Another guest post!

CB&Q GS gondola

Through the course of our hobby years we meet a variety of people who inspire and encourage our own efforts. I met Jim Kubanick a number of years ago when he moved to Morgantown, WV. He became a member of the model railroad club where I was a member at that time. We share an affinity for the common and uncommon freight car, and the history of freight cars. Jim has built a number of fine models and he has shared tips and data as I progress in building the many kits in my stash. As I am still getting settled after the move to Texas, Jim will guest on this post and share some of his models and notes. Jim works in HO scale and concentrates his efforts on the early-to-mid 1950s.

PRR G31a gondola

This is the Tangent Models gondola. As Tangent’s first entry into the steam era, they made an excellent choice in prototype. This is a gondola, not previously modeled, that was a common sight on the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Copies were also built for a number of other roads. Details on these cars can be found in Railway Prototype Cyclopedia, Vol. 19. In addition to this car being a very accurate model, I like the way the body nestles down on the trucks – just as on prototype gondolas and rarely caught in model form.

PRR box cars X37 X43

The PRR was notorious for taking a standard design and then giving it their own touch. A good illustration of that is the X37. It is a standard AAR design fitted with a bizarre roof and odd side sill tabs. compare it to the AAR standard X43b in the background. The X37 is a Sunshine Models kit, while the X43b is a Branchline Blueprint series kit.

PS&N Mather box car

Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern 9949 is a low-height Mather boxcar built from an older Sunshine kit. Sunshine did a series of Mather cars, but they were discontinued with the issuance of the Proto2000 plastic kits. Sunshine also offered the taller Mather cars in their line, which were also discontinued.

Southern double-sheathed automobile box car

This is a Southern double sheathed auto/furniture box car that was offered as a resin kit by Sunshine. This kit is available in several versions.

WM B-14 box car

Here is a Sunshine resin kit of an AAR 10′ interior height (IH) boxcar. The prototype was built after the WWII when 10′ IH cars were falling out of favor. A few Eastern roads still preferred this height.

N&W hopper in-progress

This is a work in progress. I am modifying a Stewart N&W HL hopper in order to model one of the class H-9 cars. The latter has a straight sidesill with unusual roping castings and notched heap shields, but is otherwise quite similar to the fishbelly HL.

Interlocking Tower model 1

I decided to build a structure kit for a change in pace. This is an Ed Fulasz Hydrocal kit based on Baltimore & Ohio’s “D” Tower in Grafton, WV. It was a fun build and entirely different from the resin kits I had been building. Masonry work really seems to work well when cast in Hydrocal.

Interlocking Tower model 2

Many thanks to Jim for sharing his images and comments. A list of the Sunshine Models resin kits is available on the web.

Readers comments are welcome. Please leave a comment below. All comments are reviewed and approved before they appear here.

3 thoughts on “Another guest post!”

  1. Jim and Eric,

    Thank you for sharing the inspirational work!

    I really like the first car shown (CB&Q), however, there’s no text to go along with the picture. Is it a Sunshine car or another manufacturer?

    Top notch work!

    Thanks again,
    Tim

  2. Tim – Jim sent me the following gondola model details via email:

    “You can tell Tim that the gondola is Sunshine kit #33.4. The trucks are Accurail and the load is also a Sunshine kit – their Tractor Tire Load kit. The car was painted with Accupaint AP-12 Oxide Brown. I don’t have the history sheet handy, so cannot comment on the prototype’s background, just now, but I would be happy to look this up if he wants. Not a tough car to build as resin kits go.”

    So there you have it!

    – Eric

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