New Freight Cars, Under $20

[mlehman]

How much under? Depends on how much those second hand trucks are valued...

The rest is pretty much just pennies worth of styrene, plus a pair of Kadee 714s for each one.

Wait, you mean you're not taking this out of a box???

And not all the parts are new?

Well, most of them are. Yep, I do model railroading the old fashioned way. I build stuff.

I think I posted a few pics of this project in SPF recently. I've been chipping away at for a month or so...oh, OK, I'll admit it, this one sat in my shelf for about 15 years. Sometimes a long gestation period is a good thing, as I did produce a class model that I really like some time ago -- the only narrowgauge RBL in the world.



I obtained the batch of parts for these free from a narrowgauge buddy, Bruce Pryor, as part of some long forgotten deal involving some other stuff. Bruce has a great website on export diesels if you haven't seen it:
narrowmind.railfan.net/BLW/#diesel
I've got a pic or two in there somewhere. Bruce had collected the parts, thinking about a project similar to mine, narrowgauge that's keeping up with modern practices. The roofs are Tyco cabooses and the sides are Athearn LO sides cutdown. I dug into my scrap parts boxes to come up with door and more doors (for ends). From these I built 2 more RBLs and 3 XMLs. Here they are out for a test spin.



A RBL



A XML (spotting feature, a wider door than the RBL and non-terminating ends)



After lots of decals, time for some publicity shots



A size comparison with the standard old school Rio Grande 3000-series boxcar.



RBL 181



XML 187



While 5 at once is a little tedious at times, building in multiples has worked well with building kits before, so why not? Each one is slightly different, because of the parts box origin of much of it. Was it difficult? Not particularly, even with my shaky hands and fading eyesight. Not even any plans, since there's no prototype.

[Judge Doom]

Speaking of new cars under $20, I've gotten some good prices on Atlas' cleaning out stock sales from their website. Affordable shipping, and affordable cars that are missing trucks. $7 per 11,000k tank car less trucks when they easily retail for double or more is a pretty good deal.

But, that's a pretty creative take on it

[Brakie]

Mike does make interesting view points as does the others on this forum..I read every reply and some times I nod in agreement,some times I see it for what really is and some times I get a good chuckle out of it.

My point is a simple one..Everybody has a point of view and the right to express that view as long as it stays within the rules and if it doesn't I'm sure the moderators will step and address the issue(s).

[llxlocomotives]

And Mike you do it well. Great looking models.


Larry
www.llxlocomotives.com

[mlehman]

Thanks, guys, for the kind comments. My way of doing things is a bit different, but it's something I control. Doesn't do much good to worry about things I can't control, like my budget, and even if I was rolling in cash, I'd be doing pretty much the same thing. If you got lemons, make lemonade, no point in wishing you had an apple instead.

For the prototype-focused modeler, trying your hand at something like this, even if you might fall short of exactitude, can still be a satisfying feeling, while yielding a model you can still be proud of. I still do prototype modeling and am certainly not knocking that in my occasional flights of fancy. An example is my model of the Silverton RR's combine, Red Mountain.

Here's a pic linked from the Western History Collection of the Denver Public Library:
digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll22/id/71936

And my version, not perfect, but darn pleasing to build. I had to reduce the number of windows on a LaBelle combine kit from 8 to 7. This was the key to getting the primary spotting features of the "Red Mountain."


Glue the sides up as modified...


Then make a flat roof, which made this hack even easier to build than the kit itself, since there wasn't all the drama of building up the later standard clerestory roof.


Looks good enough.


My point here is not to put down RTR. Got a bunch of it I'm very grateful for. The question is what do we do this hobby for? For me, it's to get away from the ways of the world by modeling a RR far away in time, if not so far away in distance.

[mecu18b]

Mike,
Very nice cars. How about a HON3 aar boxcar built from a Branchline car?



