Tanks for the Memories (Part 4)

Problem signing into this site. Hope Google is not purging me....

Anyway, I have finally finished (I think) Milwaukee Road flatcar MILW 650008, the 50 foot, 1941 rebuild of a 1929 flatcar to carry World War 2 military equipment and still in use in July 1951 as part of a shipment of M46 tanks from the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant to the US Army pier at Oakland California.

This has been a long slog starting in March when I first saw the photo of M47 tanks being loaded at the Arsenal onto MILW 650007. I had an Athearn 50 blue box flatcar purchased probably in 1970's for a layout at my old house in San Francisco. The Athearn 50 foot flat car seems to be scarce as I have not found any others at local auctions and places that specialize in used trains. 

I have had the help of 3 individuals on this project:

• Eric Burg who cut or provided HO scale 4x8 lumber for the deck.
• Robert Kirkham who responded to my plea for the 11 inch height stake pockets that figured prominently on the car sides and designed the STL file to print the pockets
• Jonathan Sauer who kindly printed the stake pockets and helped with minor adjustments to make fit exactly on the flatcar sides.
• Someone who's name I have lost who provided the Milwaukee Railroad car diagram for the 650001-137 flatcars with the correct stake pocket spacing. 

Anyway, this ends my initial fleet of cars for the Tanks for the Memories shipment. I  have some chocks, cleats and other braces to work on to accurately model the way the cars were shipped.

If I return to this project next year, I hope to bash a 46 foot Rock Island flatcar or 2 that was used in the US Army M46 manual to illustrate the factory to port or depot method of bracing. This will also entail new M46 tanks from the Miniature Tank Company that I can drill out the 2 tank recovery towing hitches on each end of the cars to replicate the steel rods that held the tank car in place. My layout is very small and I usually try to limit freight cars to 40 to 50 foot lengths. I can only accommodate a maximum of 4 40 foot cars on each of my staging yard 4 tracks and the stretch of the eastbound mainline on the staging yard extension. 

My next project for Little Port Costa is the long delayed large Port Costa section house build to replace a stand-in illustration board building. The paper windows on the stand-in are beginning to annoy me. The station stand-in in the same layout area was built with Tichy windows that will eventually be used on the final structure. 

Til we blog again....if Google allows...

Recent Port Costa-Layout Improvements and Rolling Stock Projects

August has come and gone...and I am still in enforced hibernation with no end in sight before 2021. But I have been puttering about on the layout and other projects. 

The landscape of the layout is still somewhat impressionistic/surreal rather than realistic. But for the time I am content with that. Since the discovery of the inexpensive colored 2 mm thick foam sheet material at Michael's I have been working on what the shape and texture of this miniature world.   

I have completed one freight car project, a Proto 2K ACF Type 21 8,000 gal. tank car for SCCX leasing with the Shell herald. The Shell refinery in Martinez was one of the major destinations for tank cars passing through the Port Costa yard. The refinery was sold to Marathon Oil (26 mpg?) and is now in the process of shutting down permanently as demand for petroleum products falls due to many factors.  It needs weathering as does much of my recent tank car fleet. The three SP O-50-13's I am building are still in the paused projects pile along with the Tangent GA 1917 8,000 tank car kit build. Oil was king in the early 1950's and my personal perspectives do not hamper modeling it. 

Another August project nearly completed is the final Port Costa freight house. The mockup has been reused as the water treatment building between the large section house and the huge water tank on the hill.  I originally thought this was only 30' in length but when I received the 1930 SP Port Costa relocation plan drawing, I realized it was a full 41' in length. I rebuilt an extended model and constructed a shingle roof. The only structural component missing is the finial which I am still agonizing about.  I decided to paint the structure and tried Vallejo Model Color 70.976 Buff (I like the Spanish name "Amarillo Caqui") as an adequate shade of Colonial Yellow for my sight. As I would lighten any version of Colonial yellow to look better under indoor lighting conditions and as most color photo's show it tended to lighten under the harsh California sun, this works for me. Also it worked straight from the bottle without any mixing. This was hand brushed and showed that this self-leveling paint again produces a finish as good as an air brush. Besides, the SP brushed on their paint. 

