Shawmut – Page 2 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Shawmut Boxcars, part 2

Perry Squier has been pushing forward batch building Shawmut boxcars for his HO scale layout. The first part was an earlier blog feature. We have continued discussing details and Perry has sent additional notes.

After building the basic car bodies and detailing the ends, it was time to tackle the doors, car sides, and roofs. Several prototype images were used to guide the detail work. Not everything was perfect but these are close enough.

Shawmut Boxcars

Fellow 1920s modeler Perry Squier recently sent details on his expanding HO scale Shawmut boxcar fleet. Here are his notes and photos.

Ray Breyer’s recent summary of freight cars with truss rod ends caught my interest. The Pittsburg Shawmut & Northern had several boxcars with these unique details in the 8700, 8800, and 8900 series that lasted well beyond the year I model, 1923. A 1904 AC&F builder image of #8700 leads this feature. I wanted to build several of them and needed a source for the underframe. I’ll scratch build the car body to get as close as possible to the prototype.