Some new "old" rolling stock...

doctorwayne

Active Member
Here are a few "new" cars that I've recently acquired and upgraded for my layout. All have had their cast-on grabirons shaved off and replaced with metal ones (done like this). I also added some re-weigh and re-pack data to more accurately date them to my late '30s layout.

The first three cars are USRA composite drop-bottom gondolas, by Proto1000. These are pretty decent cars for r-t-r, and are well-weighted, too. I added some basic brake rigging to the underbodies, and scored the interior face of the sides with "boards" that match those on the outside. I left the plastic sill steps for now, but will replace them if breakage becomes a problem - at least they've a fairly fine cross section:
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Another view of the car shown above:
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I also added a Walthers kit for a USRA steel gondola, although I ordered it by mistake, thinking that I was ordering a NYC-style car like the ones shown above. wall1:-D It's also appropriate for my era, as it's still in the black paint. This one got the factory-provided grabs installed, along with a few others to bring it up to the "latest" safety standards, and some brake rigging:
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The next two cars are kits from Accurail, and while the models as they come represent a prototype first built in 1941, I felt their generic appearance made them suitable enough to pass for an earlier car. I changed the "BLT" dates to reflect that, although I'm not really sure that the lettering schemes are accurate for the earlier date: with neither car appearing too
"flashy", they won't really stand out too much if a visiting "expert" sees them in a train. ;) These cars came with free-standing brake detail, so I only had to replace the grabs:


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The last car is a kit from MDC. I had passed these cars over when they were first released, as I liked the appearance of the Walthers 50' car, which was released at about the same time, better. I happened to see a bunch of these on sale at the LHS, and when I spotted the U.P. roadname, I heard Deano's voice saying, "Buy it! Buy it!!" ;):-D:-D The car is quite nicely done, and comes in several versions, so I may pick up a few more. Its radial roof is a nice change from the usual. I added brake rigging, grabirons and sill steps, plus roofwalk corner grabs, and some re-weigh/re-pack data - the "Unload Other Side" placard is from Jaeger HO Products:
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Wayne
 
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