Model Railroading > Is it Freight Car Friday yet?

In 1974, the C&NW purchased 545 second-hand ex-Penn Central gondolas. The cars were quickly placed into service with patched reporting marks and company medallions. The cars were a mix of welded and riveted construction.

The model was made using an RTR Tangent ACF welded model, as it would have appeared in 1976. The welded cars came from PC with stiffeners, on five of the side ribs. I added the stiffeners, which I made from .002” brass sheet. Archer rivet transfers were added to the stiffeners. I scrapped off the PC markings using an Xacto #16 blade, but left most of the dimensional data. The car was weathered using an airbrush, chalks and artist pencils. The chalk marks and dark spots on the side panels were done with the pencils.

Dennis

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Dennis, anytime you care to share your freight cars with us, let's just call it Friday regardless of what the calendar says, okay? ;-) Beautiful work!

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

Looks very nicely done. Good job on the weathering. I've never noticed "stiffeners" on cars before. What led the railroad to install them?

Jim

Like everything you put on here...outstanding!

Tom Y

Awesome dude.

Looks excellent, except the end and brakewheel look clean compared to the rest of the car. I feel the brake wheel needs some grime.

Those stiffeners look cool. Southern Pacific/Golden West Service Greenville 2-bay hoppers (Walthers model) had similar stiffeners applied. Now I know how to do the stiffeners if I want to detail my Walthers cars.

inRVA Wrote:
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> Looks excellent, except the end and brakewheel
> look clean compared to the rest of the car. I feel
> the brake wheel needs some grime.


If you notice,I think he did this on purpose.Look at the single
grab on the right side.It has been repainted as to some damage.
The HB and other parts nearby seem to be painted the same way.
I look at this as excellent weathering.I think this car was
in an accident on the B end.His shop repaired the damage and
repainted the damaged parts.


Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

inRVA Wrote:
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> Looks excellent, except the end and brakewheel
> look clean compared to the rest of the car. I feel
> the brake wheel needs some grime.


Yes, I did miss the weathering a bit on the B-end. I will tweak on that. I do like Uncle Joe's comments however ;-)

It's amazing what you don't see until you take a close up photo.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments!

Onward to the next project: A Proto GP7 with the new Cannon fans.

Dennis