Similarly for the SP Light Brown Trim I used Vallejo Marron Claro 70.929 (Light Brown) again straight from the bottle.  For first version of the paint I painted all the vertical trim pieces in light brown. But a little further research and discovery of an SP 1950's painting standard that specified limited trim was to be painted made me question whether all that trim was brown. I checked and found a 1948 dated picture of the Port Costa station building that showed by then vertical trim was already painted Colonial Yellow.I therefore repainted all the trim into Colonial yellow. This also covered up a lot of wobbly brush lines on trim pieces.  

This is the Contra Costa County Historical Society photo of the freight house platform. Note the problematic tall finial at the end of the roof. 

Notice how the color of light brown doors shifts depending on whether it is seen in sun or shade in this picture.  I have a bunch of oil barrels waiting to finish this scene. Now all I need is the slightly rusty 1936 Dodge 4 door sedan to park in front of the rear freight door as shown in my CCCHS main reference photo. Unfortunately Sylvan does not make this exact model. It may have to be a 1935 Plymouth sedan.

You will notice in the background of the layout picture above two of my other August projects. I have built a mockup of the iconic Port Costa roundhouse based on the Banta Model Works kit that I have yet to build.  It still needs to be painted barn red with black trim and roof and have photocopies of the windows added.  The Banta kit is a bit intimidating and I didn't want go much longer without the other principal structure of the layout.  I have some clearance problems for engines entering the roundhouse to resolve.

When I started the roundhouse mockup I used the dimensions on the photocopies of drawings by Herman Darr kindly provided by Ron Plies when I started this project.  The drawings showed the length of the roundhouse as 75 feet whereas the Banta model is 80 feet.  I have no way of knowing which is really correct.  I went with the Banta dimensions as modifying the kit would be a nightmare and life is too short.

This 1948 picture down Port Costa Main Street of an M-6 at the side of the roundhouse got me thinking about the two IHC M-4 engines I acquired a few years back for $19.98 each. Note the large  90-R-7 tender behind the M-6. My layout view omits Main Street so I don't have to spend a fortune buying and a lifetime building all the automobiles in the picture. If you visit Port Costa all the buildings lining Main Street in the picture are still there.

One the IHC Moguls is in pieces at the moment but the other was still intact but currently inoperable as it requires DCC decoder installation.  I have not yet decided on a number but did a little repainting and it is now poised on one of the garden tracks.

The model came with a 70-R-? tender that I am rebuilding. As an alternative I found a Bachmann switcher Vanderbilt tender that may be a close stand-in to a 70-C tender.  The 70-R-? tender rebuild may wait for an Owl Mountain 3 D printed oil bunker for 90-R-7 tender conversions.  Also that grossly oversize headlight on the locomotive will have to go and the boiler front rebuilt.  This engine will only get a temporary non-sound DCC decoder as it will probably be the test bed for the LocoFi steam WiFi receiver when it becomes available.  I may re-motor the other IHC Mogul that is in pieces before it joins my plastic SP steam stud. 

Other projects are afoot as well. The mockup for the Section House and other buildings on the hill behind the station need more work as does the terrain of the area.  I have a tree kit to further forest the area.  After painting the freight house. I  need to paint the sand house in barn red with black trim and roof and make better stand-in mockups for smaller buildings. I also need to work on the unique water crane to accompany the oil crane on the engine service track....and then there is the water tank, ballasting more trackwork and the turntable... so much to do.

Photo's in this blog have been reduced in size to help anyone with low bandwidth read the blog. Clicking on the photo will show the full size. 

Tanks for the Memories - Part 2

There isn't much about my recent tank car craze.  I had prepared two bodies with the heightened domes and started work on the handrails. I have a third Athearn car awaiting surgery.  

I had to wait for an eBay order of PSC stanchions to arrive. When the brass stanchions arrived, I then found them very difficult to drill out for #15 wire. I have the sides of one tank finished but have not been able to get the end stanchions correct to my satisfaction.  I have small hypodermic tube on hand so I am using the method of separate end handrails which is easier. 3 of the 4 end stanchions broke rather than respond to my at best mediocre skills in drilling them with # 79 drill bits. And I broke 3 drill bits in the process.

I have been somewhat discouraged and turned to other projects of which I have about 50 before returning to the tank cars. 

