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Post by tom on Oct 5, 2020 16:31:04 GMT -8
Since this is the Atlas Rescue Forum decided to show some photos of my Penn Central hopper car that started with an undecorated Atlas Trainman 9-panel hopper car. The car represents an ex-New Haven hopper as repainted by Penn Central.  The Trainman car is a well proportioned car that represents it's prototype pretty well but being a Trainman most of the details are molded on including the most obvious the grabirons. So all of the grabirons were removed and replaced with 0.0125" wire from Tichy. The weird Atlas trucks did not match the prototype so they were replaced with Tahoe's excellent 70-ton ASF trucks equipped with Intermountain near scale wheels. Truck replacement required changing the bolsters too. Finally the brakewheel was replaced with a Kadee brakewheel and the stirrups were replace with Tichy ones. The Tichy ones matched the prototype but still are kind of bulky.  Atlas does offer the model decorated for Penn Central and the it looks OK but because of the modifications that I made to the car I decided to paint and letter it myself. I painted it ModelFlex black and then lettered it with my own decals that I had printed years ago. I weathered the car using PanPastels and an airbrush but kept it to a minimum because it was a later repaint by PC. PC did not have many of these NH cars (at least compared to the rest of their fleet) but the redetailed car is another nice Penn Central hopper car. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 5, 2020 16:39:13 GMT -8
Yes, a nice lookin' job. Verry "railroady".
Good work,
Ed
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Post by fishbelly on Oct 5, 2020 16:47:08 GMT -8
I have found that even with molded on grabs, if you simply replace the side stringers at each corner with wire. It is a huge help.
Regardless of that, your model is a very fine looking piece of work.
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Post by grabirons on Oct 5, 2020 17:31:10 GMT -8
I always put my newest or favorite cars up front too. Nice work making that trainman car into a highly detailed model!!
This would make a good project for anyone looking to advance there skills by starting with a lower priced, yet good looking model.
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Post by gmpullman on Oct 5, 2020 18:04:36 GMT -8
Excellent modeling, Tom!
May I ask whose trucks you put under your car. The journal box lids are exceptionally well detailed.
Thanks, Ed
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Post by el3672 on Oct 5, 2020 22:58:39 GMT -8
Hit another one outta the park Tom!!! Fantastic work with the wire grab replacements.
Just like Bowser hoppers removing all the molded on stuff you need to remove is
all worth it in the end like the 100 ton behind it one day.
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Post by lvrr325 on Oct 6, 2020 0:16:09 GMT -8
Excellent modeling, Tom! May I ask whose trucks you put under your car. The journal box lids are exceptionally well detailed. Thanks, Ed He said they're by Tahoe. |
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Post by markfj on Oct 6, 2020 4:39:00 GMT -8
Nice work!
That detail work makes me wish that we would get hoppers in northeast road names from Tangent or Exactrail. It’s fun to detail up one car, but a lot of work for a fleet. Guess we will get the PC repaints for the H39 cars from Arrowhead, but when?
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Post by gmpullman on Oct 6, 2020 10:01:18 GMT -8
He said they're by Tahoe. Thank you. I see that now in the description. Missed it on the first go around. |
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Post by Paul Cutler III on Oct 6, 2020 10:41:50 GMT -8
FWIW, according to my Dec. 31, 1968 "Summary of Equipment", the New Haven contributed 538 of these hoppers to the PC, all built in 1953.
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Post by nsc39d8 on Oct 6, 2020 11:26:12 GMT -8
So Tom inspired me several months ago with some PC equipment and I had wanted to add a few to my roster. Here is one of my PC hoppers that got added to the fleet. Bowser 100 ton hopper painted with Tru-Color black with K4 decals.  Thanks for the inspiration Tom! |
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Post by tom on Oct 6, 2020 15:28:25 GMT -8
Excellent modeling, Tom! May I ask whose trucks you put under your car. The journal box lids are exceptionally well detailed. Thanks, Ed Thanks. Tahoe trucks really improve the model and a little gloss black on the journal lids help too! Glad to see others modeling PC too. |
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Post by slowfreight on Oct 7, 2020 10:23:22 GMT -8
It's hard to model and *not* model PC. I have a few done, and a few in the queue.
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Post by unittrain on Oct 7, 2020 14:36:56 GMT -8
I'm currently building a layout that will have some early PC and early Conrail. I got some undecorated Bowser 100 ton hoppers to do in the PC large worms scheme.
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Post by tom on Oct 11, 2020 3:31:31 GMT -8
After completing the Atlas car I finished weathering another car detailed, painted and lettered in the same manner. This time I started with a Bowser (Stewart) 14-panel undec car to represent an ex-NYC hopper car repainted for Penn Central. Not bad for a car with ~30 year old tooling.  Another shot.  The F-unit in the first shot is a Highliner shell on a Stewart F-unit mechanism. |
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Post by Paul Cutler III on Oct 11, 2020 6:52:45 GMT -8
slowfreight, It's actually very easy to "not model" the PC, the biggest failure in American business history (until Enron). You just don't do it.  |
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Post by csxt8400 on Oct 11, 2020 15:14:48 GMT -8
slowfreight, It's actually very easy to "not model" the PC, the biggest failure in American business history (until Enron). You just don't do it. The PC had SD40's and SD45's. You certainly do do it! |
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rs11
Junior Member
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Post by rs11 on Oct 11, 2020 18:54:51 GMT -8
Beautiful work on the hoppers.
I have always been very conflicted regarding Penn Central. I had friends who hated it (dead and gone now). To this day, if I have a nice PC freight car from Tangent or ER, I eventually feel guilty for having it and then sell it. It's taken me a lifetime to get to where I can say I actually want a PC H39, or 86' box car, or an X72.
One of my friends also said, and I can still hear his voice: "I like Erie and Lackawanna, but I can't like Erie Lackawanna"...
Thanks to recent books I can finally appreciate Conrail's Rainbow Era. I'm trying to remember it wasn't the equipment's fault, but the greed on the part of grossly incompetent senior management who only wanted the golden handshake. So I shouldn't hate the equipment.
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