Photos of my Penn Central 40" Boxcar

[tom]

Time again for a couple of photos of a recent modeling project. Once again I started with a Branchline boxcar kit and this time the end result is a Penn Central 40' boxcar:



The car represents a Penn Central X43F boxcar. PC rebuilt these cars from old NYC boxcars with a strengthened sidesill and some patching of the sides.



I modeled the car using a Branchline boxcar kit with a 6' wide door. I added a new sidesill plus a shortened Moloco 50' roof. The ladders were cut down and the brake wheel was moved to a lower position.



Finally the car was painted with PCRRHS PC green paint and the roof was painted a silver/gray. The car was then decaled with a mix of decals including Microscale, Jim Homoki numbers, Highball Graphics ACI plates and finally my own PC 36" high logos. The car was then weathered using water color pencils and an airbrush.

This old, somewhat beat up car, with a narrow 6" wide door contrasts with the more modern cars seen in 1975.

[Deleted]

Excellent work and photography

[buffalobill]

Tom: Super job- love the patching and weathering effect. Another winner.
Bill

[redp]

Very nice.
P

[Spikre]

Tom,
that car is too nice for any PC cars except just shopped cars.,or cars just delivered from Builders or Lessees'.
intresting that the PRR Class system survived.
what are You working on next ?
Spikre

[nw611]

Very nice job, Tom. I noticed that the rebuilding date is "73-2-71" on one side and "73-71" on the other. Ciao. Raffaele

[marknycfan]

Well done Tom, what's the water color pencil weathing trick?

[riogrande]

Wow, it holds up well against the real thing! It looks like it could be O scale!

Simply gorgeous

[drolsen]

Beautiful work, Tom! How did you do the patches? Looks almost like tape or something - appears to be too thin for styrene or other "traditional" materials.

Dave

[tom]

Dec 12, 2012 16:45:36 GMT -8 marknycfan said:

Well done Tom, what's the water color pencil weathing trick?

No real trick as I found these water color pencils at at a craft store. They come in a lot of useful colors and are soft so they go on the car nicely. They are water soluable so you can make interesting effects by slightly dampening your finger and smearing the colors some. This also makes it easy to remove your mistakes.

[tom]

Dec 12, 2012 18:54:21 GMT -8 drolsen said:

Beautiful work, Tom! How did you do the patches? Looks almost like tape or something - appears to be too thin for styrene or other "traditional" materials.

Dave

I just used thin styrene (0.005") for these patches.

[BEDT26]

Beautifully done! A++++++

[antoniofp45]

Excellent work! I saw a number of the prototypes back in the 70s as PC freight cars were a very common sight in Florida. From what I remember, 40ft sliding door boxcars started disappearing in large numbers by the late 70s. Plug door versions soldiered on for a while longer.