In this time of lock down due to the pandemic all I can say is in this gif sent to me by my friend Eric:

Tanks for the Memories - Part 1

Yesterday (2/19/20) afternoon during my weekly visit to my local hobby shop (LHS) Just Trains in Concord, California, I spotted the on the used and abused consignment shelves the HO upper tank casting of an Athearn single dome tank car for $1.00. On another shelf was a very old Blue Box #1501, the triple dome tank car.  Assembled but complete. I had been thinking about kitbashing the SP O-50-13 just recently when I dug out all my tank cars and found my one Athearn single dome tank. So here was the kitbashing opportunity to actually build a Tony Thompson conversion to the common SP 12,500 gallon class O-50-13 car. 

I dove right into it carving a dome off the 3 dome and following TT's instructions documented in his Modeling the SP blog and the SPH&TS Trainline #71 article ran into the first problem of not having done this before. It took a the rest of the afternoon before I gave up trying to get a smooth join for the dome top from the 3-dome car attached and blended with a smooth joint onto the single dome casting.  I tried 4 times to get a smooth invisible joint using Tamiya putty for plastic. Each time I let it dry, sanded it and then shot it with Tamiya grey primer. I let that dry and then tried again to get a smooth invisible joint with more putty and sanding. Then spraying and starting over again. 

Today after shopping errands I started at it again. This time I dug out an old tube of Squadron Green putty and went over the dome joint line. After it dried I used a xacto blade to shave off as much putty as I could and sanded again. I use some ACE hardware 600 and 1000 grit paper to try and smooth is as much as possible and then shoot it again with the grey primer. 

Well this time the results look a bit better.  I have however lost any rivet detail that was on the Athearn casting.  I have some Archer resin rivet head sets on hand  including the Offset Tank Car double row rivets set to repair as needed. I also have a collection of Tichy tank car detail parts to use as well. 

These photos shows my progress on this project, the donor 3 dome and my existing Athearn SP tank car with the incorrect dome. Once I am done with this one the donor will give up another dome for conversion of the existing SP car and then I will try to find one more complete Athearn kit. 3 SP 12,500 gallon tank cars will be enough to fit in with all the smaller tank cars used to service the Martinez area refineries.

A lot more to do. Frame and brake modifications and then I still have to find black late 1940's style tank car decals, do all the railings and grabs. 

How old was the donor 3 dome car? The ladder was a metal stamping.

Answer to "Is Rolling stock prototype accuracy relevant to you?"

This was a response to a topic titled " Is Rolling stock prototype accuracy relevant to you?" in the MRH forum.

The concept of  accuracy has changed for me over time. I used to buy anything that was labeled SP or UP or PFE without much care for accuracy. But this cycle in my modeling (each cycle seems to last about 10 years) I have caught the reasonable accuracy bug. I don't expect any RTR manufacturer to be 100% accurate. These days if I need the specific item to support my layout concept and equipment collection and can get within 90-95%, it is usually good enough for mass produced items. I also have to balance affordability with my desire for accuracy. And I sort of love the challenge of tinkering and the additional work to create a 95-99% accurate model. 

Understand that I like building models more than any other aspect of the hobby. My a-building layout will be more of an accurate if compressed diorama where I can display, photograph and occasionally run the models I build.  A little bit of switching now and then is always enjoyable. It's just I hate wiring with a passion.

I love the new trends in resin and plastic kits towards higher standards of accuracy. Historical societies (SP, NP, UP and others)  have sponsored special runs of items that are closer than anything mass produced. Resin kits such as from Yarmouth,  Resin Car Works and Westerfield have enabled a higher degree of accuracy but at a fairly high cost.  (If I compare the cost of the recent Rapido NP boxcar to a resin kit and factor in the additional materials I and time I contribute the RTR is much cheaper.)  Owl Mountain and similar small manufacturers have achieved incredible results by making plastic kits with great attention to replicating accurate detail. 

And recently I received a highly accurate South Eastern and Chatham Railway 10 ton RTR OO scale van (small box car) from the UK that had been semi-mass produced through an new 3D printing process that enabled a run of 800 items at a reasonable cost. Hopefully this technology will come to the US and find a mechanism to organize, fund the building and distribution of RTR or kit for the rarer or railroad specific items mass manufacturers would shun or promise and never deliver. Clubs  and historical societies doing a go fund me sort of project might work.

