Wordless Wednesday #280

 

L&N Rebuilt Boxcar

Yet another half started freight car project that I've dug out of the box and completed. This is a Sunshine Models L&N rebuilt boxcar with Murphy ends, Sunshine Kit #64.11. I likely replaced the bracket grabs, ladder, and brake wheel that came in the kit with other after market parts. I did use some bits and pieces of Speedwitch's L&N boxcar decals (which are not specifically made for this car) to complement the kit decals. The carman's chalk marks are a combination of various Sunshine decals. It obviously still needs a little running weathering. That's the basic description of thing, but there's really a little more background to why I built this particular car. 

Back when Sunshine Models hosted the Naperville RPM meets, Martin Lofton, the owner of Sunshine Models, often asked me to do an ongoing hands-on display showing people how to build these resin cars.. One "perk" for doing this was I'd often get early access to the coveted Sunshine "sale room" room before it opened for the other attendees. In this case he'd sent me the kit before the meet so I could get some of the basic assembly work done beforehand. I'm not sure I would have chosen this car on my own, since I haven't seen an L&N boxcar, let alone a pre war rebuild, in a photo on my prototype. 

What really pushed this one to the top of the "finish it" pile was the passing of my good friend Bill Welch. Bill's first modeling love was the railroads of the Southeastern U. S., which he often called "Y'All Railroads." I'd gotten to know him on the prototype modeling "circuit" - and always appreciated a chance to visit with him. When I moved to the DC area Bill still lived here, and he organized several informal prototype modeling "show and tell" get togethers. Very small, very informal, and great fun. 

Bill had sent me an email in late 2019 asking for my help in designing a small switching layout. We went back and forth on that a few times, and then several months passed. It was sometime last summer he wrote to tell me of his cancer diagnosis. By November he was gone. 

I realize it's been a few months since Bill passed away, but I figured what better tribute to a friend than to finally finish up this Y'all road boxcar. 

It seemed doubly appropriate since the very last email I received from Bill was a response to my question - "What color should I paint this thing?" 

He recommended Badger's Light Tuscan Oxide Red. I don't really like Badger's paints after some truly miserable experiences with them early on. But Bill seemed adamant about this brand and color so that's the paint I used.  

Perhaps they've improved the paint somehow? 

Or perhaps Bill was looking over my shoulder? 

In any event, if you don't like the model take it up with me. But if you don't like the color, you'll have to discuss that with Bill. 

Wordless Wednesday #232

Resin Freight Car Cleanup tips

If your summer has been as wet as ours has been perhaps you were Googling "ark building" when you stumbled across this blog. 
In the interest of providing something useful on this blog I'll go ahead and offer a few tidbits on preparing resin kits. That's a perfect task for the summer modeling season. 
These are bits and pieces of a planned eBook on building and detailing rolling stock. While I still hope to finish that book - someday - in the meantime here's a couple of things from the cutting room floor.


Cleaning up the parts 
No matter the manufacturer, I start by cleaning the parts before assembly, and then follow up with a pre-painting touch up cleaning. 
Different manufacturers use different mold releases - some of them are really hard to clean off completely - and you won't realize it's still there until you try to paint the model and the paint either beads up or comes off in sheets. Sylvan mold release seems to be the toughest. 
I've tried warm soapy water, Goo Gone, Sylvan resin prep (which I'm pretty sure is some form of Goo gone), but one thing I've found always works pretty well is Shout. After removing the resin sheets from the tissue paper wrapping I gave each of the parts a shot of "Shout" (yes, the laundry stain pre-treat stuff) and scrub them gently with a toothbrush  before rinsing them under warm water. Then I put the parts aside to dry.

A few tools
I don't use a lot of fancy tools to build these kits, mostly a razor blade, an X-acto, some sanding sticks/files, pliers (to form wire), tweezers, a small machinists square, and starting in the last few years, an Opti-visor....

