Naperville Door Prize Project: 1 Missouri Pacific 1942 ACF 40-foot boxcar (2005 Naperville Gift)

One of the neat things about the Naperville Prototype Modelers meet were the "door prizes" provided every year by Sunshine Models (the company that founded and sponsored the meet).

Most of these consisted of a small sheet of resin parts (doors, ends, sills, sides, etc . . . ), a short instruction sheet, and decals if appropriate to convert a "stock" plastic kit into a different prototype. Most were boxcars, although there was a couple of hopper car conversions and even a complete CB&Q flatcar. In other years, it was a load of some type. One year we even got a set of coupler boxes and draft gear. 

I started building some of these when before we moved into this house, and put them aside when I started building the layout. Now, with the layout up and running I've been getting these "half done" projects off the "in progress" shelf and onto the layout. 

Missouri Pacific 1942 ACF 40-foot boxcar

2005 Naperville Gift

Here's a picture of the first of these door prize cars I built - a Missouri Pacific 40-foot, 10'-6" height boxcar. The basic car is an Intermountain Modified AAR boxcar kit - the Sunshine modification kit includes new doors, ends, and new sidesills. Here's some views of the car after I finished construction and before painting. 

I used very little of the "stock" Intermountain car for this project. I replaced the Intermountain underbody details with Detail Associates parts and wire piping - my rule for piping is "if it interferes with tracking, or can't be readily seen with the car on the track - leave it off." I bent my rule a little bit on this model, and added some additional piping from the triple valve that frankly, is invisible unless you flip the car over! I also replaced the Intermountain roof with a Red Caboose Murphy rectangular panel roof since I think the panels on the Red Caboose roof look better than the stock Intermountain part.  

Some of the other aftermarket parts can be seen in this view of the brake end. These include:

A-Line
Stirrup steps (these always outlast the styrene or Delrin ones!)
Plano:
Running board and brake platform - Plano
Kadee
Brake wheel
couplers
Detail Associates
Brake housing
Uncoupling levers
AB-brake set
Tack boards
Bracket grabs
Ladders
Grandt Line
Release valve
Intermountain
Body
Underframe
33" semi-scale wheelsets
Red Caboose
Murphy Rectangular Panel roof


The addition of the side sill was the trickiest part of this conversion. I glued it along the length of the Intermountain body (after removing the "tabs") but such a long butt joint was difficult to keep even. I need to do this same type of alteration with another of these conversions - I think I'll add a strip of styrene to the inside of the Intermountain sill that extends down enough to permit a gluing surface.
While not really "weathering" I added a painted over reweigh date that fits the era of my model railroad - often these patches didn't match the color of the car - they were also usually rolled on with little regard for making them square or too neat. I also added some chalk marks - these were done with Sunshine decals.

This one has been on the "in progress" shelf for a while. You might recall I had an issue with the clear acrylic finish (Testors) I used on this model - it dried streaky and white. I overcame that by applying a coat of Future floor polish. I blogged about that in this post. I followed that up this past week with some Tru-Color Flat finish. 

The car is ready for final weathering. But that will have to wait until next week.