The quest for accuracy goes beyond rolling stock. Structures and the civil engineering of the track and operating fixtures needed for service of steam and diesel locomotives and maintenance of way need just as much effort as my PFE car collection. Right now I am trying to build the 70 foot manually operated shallow pit turntable that is the central object in the small layout's scene. I will have to organize more detailed searches in archives and photo collections to start in the new year. I have gone through any number of Tichy windows to get the closest size match for the freight and operations office/station (there is no scheduled stopping passenger service in the period I model). Freight house doors I have to build from scratch. I am fortunate that there is an accurate laser cut kit for the "roundhouse" or engine shed that I have purchased to build.

I fully realize there are those who do not share my passion. There are Lionel operators and prototype operators and those who like the fanciful and mythical. I occasionally go a bit mythical to justify equipment that would not have appeared in the time frame of my modeling. For others the 3 foot rule is good enough. I love prototyping structures for my layout made from paper board as fill ins until I can build the accurate model. 

US Navy Box Car from Port Chicago

I started this box car in February 2018 and have only just got it to the stage where it can be displayed.

The car was originally Denver and Rio Grande #63383 and exists today at the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista California. In 1944 the Rio Grande sold it to the US Navy as one of the replacements for wood box cars destroyed in the monstrous July 17, 1944 explosion of ammunition ships and stores being loaded at the Port Chicago California naval transportation facility. It remained in use to transfer munitions between warehouses and ships from 1944 to 1971 when it was donated to the Western Railway museum along with another 36 foot box car. The museum repainted it into Rio Grande box car red. I was able to visit the train shed it was stored in and take a few phone camera snaps. 

An article about the Rio Grande 36 foot box cars and modeling them using the Accurail 1400 series box cars in the Rio Grande Modeling and Historical Society Prospector quarterly magazine got me started. Grab irons were replaced with 24" grabs (Tichy) and new end beams made from U shape channel. The stirrup/sidebeam steps are Grandt Line Narrow gauge steps and may be too short for a standard gauge car, but they look right.  The under frame was modified so the beams correctly align with the doors. It took a while but I located US Navy transfers from Clover house to match the car. Unfortunately they did not go on completely on the side of the car I am not showing.  I am thinking about copying the Clover House transfers to decal paper to do a second car. 

The cars were all Navy off white color when delivered to the WRM according to the slide I located on the WRM website.  As far as I know they were in this color in 1948-54 which is my target period. The underside of 63383 is still an off white or very very light grey (and the K brake cylinder still lettered for a USN 1971 brake test.)   I used spray can Tamiya White Primer to cover the boxcar red of the Accurail undecorated body and as the base color which covered completely after 2 coats. I then brushed an overcoat of Tamiya acrylic paint with 5 parts white mixed with 1 part light sky grey thinned with 1 part Tamiya acrylic thinner. I left it a bit streaky. 

My research indicates the Navy non sea-going asset equipment numbering system (61-00202) dates from 1948.
 
I became very interested in these box cars and their story. My shunting yard used for testing models and pictures is in theory the SP Avon Contra Costa yard where the San Ramon branch left the San Joaquin line to go south.  Avon yard is only 1 mile west of the Port Chicago/Concord Navel Weapons station interchange trackage. And I live 10 miles south in Walnut Creek where the July 17, 1944 explosion which completely destroyed two loading cargo ships and killed 332 people was heard. Although unlikely, I theorize the unloaded car was occasionally seen at Avon yard as a buffer car for switching explosive cargo to the Navy trackage. 

More on SP Freight Car Red from a Rattle Spray Can Update

I was testing the camera on an new Samsung S8 phone and I uploaded it and thought it might illustrate more of the benefit of Tamiya Oxide Red Primer as a base for SP Freight Car Red. The rattle can red goes on smooth with no buildup. It requires almost no cleanup beyond wiping the spray cap with IPA. 

This is a Westerfield SP B-50-15 resin kit that is at about a 98% completion level. I need to add the 4" car number to the ends. The Westerfield decal just wouldn't bend into the curve between the two top ribs. I have other options coming that I may try. 

The Carmer uncoupling levers and brake line details also need to be added.  I have been playing with building it just too long. 

