I have been very remiss in ignoring this blog. I can't promise to better as I seem to be already spending an inordinate amount of time at the PC and doing very little modeling. Almost nothing has changed on the layout. I can't promise much more for 2022.
This is the only freight car project in the last 3 months:
It took me 3 months to finish this SP&S 40' flat car. I found out the Tichy flatcar kit which cost me all of $8.50 was identical to the 50 AC&F cars SP&S purchased in 1924. I have always liked that railroad and lived in my youth in all the three cities of its name. I have 1960's memories of the SP&S ALCO FA and FB unit lashups crossing the Spokane river bridges and the tall viaduct over the dry valley southwest of Spokane.
I modified the kit to represent the early 1950's with AB brakes. I had Tichy Andrews trucks and was given some non-public good color photos of the cars from the 1960's when still in revenue service for lumber loads. The problem that led to the lengthy build time was finding decals for the model. Champ made a decal set for this specific car with 7 road names but did not include SP&S in road names (eastern/midwestern bias?) I tried using the Speedwitch SP&S boxcar set but the reporting marks were too large. I wound up buying a RR roman letters set from Microscale to piece it together but had to pay for $20 minimum order (3 sets of decals.) I finally did get from eBay the Champ Tichy flat car set but all the weight and other small lettering was in block gothic. I used it anyway as by that time I realized it was never going to be a contest quality model.
Interestingly the SP&S rated the car at 40 ton capacity rather than the 50 tons on the Champ decal set. I must have spent over $40 on decals for the $8.50 car.
The end result is not a closeup detail model but a 1 foot model. With Moloco .088 metal wheels and Kadee #158 couplers the weight is not too light. I am trying to adapt the Owl Mountain lumber load kits to this flat car. It looks like I will have to use the 9' wide lumber stacks rather than the smaller lumber as the Tichy flat car deck is a full 9 feet wide with no overhang unlike the OM SP F-50 flat car decks which are 8.5 feet wide but overhang the side sills.
I am back looking at the design of the Port Costa turntable pit and trying to figure out how to build it.
Thaaat's all folks....(remember Porky Pig at the end of Walter Lanz cartoons...)
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