For drilling holes for grabs and brake components and the like, I prefer my drill press - but an old fashioned (but perfectly serviceable) pin vise works just as well.  Two tools that I find are really useful are shown in the photo to the right: 
The NWSL True-Sander 
Coffman right corner clamps

Removing flash

The most tedious part of building a resin freight car is cleaning up the parts.
But time and care spent on this task definitely shows on the finished model. Despite what the instructions say, I don't clean off all the parts before I start constructing the model. For one thing, I'd run out of enthusiasm before getting started, and for another I'd likely lose half the parts before getting everything together!


If there's a trick to removing the flash it's to be careful to not accidentally remove any detail that should be there. On flat kits it's quite common to find the sides or ends have some detail that needs to be preserved. A perfect example are the rivets on the side of the ends of this car - you might be tempted to sand the edge flat on your NWSL Tru-Sander - but you'd be removing the rivets and other details. The trick is to remove the flash without destroying the detail in the process.  For this, I use a razor blade held at a steep angle to scrape away the resin flash. I've found it's sometimes better to use a slightly dull razor blade for this scraping technique. A sharp, fresh blade can sometimes slice right into the resin whereas a dull blade will meet with just enough resistance that you can avoid digging into the part. 
To remove flash from openings, such as the end of this ventilated boxcar, I use a hobby knife and trim the resin flash to the edges, then use sanding sticks and/or files to true up the openings. 

Westerfield I-GN boxcar - ready for weathering

I finished dealing the Westerfield I-GN boxcar, and added an overcoat of Future floor polish followed by a coat of Vallejo Matte clear. I think it makes a nice addition to the "late 1920s" roster. 

I think I'm going to hold off on weathering the car until I get some other half-finished freight car projects completed. 

Westerfield I-GN Boxcar

As I was sorting and packing some of the smaller items that reside in various small plastic containers, I came across the decals for a Westerfield International Great Northern 40-foot single sheathed boxcar that I'd built almost two years ago.
Having no idea how the decals ended up separated from the car, and knowing full well that it would happen again if I didn't take drastic measures, I opted to spend a pleasant hour or so this past Sunday evening getting the decals on one side of the car. Side #2 has since been completed.
For the record, and my reference, the car was painted with a base coat of Vallejo "Boxcar Red" sold by Micro-Mark. The Vallejo labels reveals they refer to this color as "Rust." The paint was allowed to dry completely (although the 26 months this paint dried may have been excessive!) before I hit the model with an airbrushed coat of Future clear acrylic (or whatever they're calling it this week).  
When this photo was taken I hadn't yet "snuggled"* the decals in place, which is why there's so much decal film showing.
When I decal a car I like to leave it on the modeling desk for a week or so - every evening I'll add another application of Microscale setting solution. After a few days of this most of the film disappears. The next step will be another coat of gloss, followed by a coat of clear flat.
Sharp-eyed freight car fanatics will note this car is lettered to reflect lettering styles that predate my typical 1950s roster. 
No further comment on that at this time.  


*When I was on the Model Railroader staff we were always debating the best way to describe of process of softening decals using settling solution to get them to conform to the various details, ridges, rivets and the like. Somehow, someone (likely Jim Kelly, it sounds like something he'd come up it!) suggest the term "snuggling" the decals....it stuck.

Wordless Wednesday #155

Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (MARPM) After-Action Report

Had a chance to visit with old friends and make some new ones at the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (a.k.a. “MARPM”) in Fredericksburg, Va., this past weekend.

Ramon sits behind some of the (many) models he displayed. We don't see a lot of BNSF out this way, which makes this display really stand out! 

The entire crew (Norm and Daylene Wolf, Shannon Crabtree, Bob Sprague, Butch Eyler, and Doug Chapman) who set up and run this meet did a great job as usual. Daylene provided a wonderful lunch both days (a great advantage that means you don’t have to leave the hotel to find something to eat!).  Attendance was a little down from last year – a combination of a scheduling snafu (strictly the fault of the hotel) that moved the meet a week later than previous years – and putting it closer to some other larger meets.  After Labor Day and before the end of September seems to be a sweet spot here.  I think the number of “walk ins” on Saturday was impacted by the torrential rains that fell early Saturday morning. All that said, the folks who did make it were extremely enthusiastic and I never got the feeling there wasn’t enough to do or somebody to chat with.   