Just peeking out behind the B-50-15 is a Tichy B-50-12, the stock USRA box car kit that was shown in my first post on finding the Tamiya Oxide Red Primer a good close enough substitute for SP Freight Car Red. PBL Star Brand STP-30.  What I did to that car and will do to the B-50-15 is brush paint a thinned wash of Vallejo Model Color 70.871 Leather Brown over the car body after decaling. I wiped the acrylic from the decal lettering surfaces with a Vallejo thinner moistened microbrush before it dried.  This added a browner aspect to the Tamiya primer that to me approximated SP Freight Car Red even closer. If and when I finish the remaining decals and details on the B-50-15, I will try the brown wash on it too.

I have to work on photography with the Samsung S8 a bit.

More on SP Freight Car Red from a Rattle Spray Can

This is the latest result with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red spray can  which I have decided for me is a good spray can substitute for PBL Star Brand #30 SP/UP Freight Car Red since I no longer wish to use an airbrush.    The Tichy kit has been a test bed for paint and some things I had not gotten right before.  I am working very slowly on  a Westerfield resin B-50-15 and needed some practice

I have just completed decaling the sides. Unfortunately there is not good match in decals for an SP B-50-12 so I had to use a Microscale 87-911 sheet which does not have correct original build dates. The car still needs a bit of work on the virtical brake and underframe before spraying a flat/lusterless coating and then final release to the active fleet. I will consider weathering as my layout setting is 1947-54 and this car would last have been painted in the late 1930's. In 1949 any roadworthy B-50-12's were rebuilt by the SP with steel sides and new ends. I went through at least 4 #79 drills getting all the holes drilled for the Tichy wire drop style grab irons. I also experimented with Grandt Line NBW's to complete the grab irons. The roof walk end supports are bent pieces of brass as the thick plastic Tichy ones didn't look right.

Anyway, I was really pleased with the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red but worried about a touch up color until today when I matched Vallejo Model Color 70.982 Cavalry Brown as an excellent brush paint touch up match within a few angstrom wavelengths of the Tamiya Red Oxide primer. 

More on SP Rattle Can Box Car/Freight Car Red

I still have one more Box Car Red rattle can to try. Unfortunately the Scalecoat II Oxide Red Primer can I have on special order has not yet arrived at my local hobby shop.  It probably has to come ground freight from the east coast to California so it may take a while.

In the meantime I have what I think may be the winner already.  The color I am aiming for is the SP Freight Car Red used by both PFE and SP. There are two measures of "closeness" to this color I am using. The first sample is a comparison with on page 419 of Tony Thompson's massive PFE book (2nd Ed.) where there is a drift sample reproduced as accurately as possible for printing.   The other is PBL' s Star Brand SP/UP Freight Car Red which I have airbrushed in the past on a model I use for comparison.  There is a long discussion of SP paint colors at http://modelingthesp.com/Prototype_Equipment/S.P._Paint.html. 

And the winner is Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red, Item # 87160-800. Again it is not quite an exact match but given all the variables it is close enough for my personal Rule 1. (This was not a scientific method study.)

PFE Book Drift and Tamiya Oxide Red Primer

PBL Star Brand SP/UP Freight Car Red and Tamiya Oxide Red Primer (the B-50-25 from an Andy Carlson/IM kit was air brushed with the SB paint when I could still use an airbrush)

And the Tamiya Surface Primer can go on in one coat. It is fine enough that I think a second would still not obscure details

Again your rattle can painting results may not be the same as mine. But I think I may have solved my rattle can source to replace an air brush problem. For the one or two cars a month I might paint FCR it will do even on expensive resin kits. And I only have to clean the spray cap in a very small bottle of Tamiya thinner after spraying.

I plan to show the full comparison of colors I tried when the Scalecoat II primer arrives. I still haven't tried the Preval sprayer. I may try it with some Vallejo Air acrylic "rust" sold as BCR by Micro Mark that I bought a couple of years ago.

I plan to try the Tamiya primer on a less expensive kit than the Westerfield B-50-15 I am building. 

I will also have to search for a rattle can solution for "daylight" orange used on PFE car sides and the SP dark olive for arch roof and heavyweight passenger equipment.

