Model Railroading > So who says if it's Tyco it has to look like it?

So I bet I dragged in a few with the above title. Basically the below is a story of why and how I transformed a Tyco coal hopper into something more realistic looking.
Keep in mind I was going quick upgrade here and not looking to match the quality of my Exactrail cars. I just wanted a quick nice upgrade and while the next ones will be
a little cleaner the first two came out pretty good in my opinion.

So our grandfather had an HO Scale layout which was basically an oval on 4 4x8 sheets of plywood. There were 4 yards which were basic ladder stub tracks each yard reached
from the rear part of the loop had 5 tracks while the front two had ten tracks. Inside the oval was a loop which allowed you to do a figure 8. While it certainly wasn't
what I strive for in my layout, I couldn't wait as a child to go over and run his trains. While I credit my dad with my main train bug, grandpa certainly helped it along
in a big way.

Most of grandpa's trains had a theme to them. Who can remember the Tyco candy cars or Pepsi & Coke tank cars? Well grandpa had a train for each of those. He also had
some unit trains which were assigned just one type of car or one railroad, this is probably why I love unit trains. This is where the Virginian cars come in, I fondly
remember the cool looking silver hoppers on his trains.

Now fast forward 25 years and grandpa has been gone for over a decade and I have a model railroad but I strive for a very prototypical feel to mine.
I wanted something to remember my grandpa by on the layout but I wanted something that fit in with my other cars. I had the Virginian cars sitting in a box for about the past
30 plus years. I figured why not use those cars?

So then it began, at first it was going to be a quick change out couplers upgrade wheels weather and away we go. Well then I began to look at it and thought well those
trucks don't look good. So in came some Atlas 70T trucks, well if I'm going to upgrade trucks perhaps I should get rid of those awful stir-ups, so in came Detail Associates
stir-ups.

Now if I'm going to do that lets shave off the the brake wheel platform and replace that with a left over locomotive photo-etched cab step. If that's done then we definitely
need to upgrade brake wheel. And if were going to upgrade that then I need to get rid of the horrible molded on air tank reservoir and valve on the end. So I looked thru
the scrap box and found some brake parts from an old Athearn Impact car set.

Well now I've gone that far so, there is no way I can leave on those molded on grab irons and bracing. So in comes some Detail Associates ladders and .012 brass wire.

Once that's all done I needed to tackle weight even with the Atlas trucks she was still under weight. I had the Tyco weights but did not like how they attach on the underside
of the slope sheet, where they can clearly be viewed from the side. So I decided to reuse the weights but I installed them on the interior slope sheet. I then made a new slope
sheet. It's sloppy and not neat and tidy but I added some Micro-mark decal rivet lines, and painted it to match the car. Once installed it hides the weight and once weathered
up I don't think you will notice the small gaps around the edges much if at all.

I trimmed down the original center sill but retained it after filling in the truck pin location with styrene then drilled and tapped it to mount the new trucks. This work actually
ended up lowering the ride height of the car and make it look better in my opinion.

When I first started out I was going to just weather the car, then I thought about printing my own decals on the printer and then I decided after all the work that I wanted it to
look good all around. So I did some research and found out the Virginian actually had small 2 bay hoppers for ballast service but painted gray. Further research found that William
Mosteller had decals for these cars available from the Great Decals and E-bay sites.

The data is correct for a 70T coal hopper and since the car is fictional the car number is made up without much rhyme or reasoning for it aside from the real ballast hoppers were four digits.

Total time spent was about 45 minutes to an hour of work per car for modifications, add in another 30 minutes for decaling the entire car. So far I've done two and I will wait for
more details to come in to complete the remaining eight cars.

I think it came out pretty good for a quick and fun upgrade. Once I weather them up I think they will look even better. I just hope this goes to show that even a Tyco car can be
dressed up to look good.

The first pic is of grandpa's layout the other two are comparison of an unmodified Tyco and the upgrade. Yes I know I could have bought a better model to start with but the sentimental
value is there knowing although it's changed some my grandpa ran it on his layout, I may keep one on modified in the end.

Kris

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Two more comparisons and a end view of the upgraded car.

Kris

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Two more of the finished upgraded car. I have to repaint the stir-up's with RC paint so it does not chip off.

The first one shows the false slope plate hiding the weight. The second one is just a side shot.

Kris

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Hey Kris, I love your grandpa's layout - as a kid I would have been very excited for visits to see such a layout. My uncle used to have similar layouts with Mantua, Tyco, and AHM trains in the mid and late 1960's and always had a stack of Model Railroader and Trains magazines on hand. I could hardly wait to make visits to his house, if just to see the trains. We even had to drive by some PRR / PC tracks on the way, though they weren't mainline tracks. He was also my godfather, which was very fitting, so birthday gifts from him were always train related.

Very nice job with that hopper upgrade, though the layout picture really distracted me with a flood of nostalgic memories and caught the bulk of my attention. LOL

Enjoy the hobby!

Greg

Good work on the Tyco hopper. Love the old school layout. Thanks for sharing.

SantaFeRuss

Once again, this is excellent inspired work! I love how you were able to update the car to current standards, yet retain the playfulness and nostalgic spirit of its roots. Great job keeping those precious memories alive!

Cheers,
Harry

Good job Kris, and a good background story too.

Jim