RPMs have always been about four main things (Clinics, Model Displays, and Vendors), and, of course, the fellowship with other modelers. Here’s my After-Action report for the weekend, based on these four items:

Clinics: Excellent. The pool of clinicians in this area is especially talented and includes well-known names who also happen to be excellent modelers and seasoned presenters. If that comment comes across as bragging (after all, I was one of the clinicians!), I apologize. I think it helps that not only are these guys excellent modelers they’re excellent presenters. Due to the nature of the work most of us do, delivering “briefings” is nothing new to us. Those skills translate to providing an excellent clinic. I defy anyone to come up with a stronger lineup than was offered at this meet.

Lance Mindheim on deck for second of two clinics he presented. 

The only issue is there wasn’t enough of them and every presenter went on only once. The facility only provides for one clinic room at this time – Norm told me he’s trying to find ways to have more than one clinic at a time. I should add that one room is excellent – with a large screen, theater style stacked seating, and (new this year!) a projector that really works.

I gave my Modeling the October Scene clinic. I've been doing this clinic since Cocoa Beach in January 2015, so I think it's time to retire it. Several people told me in advance they’d be skipping my clinic (I got the last hour on the schedule, the coveted “cleanup slot”!) since they’d seen it at Cocoa Beach or New England RPM. 

Model Display:  The models that were on the display table were outstanding. I just wish there had been more of them – and that a variety of eras, scales etc… was a little broader.

One thing that seems to be gaining more traction at MARPM than some other RPM meets I've attended is the “ongoing hands-on how-to display/clinics.” (Hey, what my description lacks in length it makes up for in completeness...). Basically, someone sets up at a table and does something (weathers a car, builds a model, installs decoders, whatever…) and attendees can sit across the table, kibitz, ask questions, or just observe. So, I spent most of the meet sitting at a table building – or perhaps better described as “preparing to build” several resin freight cars.

Butch Eyler and Norm Wolf sat at a table next to me weathering cars.

Butch Eyler (right) walks an attendee (left) through his weathering techniques. 

My understanding is this was well received by the folks at the meet. I certainly had a number of folks sitting around my table asking questions and observing (and offering the usual assortment of helpful – and not so helpful - suggestions!). I know Butch and Norm never looked lonely at their table.

I wish I’d prepared a little differently. Since I haven’t done any freight car modeling in several (4+!) years, I have two types of freight cars in the basement – finished, and unstarted! I should have had several cars at different stages of construction – from "out of the box" up through ready for weathering. That way if someone had a question on installing underbody piping (for example) I'd have a car to use as a demo. Lesson learned.

Vendors: My feelings are the vendors at an RPM meet should be the ones offering products for prototype modelers. I have no interest in looking at table after table of “stuff” at an RPM meet. Due to the aforementioned change of the show date, several vendors weren’t able to make it. Hopefully they’ll be there next year! But it was good to catch up with Ted Culotta of Speedwitch (who also offered a clinic). I even managed to purchase a thing or two from him! I also grabbed some paints and Tahoe trucks from some of the other vendors.

Fellowship: Couldn’t be beat! I had a great time visiting with a lot of really interesting people and hearing about their projects. Actually sitting at the table working on models kind of forced me to engage with people whom I might not have had the chance to talk with otherwise. 

Operating Session on Mat Thompson's Oregon Coast Railroad. 

Layout Open Houses and Op Sessions: I tend to think of these as a "bonus" at an RPM meet. Let's face it, layout "tours" and such are really the thing of NMRA conventions. But most RPM meets, including MARPM, manage to have a few layout open houses, and op sessions, typically timed to occur before or after the meet has officially started or ended. This year was no exception. Mat Thompson hosted an op session on Thursday night at his Oregon Coast railroad, and Bernie Kempinski had an open house (see his description here) on Sunday for his USMRR O scale and PoLA HO scale layouts.

Dates have already been established for the 5th annual meet on September 22-23, 2017. I, for one, can’t wait for next year!             

