A few days ago a Walthers Catalog arrived with a picture of a fire car for sale. I was a basic tank car with an added platform for a motor, pump, and hose pedestal. We have a small logging operation with a Three truck wood burning Shay, 6 scratch built log cars with 'Real Wood' from a back yard tree, and a heavily kitbashed log loader. The corporate motto is "Don't buy it if you can build it- build it from existing material whenever possible". We found a very, very old tank car and started. We used v-groove plastic sheet for the deck, cut down old Athearn stanchions, and brass wire. See attached photo.
Fire Car Project
- Thread starter David Rosser
- Start date
There seems to abe a server problem - the attached picture does not get through??? Any ideas as to the problem?
F
Fred_M
The next step was the creation of the motor-pump-nozzle assembly. I used 1/8" plastic tubing,small plastic rod (label was 1 1/4" iron pipe) thin sheet plastic,dowel,and some square rods ( cut to create engine block). The nozzle was made from insulation pulled from some solid copper wire; that gave me an open end for water and an opening to insert the wire aiming handles. The solid copper wire became the piping from the dome to the pump and pump to nozzle.The intake plus air cleaner were made from the first two items listed, same for the exhaust and muffler. BTW, the correct Walthers item is the "Firefighting Tank Car". Attached picture is of unit before paint.
Attachments
Painting of the small parts was a bit tedious,but it does make it pretty clear what each part is. The tank is a dull non-descript green, and the logo is the standard for the logging outfit. The initials JDR are for my grandson, and LC = lumber company. No fancy logos, stripes etc..See attached picture.
Attachments
Way to go Dave! It looks real good. Now I want one for my loggin' layout 
I wonder if they were around in 1895?
TrainClown
I wonder if they were around in 1895?
TrainClown