Espeefan's Passenger Car Modeling

[Espeefan]

Where did you source the trucks that are on the UP Express #9179 ? They look pretty darn nice. I'm guessing Athearn.

Just food for thought :
After a bit more study, The Allied Full Cushion trucks were pretty much out of use by 1953. Again, replaced bt the Symington-Gould type XL trucks. However, no one offers the Syminton-Gould trucks in HO. So whats a guy to do.
I found this :
Photos of Symington-Gould Type XL trucks on boxcars are documented in the 1949–51 Car Builders Cyclopedia and in PFE (Pacific Fruit Express) historical archives, such as those held by the California State Railroad Museum.
I can't even find a photo of the S-G, XL trucks on line to look at.
Modeling Context: Modelers often use the Cape Line T-13 truck as a commercial stand-in for the Symington-Gould Type XL, as the prototype is rare and commercially unavailable in HO scale.

Copies of the Car Builders Cyclopedia are expensive ( $100 +/- ) and those Cape Line T-13 trucks are are no longer in production and hard to find.

I've offered up all this as I stated before, I have several of the Athearn UP Express coxcars and I have about 14 of the Southern Pacific Overnight boxcars. I was hoping to up-date mine a bit also.

Take care....John

 

[Espeefan]

Yes, this was my conundrum. Offerings of express style trucks are pretty limited in HO. As I've stated before, when you have to, stand ins are acceptable, especially when unavoidable.

The trucks are indeed Athearn. They come two pairs to a card. My modeling era covers 1946 to the end of steam, though there are a few outliers on either side of that time frame. I'm aware that the Allied trucks are on the ragged edge of acceptability, but what's a body to do? I looked at the below photos and made the call that they were the closest thing to the prototype and brass model photos. I have an overnight train as well, mostly Intermountain, Rapido, and some C&BT shops kits. I didn't fool with the trucks on those.

The Allied trucks are the closest thing I could find to what's shown in the photos. If a new product appears on the market, I'll look at these again. I also have a Rock Island Rxpress car (former troop sleeper) that is equipped with them. If you haven't seen it, go up this thread to Page 2, you'll see a short discussion on stand ins.

 

[westtexjohn]

Alan : thanks for your thoughts and reply.

Going back a bit, the RI boxcar looks great with the new trucks.

It is a shame the trucks on the UP brass model are not available for separate sale. But even if they were I'm guessing around $30 to $40 for a set.

One other thing I noticed is the lower side sills on the Athearn car are longer than the brass model which matches the prototype photo. Does this longer sill interfere with the new trucks on the UP boxcar? Looks like the rear of the Allied trucks may hit the Athearn sill. I guess this issue is probably related to the min/max radius of curves used on ones layout. Or, I guess one could remove part of the sill to closer match the prototype. I'm probably over thinking some of this. I need to pull out my UP Express boxcars and take a close look at them and determine if modifications to the sill are possible. Here again, at some point the modeler needs to decide what is "good enough" and let it go.

Thanks again for posting your photos. I enjoy watching your progress and your excellent work.

Carry on....John

 

[Espeefan]

Alan : thanks for your thoughts and reply.

Going back a bit, the RI boxcar looks great with the new trucks.

It is a shame the trucks on the UP brass model are not available for separate sale. But even if they were I'm guessing around $30 to $40 for a set.

One other thing I noticed is the lower side sills on the Athearn car are longer than the brass model which matches the prototype photo. Does this longer sill interfere with the new trucks on the UP boxcar? Looks like the rear of the Allied trucks may hit the Athearn sill. I guess this issue is probably related to the min/max radius of curves used on ones layout. Or, I guess one could remove part of the sill to closer match the prototype. I'm probably over thinking some of this. I need to pull out my UP Express boxcars and take a close look at them and determine if modifications to the sill are possible. Here again, at some point the modeler needs to decide what is "good enough" and let it go.

Thanks again for posting your photos. I enjoy watching your progress and your excellent work.

Carry on....John

You’re welcome John. I enjoy sharing my work, and I hope some of the guys on the forum pick up a thing or two. I don’t have any issue with clearance on the trucks on the UP car. My club has a 48” minimum radius so I can get away with some pretty minimal clearances. You should see how tight the larger Prescision Scale brass cars get. They have a very limited truck swing! I have had to do the occasional surgery to get a car operational. Passenger car modeling can get both expensive and frustrating. Wanna go broke? Get into prototypically accurate passenger trains! Broker? Head end cars! The end result is very satisfying though.

 

[Espeefan]

Morning folks. I finally got all of those F units drilled for details. Many many holes! Hundreds of them! 144 #79 holes for eyebolts. All with one drill bit. A record, I think! Another 116 #76 holes for railings and grabs. Lost one bit while perfecting the technique. Tedious work. Now I have to go find a bunch of eyebolts over on e-Bay or online hobby shops, so I'm currently awaiting parts again. I've bounced back and forth to this project a number of times, as the work has been repetitive and gets boring. A dozen of anything is a lot to do at once, and there are three Proto 1000 F units waiting in the wings after these. Those will be easier though. The proto 1000 shells aren't as detailed as these, so they'll just get decoders and weathering. After that just call me "All F'd out! Maybe that didn't come out right...or did it?