Wordless Wednesday #131

Wordless Wednesday #104

Happy Thanksgiving!

We actually had our "official" Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday night - which means today was a quiet day at home - so Christine prepared a small (but very delicious) meal (well, I made the mashed potatoes … apparently that's the one thing an Irishman CAN do right in the kitchen!!)

I spent a pleasant couple of hours sorting through and cleaning up the resin parts needed for my RCW AC&F Type 27 chemical tank car. Here's a closeup of the sheet of resin bits and pieces - 

And to all the readers of this blog, our best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Wabash 40-foot boxcar

I certainly don't need another resin freight car kit, but I couldn't resist this one. It's from my good friend Pierre Oliver's Yarmouth Car Works. 
The model depicts the Wabash's 88200-88699 12-panel welded boxcars. These cars were built in December of 1948 and were the first welded side cars purchased by the Wabash. 
That in and of itself isn't really a big deal to me. 
What's neat about this kit is the way the resin sides have been cast to create the distinctive rippling that occurs in sheet steel when it's been welded. The effect is subtle, but apparent. And it's almost impossible to duplicate on an injection plastic kit unless the effect has been cut into the tooling. I remember seeing this effect on an N scale resin PRR boxcar years ago but, as far as I know, this is a first for a commercially available HO scale kit. 
In addition the kit features custom etched brass details, etched running boards, decals, and trucks. Everything but couplers. 
I've ordered mine - go to the Yarmouth  Models website if you want to get one of these, or one of the other kits he has available, for your railroad. 
And tell Pierre I sent you!

Naperville Door Prize 2: Chicago Burlington & Quincy FM-11/11A Flatcar, 2000 Prototype Modelers Seminar Kit

Time for another Naperville Door Prize Project. In 2000 Sunshine Models surprised attendees not with a conversion kit (like the MoPac box shown here) but with the basic components for an entire CB&Q flat car.
The model is based on the CB&Q's FM-11 flat. The railroad built 850 of these "home-built" cars in its Galesburg (IL) shops between 1928-30 - indications are building flatcars like these were a great way to keep the shop crews employed during the Great Depression. Two virtually identical classes were built - the FM-11s (91000-91249) and the FM-11As - numbered 91250-91849. The one obvious difference was the trucks - the FM-11s had Andrews trucks while the FM-11As were equipped with AAR cast steel sideframe trucks (better known to modelers by the brand-name "Bettendorf"). In 1953, some of the cars were converted for early TOFC service.
A request for prototype photos on the Steam Era Freight Car list led to this one from Rob Adams - the instructions didn't include a prototype picture, so the project was stalled until I could find one: what I can tell the load is a pair of military trailers - I think they are generators but they're hidden beneath the tarp. Don't plan (at this point) to model the load - I'll be happy to get the flat built!
The door prize includes the basic parts needed to build the car - I'll need to supply the various detail parts.
The first step was to clean the resin parts in warm soapy water and then rinse them well. Assembly was extremely straightforward – remove the side stake pockets from the resin sheet, install a few additional resin parts including the coupler boxes, and drill holes and install two grabs on each end and one of each corner on the sides of the car.

I build most of my freight cars to run on the layout, not to enter a contest. This means I leave off the parts and underbody details that (1) interfere with operation or (2) can't be seen profile with the car sitting on the track. I might ignore Rule 2 sometimes, but never break, or bend Rule 1.
Flatcars are tricky since you have to get enough weight to get them to track reliably. You could weight a flat car by adding a heavy load, but it’s nice to have an empty car that tracks reliably.
I used A-Line "BB" style lead weights for this. The photo shows about half the weight in place. - I apply a thick coat of Canopy Glue to the "voids" between the center sill and cross stringers above the trucks. Then I dropped the "BBs" into the glue. I also filled the space between the two centersill halves with Canopy Glue and added more weight.
One assembly trick that you might find useful on a resin kit is this method for removing smaller details from the resin flash "sheet.". Before you spend hours anxiously trimming away the resin “flash” from the smaller detail pieces with a hobby knife try sanding it away.

