Model Railroading > Couple TTX stack car projects to share

Just a couple very recent HO scale TTX articulated double-stack car projects to share with the internet world. First off an (old) A-Line, now InterMountain 5x40' "Thrall Lo-Pac". Factory painted in TTX lettering. A-Line (style B) brass(?) stirrup steps were added on the ends of each well, along with Details Associates 17" formed wire grabs on both car ends. The supplied InterMountain trucks were replaced with Exactrail 70t/33" (ends) and 100t/36" (articulated) trucks/wheel sets, because why not, I've got lots of 'em. The model was then acrylic and Testors paint pen weathered fairly heavy to show it's 32+ year old age for contemporary 2015-2018 modeling, with FRA-224 decal stripes slapped on top here and there. Not super detailed, more of a 'filler' model to run longer stack trains within the rest of my well car roster.

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Second car is one I've been on the fence to do for several years now, a chopped 48' to 40' articulated Maxi-III. I finally got the guts to try it several weeks back. Found an old Athearn Blue Box Gunderson Maxi-III articulated well car kit on Ebay, probably paid too much for it, but it was still way cheaper than the few RTR models still around. I preferred hacking up the pre-detailed wells before final assembly anyway. With some very careful freehand razor saw cutting, each bucket was chopped down 4' on each end from 48' to 40'. Then sanded smooth, and welded back together with a mixture of Testors liquid cement to get the MEK plastic melting component, and medium Zap-a-gap to wick in and get that super bond element. (see the in progress pic below with the C well still to be chopped...)

A little TTX yellow paint touch up here and there, before several of the now hacked up car data notes were scraped off and replaced with several more-proper markings found on the 40' cars, courtesy of a myriad of Microscale decal sets. I also opted to patch the car and apply the modern red TTX logos to the C, D, and E wells. Along with that, the black well corners were squared off and cleaned up with a little more flat black paint, along with painting the middle ladders black to match prototypes. Still haven't quite nailed down the weathering part yet. I obviously want it to eventually be weathered, just not nearly as much as the older Thrall model, probably a 2-3 out of 10 instead of a 7. That will come next.

More or less just another filler car like the A-Line model above. Both of these cars are not up to the standard of modern etched metal / wire grab details seen with today's offerings, but they simply add needed variety to long stack trains. The real test will be to see what happens to that chopped car stuck in the middle of a heavy loaded 60+ well stack train, yet to be determined.

Mr. MRL

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Fine work! These look great, and took guts to hack em' up. End result is impressive. Thanks for sharing.

Nice precision bit of work there!

Nice work Robby.

Your first round testing of a long train on a steep grade could provide a new meaning to the classic "pull-apart" failure.

Tim Costello

Good stuff man :)

Excellent work! The market doesn't have that many models of 40' well cars that are so common on the rails today and you've done a great job of adding some variety.

tgcostello Wrote:
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> Nice work Robby.
>
> Your first round testing of a long train on a
> steep grade could provide a new meaning to the
> classic "pull-apart" failure.
>
> Tim Costello

Thanks Tim. I’ve been considering adding some kinda thin plastic bracing shims along the inside walls of the wells, but kinda want to just see what happens with the glue only method first. It just takes me a little extra time to set up the full-on loaded double stack, so I simply haven’t tested the car as is yet:

Mr. MRL

I have one of those A-line Thrall 40' 5-pack cars I want to upgrade. I plan to put the brake wheels on both end and add the chain that is missing from the model.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Inspirational work! May I ask which brand is the SP boxcar?

Thank you

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
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> Inspirational work! May I ask which brand is the
> SP boxcar?
>
> Thank you


Think that is an old E&C Shops or LBF peaked roof 50’ Hi-cube(?).

Mr. MRL