October 2025 Postscript: It appears that Tamiya either no longer makes the Oxide Surface Primer or it is no longer available in the US. It was not in the Tamiya product list last I checked. 

A little flat note

My two Owl Mountain F-50-10/12 kits are now in the projects drawer for 2018 builds. Unfortunately I tripped on a parking lot berm and fell breaking bones in my left wrist and hand and they are now in a cast for the next few weeks. The week prior to my accident I had undertaken the rebuild of an IM foobie of an SP F-50-16 that arrived from IM at my LHS on a 4-5 year backorder that I and the LHS had long forgotten. 

1. New deck from thin scribbed plastic as I could not get IM deck off without damaging rest of car. This required small strips of the scribbed plastic sheet be cut and glued to the underside along the edges to 
simulate thick deck planks. The stake pockets were respaced to closer match an F-50-16. The deck was painted with a variety of Vallejo Model Color greys to represent treated but not creosoted wood exposed to the steam era environment for several years but not heavily deteriorated.

2. Removed the tiny IM stake pockets which were not strongly attached and replaced with slightly larger Tichy stake pockets spaced to match the new deck.

3. Replaced IM virtical brake gear and wheel with larger Tichy parts. Brake wheel needed longer shaft cut from brass wire to match F-50-16 photos. Still looking for larger brake wheel. I have not replaced the incorrect K type brake layout as not visible from normal viewing angle. I don't model for contests 

4. Replaced stirrup steps with Tichy plastic angled inside steps to closer match an F-50-16. These appear to be larger than I would like but I did not have enough A Line stirrup steps in my parts stock at home,  late on a Sunday night. 

5. The IM car was painted in a shade of purple brown I would use for UK Southern Railway goods wagons but not any of my SP equipment. But the IM lettering appeared close to correct for a late 1949 F-50-16. I brush painted Vallejo 70.846 Mahogany Brown thinned with 71.061 Airbrush Thinner over the fish-belly car sides and ends. Before the paint dried I used a small micro brush whetted with the thinner to almost completely  remove as much of the brown paint as possible. It took two applications of the brown with at least an hour of drying time to adequately give the sides and ends a reddish brown tint. 

A little later note:

The first of the F-50-12's have been completed:

New Workbench Tools and PFE R-40-14

I had wanted a small glass plate for cutting and assembly but couldn't find anything at craft or art supply stores and the only hardware building supply stores that sell retail in the I-680 corridor appear to be the big box stores. Fortunately I ran across very flat surface glass tiles on Amazon and for $19.95 purchased a box of 5. The only way they come.  The tiles are 3 " x 3" and appear to have a very flat surface.  Also on the right is a mouse wrist rest that I use to steady my shaky hand for cutting and detail painting.

This is my workbench showing the new tiles and my current project a PFE R-40-14 ice car.

The R-40-14 is a rebuild of an Athearn blue box 40' steel ice car. I managed to find a package of the long discontinued Details West W Post (rounded) 4-4 dreadnought ends. for this project. Ladders are Tichy Reefer ladders. Hand grabs are Kadee.  Ice hatches are the Details West Equipco hatches that are also hard to find. The trucks are just Tichy Bettendorfs with metal wheel sets. Kadee 158 couplers have been mounted.

I didn't get too far with underframe detailing.  I had closely been checking Dick Harley's detail photos of a PFE R-40-23 specifically the placement of the train line, air reservoir, brake cylinder and triple valve. This is different from most diagrams that come with HO AB sets. I used the Athearn underframe with the coupler boxes cut off and a thin fake floor cut from Evergreen scribbed plastic sheet. The brake parts are from a Details West AB set. The Athearn steel weight was mounted inside the car with canopy cement and a pair of heavy styrene strips to keep it in place.

I started to airbrush with Star Brand Daylight Orange. But my airbrush clogged 3 times on that paint and I finally concluded it was no longer a good bottle. So I fell back on my earlier experiment with hand brushing Vallejo Model Color using a mix of three drops 70.911 Light Orange and 1 drop 70.927 Dark Flesh. It took several coats as I had primed the body with a Tamiya light grey. I was careful not to build up any thickness around details.  After that it was clear coated for decals.