I remove these pieces (in this case the 26 stake pocket castings on this car) by cutting about 3 or 4 stake pockets out from the main sheet. Then I gently rub the piece of sandpaper (in this case I'm using a sanding stick, since it's what I could find. Move the part in a gentle circular motion until the resin flash gets extremely thin – and you’ll find the pieces will pop right out!

Another car for the fleet

This Central Vermont single-door 43,000-series raised roof boxcar was built from an F&C resin kit. 
The  car was on the infamous "to do" shelf awaiting decals. I ended up decaling the car at the same time I decaled the SSW box and another of the Sunshine door prize cars (a CB&Q flat). 
I was going for a newly rebuilt car - the single-door 43000-series were rebuilt between 1953 and 1956, which means this car would have had no more than a couple of revenue trips since emerging from the shop in my 1954 era. 
I might add just a little more weathering to the car next time I have a few cars on the modeling desk for weathering since it is a little too "vivid." 
In the meantime it's ready for a revenue assignment. 

Sunshine Models Cotton Belt 40-foot double-sheathed boxcar

Can a freight car be cursed? I think this one might be!

Ever have one of those projects that fights you all the way? The car in question is a Sunshine kit (#52.8) for a St Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt) 31000-33499 series 8'-6" IH double sheathed 40-foot boxcar. I started building it back in October 2001. I remember that since it was my “hotel room” project while I was in Colorado and my family was back in Wisconsin. I remember the underframe didn’t quite fit and took a fair amount of sanding to get it to seat in place inside the bottom. I also remember struggling to get the roof to go on straight and level, and correcting the rather pronounced warp in one of the sides. Getting the basic “box” assembled square and straight was a challenge. But I did it, and put the car in the box and didn’t touch it again for several years. Somewhere along the line I learned the Sunshine directions didn’t give a lot specifics on the brake component arrangement – and I ended up redoing the brake rigging on the car back in 2005 or so, only to put it back in the box again.

I finally put the finishing touches on it last fall.

Hey, you can't rush these things you know....

The instructions are very general on the color, and the "Essential Freight Car" RMC article on these cars shows author Ted Culotta's model in a fairly light, almost oxide color. I asked on the Steam Era Freight Car list for some guidance on what color to paint the thing. I got several replies stating the car should be more of a "brownish" boxcar red. 

Confident in the color, things were still going uphill. I carefully mixed the paint, tested how it was spraying through my airbrush on a piece of scrap styrene. “Everything looks good” I thought. I placed the car in the spraybooth, aimed the airbrush at the center of the car, pulled the trigger...and….put a big splotch of paint spatter right in the middle of the side and along one side of the roof. 

Perhaps I was out of practice (it's been a few years since I used an airbrush on anything other than track) and made what is frankly a rookie mistake. I managed to wash off most of the splattered paint, and carefully sanded any “ridges” smooth before I resprayed the car with Scalecoat Boxcar Red.

Just as I was about the decal the thing I received a note from Richard Hendrickson with a prototype photo reminding me the ends of these cars would have been black during my 1954 era. So out came the masking tape – applied in small pieces around the details – before the ends were airbrushed flat black.

Decaling was anticlimatic (thank goodness!). I added the kit decals and included some reweigh "patches" from Sunshine decals, along with a few chalk marks, also from Sunshine decals. 

This one is finally on the railroad. Maybe it was just a series of accidents and coincidences that took me over a decade to finish one model. 

Or, just maybe, this thing is cursed?

CV 40000-series Howe Truss Boxcars

 I was in Lancaster, Penn., for the Fine Scale Modeler Expo a few weeks ago. As I reported then, I took a trip to the nearby Strasburg Railroad, which is home to a number of nicely restored steam era freight cars, including a Central Vermont 40,000-series car.

It wasn’t in the best place for photography, but I did manage to get a couple of pictures in the late-afternoon light that show off the details of the car.