COO Norfolk Terminal
Modern Narrow Gauge

[mlehman]

Thanks, mecu.

I don't have any of that particular raw material sitting around. I tend to take inspiration from what I have in hand, so will see what strikes me next as a viable project.

One thing I try to do is preserve the prototype credibility by not going overboard with lots of modern stuff, more like how the RR would be filling in holes in their needs while preserving the historical character of things if they were still seriously trying to make a go of things. There's always something new to inspire me, so will consider what's next to see if I can come up with something interesting.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2015 22:12:09 GMT -8 Judge Doom said:

Speaking of new cars under $20, I've gotten some good prices on Atlas' cleaning out stock sales from their website. Affordable shipping, and affordable cars that are missing trucks. $7 per 11,000k tank car less trucks when they easily retail for double or more is a pretty good deal.

But, that's a pretty creative take on it

A person can build a small layout, including loco, rolling stock, scenery, and power supply for under $300 if they shop around. There's something for everyone.

[kcjones]

Mike,
Great work! Your cars remind me of the photos I use to see of when the DRG would swap out the standard gauge trucks for narrow gauge trucks. Your cars do look out of place next to a "regular" car which is exactly what they are suppose to do. Again, great work.
JL

[kcjones]

Mike,
Also, your side by side really helps the perspective on size as well. I get so use to seeing hi cubes all day that when a standard 50 ft boxcar shows up, it looks out of place. But it is the "normal" one.
JL

[mlehman]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

JL,
Yeah that's exactly the effect I was going for. Bruce had something like this in mind originally, IIRC he referred to it as intended to do a "hi cube" boxcar also. We never traded plans (I don't recall, it's been a long time and the email is gone.) But as you point out, hi cube in comparison to what? Well, the 3000 series is really pretty low, maybe 6'6" inside, 7' max (just off the top of my head). These cars came out around 8' inside, around 12' overall outside. Heck, there's semis and containers that are bigger than that

It's the proportions that really count here, but I'll admit to no exact science when doing them the first time through. I just keep hacking until it looks right. And they are, for all their fine looks, not up to standard around here...naw, just kidding about that, but there's really nothing but a centerbeam and fabbed up bolster on a flat styrene floor. I would've thrown some brake cylinders under them to make it look right, but didn't really have 5 to finish it (180 does have one, though), so decided to just hold off...they still stop OK, and the FRA ain't going to inspect 'em

They're intended strictly as layout quality models. They fill a hole in my roster and look good doing it when operating. They don't detract from Blackstone and kit-built stuff. That's one reason why I did a bunch of test runs, etc with them to track down bugs. Still doing it a little but they run well. They're not perfect, every one is unique in fact, although the proportions once again worked in my favor here and they certainly have a family look.

I'll admit to no special skills, beyond soldering and tapping, which are pretty much the limits of my exotic techniques. I just like to build stuff and it's the process of building different things that you learn from. If I wasn't going to build anything much until I got good, then that would never happen. Model building is one place where you don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. There's always the next model if you flubbed up something and what you did do ends up being fairly presentable anyway when it's all said and done. This group of cars definitely refelcts that...

Oh, about that truck-swapping stuff, the Rio Grande didn't really do that except for some office cars and rotary plows early on. They did convert some old stock cars into idler cars during the pipe traffic of the 50s and 60s, but that was a permanent swap. There were the whole bacth of K-37 locos and theire tenders had standard gauge trucks with narrow wheel pressed inon the original long axles, so yes some cool stuff there. Plus the dual gauge idler cars.


You may be thinking more about the East Broad Top? where they did take cars back and forth to narrowgauge with the tranfer crane at Mount Union. Another place they did a lot of that was on the Newfoundland Railway, at Port Aux Basques (I think that's it, but close to the right spelling)up until the mid 80s when they shut it down (still kicking myself for missing out on that but it's a long drive, although actually trying to work a trip there into future travel plans.)

[riogrande]

Great looking models!