I started to decal with a newer Microscale 87-414 but found it difficult to get the right build and repack data from that sheet and an 87-501 sheet for a 1941 built R-40-14 still with the black iron parts and single herald medallions in 1950-53. Then after finishing one side, I discovered Ted Culotta at Speedwich Media has issued a set just for the R-40-15. Last Thursday (7/13/17) I ordered a two sets and am anxiously awaiting a packet in the mail so I can complete the decaling.

I should probably take a break from my PFE reefer madness again after this car.  My Intermountain pre-orders for R-40-23's have been delayed until 4th quarter. Red Caboose pre-orders for R-30-xx wood ice cars are now in the unknown. eBay prices are sensitive to this and are going up accordingly.

And I have an old Silver Streak wood Bay Window 1953 rebuild that was stuck together with Walther's goo back in the 1970's and has been de-kitted. I will have to build new plastic sides from scribbed sheet and an new roof, floor and underframe. Only the cast bay windows and caboose ends will actually be reused. Rebuilding costs are so extensive they will have to be charged to the capital accounts rather than expended. (Old accountants think about these things.)

This is the final result of the R-40-14 rebuild. Photo resolution was not good this time.  I used Ted Culotta's Speedwich decal set for the R-40-14 on the UP side. I found these were available after I had already done the SP side from the Microscale 87-414 set The PFE orange is a little light this time but with the remembered range of colors depending on the light. 
I won't be able to do any more R-40-14's as I have no more of the old Details West 4+4 rib castings with W post rounded corners. I have some R-40-10 end castings that I may be able to sand a little to look like a W end post which would allow another R-40-14 bash from an Athearn reefer.

Ken Adams

Orange is the new Box Car Red

I have been experimenting with alternative paints for PFE Orange. I have an air brush but have a lot of constraints in using it as I live in a townhouse built on a slab and can only paint in my garage on low humidity days when I can find a parking spot for my car (the renters in the complex hog all the visitor spots.) I like to kitbash old cars I bought in the 1980's so these are not necessarily the finest most exact prototype renditions of the PFE class cars close but no cigars awarded. Also, steps have not been added yet as there are further modifications to each car to be made.

I have used three different paints in this exercise:

Air Brushed PBL Star Brand Daylight Orange.
Air Brushed True Color Daylight Orange.
Hand Brushed Vallejo Model Color 70.911 Light Orange with one drop of 70.910 Orange Red to 4 70.911

The results are:

PBL Star Brand Daylight Orange air brushed. Tichy R-40-2 kit built as R-30-16 rebuild. Built up underframe but I am working on a Bettendorf version. 1948-1950 paint scheme. Yes I know the roof is wrong.

PBL Star Brand Daylight Orange air brushed. Athearn Wood sided kit with scratch wood ends and modified body. 1948-1950 paint scheme. 

True Color Daylight Orange air brushed. Train Miniature wood sided kit with scratch wood ends and modified body on Tichy built up underframe. 1950 paint scheme. 

Vallejo Model Color Light Orange hand brushed. Athearn Wood sided kit with scratch wood ends and modified body. I was experimenting with Tichy WP PFE decal set on this car. Came out OK. This car needs black paint on the hinges, ladders and grab irons as it represents an early 1940's rebuild.

The True Color Daylight Orange is the closest match to the color Intermountain/Red Caboose use on their PFE cars. But it seems a little too much of a tangerine shade when compared to the color samples in Thompson's PFE book 2nd edition and the new Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society SP Freight Car Painting and Lettering Guide.

All four cars together for a comparison:

The PBL Star Brand seems a little to dark. It can pass as a car with at least one trip to the east coast without being washed on return to California.

The Vallejo Model Color was a surprise. It took three thin coats to cover the original yellow car paint but it went on with no trace of brush strokes and excellent coverage of details. It is a viable option when I can't set up the airbrush particularly in winter when the humidity is over 60% in the garage.

More to come likely. Particularly about R-40-23 kitbashes from Athearn steel reefers that are 30-40 years old. Athearn 3+4 dreadnought ends replaced with correct 3+3 ends and equipment lettering corrected to 1946-52 various versions. 

Note the strange looking station and signal box (tower) for California in the background. I only have one layout at the moment and it represents Padstow, Cornwall in England. A mini layout based on a Tichy PFE icing platform is at the planning stage.