A Tale of Two Tichys


Two kit boxes sat, waiting to be opened. Today I opened those boxes and decided to unpack the contents of each and put them together to make more rolling stock. They were slightly different 40' flatcar kits. HO scale and highly detailed, they were both Tichy products. The cars differed in that one included sideboards that were staked and could be dropped into the stake pockets, converting it to a gondola. The other was plain. Oh, and the plain one had 11 pockets per side, while the gondola had 10. I discovered this last detail was no small variation as my projects took shape.


I assembled the sidewalls first. Experienced model railroaders know that gluing all those stake pockets on can be tedious. I set the four assembled sidewalls off to the side. Later I glued the sidewalls on their beds, two per each body. The bulk of the work on the two cars was complete.


When it came time to convert one of the cars into a gon, I realized my mistake. Each body had both an 11 and a 12 pocket side. The sideboards will not fit in an 11 pocket sidewall, so I've got a problem. I rule out trying to pull the sidewalls off to fix it. It doubt I could even cut through the CA glue without total distruction. What to do? "Aarrgh!" Leaving them both as flat cars is a option, but the sideboards are so cool. I could cut the stakes off one of the sideboards and glue it on the side that doesn't match. How would it look when none of the stakes line up with the pockets? Well, I could run it good side out" but I have a wye that reverses directions. "Ugh!" My final solution was the most ambitious. I scratch build two extra sideboards out of basswood that fit the 10 pocket version, making both of my flat cars into gondolas. The question will remain, was this the best solution?


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Ke
 
I'd say they turned out great!
Love the weathering and I've seen brake wheels bent worse than that, very nice!
 
Those are some very nice builds. Years back when I was starting my layout, I was building my freight car fleet, mostly old Blue Box kits because 30 years ago they were probably one of the better kits around, but I also build a few Silver Streak wood kits and a number of the Tichy kits. The detail on them was superior to a lot of kits on the market, and are still some of the better detailed kits. I still have a couple of their kits sitting on the shelf yet to be built. Some day I guess.

Again, you did some very nice work.

Chet
 
I think you picked the hard and best solution. I think uneven stake pockets on a flatcar would drive me nuts.

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