 

[Espeefan]

I finally got the mail train tested. Three cars need tweaks, two coupler adjustments, and one coupler replacement (McCrappys again, one snuck through). It ran well, even backed through a crossover without derailing. Looks good if I do say so myself. There were several new cars in the train as well as a number that had not been operated together before. You'd think that shouldn't be a problem, but it can be, especially with passenger cars. The rider coach will be replaced with a Harriman 60 footer when I get the marker lights on it. I grabbed a lightweight coach I had at the club to fill in. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

 

[Espeefan]

Here's another view at a different spot on the club layout:
Overland Mail Test #2

 

[Espeefan]

I've installed the eyebrow grabs and the nose grabs on these units. Now all that remains is the eyelets up top. They're on order. Until they get here I'll paint these grabs, and install any horns that aren't on yet. We are now at the level of "good enough" detail. I may put air hoses by the front couplers. I won't be doing cut levers. If you look at modern models they're there, but does it make that much of a difference? I don't think so. if these were contest models, OK, but they're going to be garden variety runners. Workhorses that don't really need all that stuff. Plus the Warbonnets are club owned, and as you may know, club stuff takes a beating. This just happens, even with my stuff. Loading in and out of boxes, on and off the layout, sooner or later there will be casualties no matter how careful you are, so why borrow trouble?

I have a couple of sleepers and some express reefers, vintage Walthers cars that need grabs done as well. Remember the early models they did where you got horn hooks in the baggie with the wire details? Yeah they're that old. I suppose I'll bite the bullet and do those too.

 

[Espeefan]

Well folks I've gone and done it. I hate odd numbers and remember those 11 GS northerns? Well now it's 12. The Overland Mail (Trains 22 and 24) is one of two mail trains I model. The other one is the Coast Mail, or Sad Sam (Trains 71 and 72) as it was called. Both spent time under steam, but especially the Coast Mail. I went out and spent too much money on this:

It has the oomph to pull the entire train by itself I believe. This thing is heavy! One goof though. I was looking at it on the web, and the price was not cheap, just shy of $600. You'd think that would be for a sound equipped unit, right? Nope! I goofed and bought a stealth unit. Crap! My own fault. So off to the Hobby shop yesterday, and I picked up a Tsunami for it. It wasn't difficult to install, I didn't even cuss, so nothing for the swear jar today, but that means pretty close to $700 for this thing. That's a bit rich for one locomotive that isn't brass. Positives are it's beefy. You can handle it without breaking things. The decoder board has the 21-pin socket, so the decoder was plug and play. The de-skirting and partial Daylight paint scheme makes it unique in my collection. The de-skirting of the GS units is a whole multi-beer discussion, but this was the first step of a process that started in 1950 I believe. I suppose I should do a group photo at some point, but that's a bunch of locos to lug to the club! I'll program and test it at the club tonight.

 

[Espeefan]

Turns out my mistake wasn't so bad after all! I was never wild about BLI's proprietary decoders. The Tsunami 2 steam decoder sounds great and does a nice job. It took some sorting out with Decoder Pro to locate the lighting functions, and there were some issues getting things programmed. Seems it likes to be read off of programming mode but written to in Ops mode for some values. It's all sorted out now and runs well. In fact, the thing is a beast. It's very heavy and will pull the plaster off the wall. It pulled a full train of Walthers heavyweight passenger cars without any problem. I'm sure it will handle the mail train alone. Issues I had were: 1: The front coupler needs adjusted. You get a short shank in the parts bag, as well as a dummy coupler. I'll probably install the dummy coupler, as this thing needs no help. 2: Be careful handling it. The factory installed coupler was low, and it hit the diamonds on a crossover. Either the sudden stop with drivers rolling, or my sliding it backwards off the obstacle was enough to dislodge a traction tire. It was a moderate amount of fun getting the tire back on. They give you two spares, and a crankpin wrench. I was able to get the tire back on without disassembling anything. Not to self: Don't drag this model! It is rugged and can take handling without breaking things.


BLI GS14 Test at NAPM

 

[Kusojiji]

traction tire

Traction tire? I try to eradicate them from my models if I can. Wheel slip is fun.

 

[Espeefan]

Traction tire? I try to eradicate them from my models if I can. Wheel slip is fun.

Unfortunately, there is a groove machined in the rear pair of drivers. They used to give you a driver without this groove in olden times, but no more. I think this model is heavy enough not to need them but there's nothing I can do about it! I know lots of guys are like "Death before traction tires!" but the few models I have that are so equipped are reliable runners and pull very well. Steamers are a challenge here. As physics doesn't scale, they are perpetually challenged when it comes to pulling anything close to the loads the prototypes could. some of them barely pull themselves.

 

[Kusojiji]

Unfortunately, there is a groove machined in the rear pair of drivers. They used to give you a driver without this groove in olden times, but no more. I think this model is heavy enough not to need them but there's nothing I can do about it! I know lots of guys are like "Death before traction tires!" but the few models I have that are so equipped are reliable runners and pull very well. Steamers are a challenge here. As physics doesn't scale, they are perpetually challenged when it comes to pulling anything close to the loads the prototypes could. some of them barely pull themselves.

