winter Nor’easter was threatening but passed through a couple days before the event. I arrived on Thursday afternoon to participate in an operating session that evening.
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.
With the recent Accurail product announcement of Fowler box car kits, Ray Breyer got busy and created a Prototype Data file to review the prototypes of the roadnames in the initial kit introduction. Ray also researched the origins of the car design and found some interesting details.
Last week I shared disappointment after completing an underframe and realizing a major error. The image is above and the KC brake system is on the wrong side of the centersill. It is pointed in the proper direction, jut not in the proper location.
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.