While I'm not that extreme, I do try to remove mine if spare parts are available. I buy the extra truck or wheels and swap them out. The way I quarter the steamers has proven to be quite reliable so far. Print two of these out, put the pin in the hole and push flat against a flat surface. For non-splined axles. Splined axles are easier and no rig required.

 

[Espeefan]

While I'm not that extreme, I do try to remove mine if spare parts are available. I buy the extra truck or wheels and swap them out. The way I quarter the steamers has proven to be quite reliable so far. Print two of these out, put the pin in the hole and push flat against a flat surface. For non-splined axles. Splined axles are easier and no rig required.

View attachment 268671
View attachment 268672

I have a quartering jig from NWSL. The big one that isn’t plastic. I don’t use it much though. I scribe a line above the axle centerline, press off the driver, and just match up the line when reassembling. Works like a charm!

 

[Espeefan]

Afternoon All! The F unit project nears completion. My latest sparring match with insanity is installing eyebolts in the A&B unit roofs. There are a bunch, and the wire details are a bit stubborn. They tell you to drill #80 holes. that doesn't work well, so I went to #79. Evidently when they cut the wire there is some crimping action, so the wire resists starting into the hole. I was getting too many casualties even with a #79 drill, so I went to a #78. That works, but I have to dip the eyelet into thin ACC, then insert it. Once they're all inserted I deposit a small drop over each penetration inside the shell to lock them in place. All I need is to find some Santa Fe yellow for the nose grabs, then off to the programming track!

 

[Espeefan]

Well here they all are at last. I still need to find that yellow for the four nose grabs, but other than that and some decaling for road numbers, they're complete. Top to bottom: Warbonnet F-7's, SP Black Widow F-7's, and SP F-3's. I'll be doing the SP sets in "as delivered" numbers and very light weathering to represent new ABBA sets. They'll see freight and possibly mail train service. I lost count of how many holes I drilled! No drilling for a while. There are still those Santa Fe freight F's to do, but they'll be simple. Cast on details would need to be shaved off and repainting done in addition to details, so I don't think so. Just decoder installs will be it for them, and I'm out of basic decoders. I used them all up. Wonder where they went!

 

[Espeefan]

Little things that get ya! I took the F-3 set to the club last night, programmed everything to the same road number with the trailing F unit CV 29 set for reverse normal operation so I don't have to consist them. They ran well enough. They need broken in. One little gotcha. The original owner bought four powered A units and two dummy B's. It was obvious to me he intended to swap shells so he had a proper ABBA set, so that's what I did. It gave me some spare parts, and two A shells I can find homes for. Once I got everything lashed up I noticed a spacing issue. The A unit front coupler mount is offset forward so the coupler clears the pilot. Not a lot, but enough to make you blink when you see it.

Oops! Should look like this:

I scavenged the coupler mounts from the dummy B chassis. They press in and out. Now spacing is correct. Fun stuff! Now to letter the F-7's. Since those were powered B units, they are good to go.

 

[DeaconKC]

Congrats on that and also nicely done on the swap for a fellow modeler.

 

[Espeefan]

Hello fans! Not much happening on the passenger car front these days. Just drilling for and installing railings and grabs. Boring stuff I'm not going to bother documenting. It's elementary tedious work, and we've all done it. That mundane stuff you just have to power through.

At the LHS I did stumble on some of the Athearn MDC cars. I found a UP baggage car and pulled the trigger on it. I needed a yellow one for the Overland Mail, and now I don't have to paint one. This model has been discussed here before in its SP variation, so I won't be doing much with it.

I've already replaced the McCrappys with Kadees. The six-wheel trucks will be painted Harbor Mist Gray to match my era, and it'll get diaphragms, probably the old Walthers paper bellows type, as I have a few pairs of those here. The globe vents will be going bye-bye, as they used the same roof for all of the cars to keep things economical. What photos of these I can find online show no vents, so I'll be going with a clean roof. A simple basic project that won't take long. This has all been done before so I won't be doing any step by steps, just an "after" photo.

 

[Espeefan]

I don't do commissioned (paid) projects anymore. I burned out on it long ago. Most custom painters don't really make much anyway. We mostly do it for the art, and because we want to. If you put a pencil and paper to the hours involved, I doubt many of use even get minimum wage once it's all done. There are, however, exceptions to every rule. A good friend got this Automat car and asked if I would paint it for him. He's been pretty kind to me. He is where all those Walthers interiors came from, plus other things over the years, so I couldn't really say no to this in good conscience. The Automat cars were rebuilt from old sleepers, and were the last gasp of food service on the SP. Hot and cold food from vending machines, which by many accounts was terrible. Anyone old enough to remember the beige nickel milk machines in school? Think those, but with sandwiches, drinks, and hot canned food like Chef Boyardee ravioli, and a few tables to sit and eat. No attendant. He models about 15 years after my era when passenger service was all but gone.

He will do windows, shades, and the interior.