 History

The Central Vermont received 200 of these single-sheathed 40-foot boxcars from American Car & Foundry in late 1924. These cars, numbered 40000-40199, represent some of the earliest examples of what are commonly referred to as “alternate” standard ARA boxcars. Although never proposed as a standard by the ARA’s Committee on Car Construction, more cars were constructed to this Howe truss design with two diagonals on either side of the door, than were built to the ARA standard single sheath design. 

The underframe was wood, with six stringers in place of the typical single pair of steel, Z-section stringers.

Closeup of the end of the restored car shows the ladders,
the top end plate, and the Carmer uncoupling lever. 

 The CV’s cars were delivered with wood six-foot doors, Andrews trucks, and Hutchins roofs. They had an inside height of 8 feet, 6 inches. As built, they were equipped with vertical brake staffs, but all would eventually be retrofitted with geared handbrakes and Ajax brakewheels. they also came equipped with Carmer uncoupling levers. The sides had seven grab irons, while the ends were equipped with six rung ladders with the stiles mounted far enough from the end to clear the diagonal brace on the end. 

AC&F Builder's Photo shows the vertical brake
and end components. 

The ends of these cars were perhaps their most unusual feature. They were composite ends (wood with two vertical and two diagonal braces). Spanning these braces across the top was a pressed steel component referred to as a top end plate. The Car Builder’s Cyclopedia, defines an End Plate as:

 “A member across the end and connecting the tops of the end posts of a car body and fastened at the ends to the two side plates. It is usually made of the proper form to serve as an end carline.”*

Other single sheathed cars with composite ends used end plates of course, but what seems to make the ones of the CV’s 40000-series cars somewhat unusual is the fact that it was a pressed steel component, not fabricated from standard structural steel components.

The cars remained in service, pretty much as built, through the late 1950s and early 1960s when many of them were retired or placed in some form of company service.

 Approximately 25 of these cars were modified with the addition of grain hatches to the roof and hopper bottoms for grain service.

 Painting and Lettering

As delivered the cars featured the CV’s then-standard Roman lettering, with “Central Vermont” spelled out across all three “panels” to the left of the doors, and no "CV" initials, with the car numbers centered underneath.

During the Second World War (January 1942), the CV changed to the stacked Gothic lettering, with the road name spelled out in two lines, with the addition of "CV" reporting marks above the car number, like that shown on the restored car at Strasburg, and on this car: 

Initially, there was a white line above the “CV and below the car numbers. In later repaintings through the 1950s these lines tended to be removed, like in this view of 40050:

 The final paint scheme on these cars was in the early 1960s with the addition of the intertwined CV logo on the door.

 Models

A “layout quality” representation of these cars can be made using the old Train Miniature single-sheathed (incorrectly called by modelers “outside braced”) cars. John Nehrich described such a conversion in an old issue of Mainline Modeler, later reprinted in a book by Hundman Publications. Both are long out of print, but you can find old issues of Mainline Modeler at swap meets or on eBay.

About 15-20 years ago Steam Shack produced a series of resin freight car models for a number of CV boxcars, including the 40000-series cars. These models were made for Steam Shack by Funaro & Camerlengo, who still offers these as their Kit 7060 (as built cars) or Kit 7061 (cars equipped with roof hatches and hopper bottoms).

There are some issues with the F&C kit - the sides are rendered as heavily weathered - which some feel is a little on the heavy side (I tend to agree), making the model look like the prototype did late in life and not as these cars would have looked in service. There's also some issues with the ends - primarily the height of the end sill - on the resin cars it's much taller than on the prototype. But the Steam Shack/F&C kits do represent a good starting place for an accurate model. 

*Thanks to Dennis Storzek for his help in determining the most accurate description for the components of these cars. 

An addition to the roster

I've been so consumed with benchwork, track, and wiring over the last couple of years that I haven't added any new cars to the layout - although the pile of "to be built" kits certainly hasn't shrunk - in fact, it's grown. 
So I was doubly thrilled to find a box from Elgin Car Shops arrived in today's mail - although I have to admit I was expecting it. A couple of weeks ago Elgin proprietor Pierre Oliver sent me a email asking for my home address, since he had something he wanted to send me. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box to find a Sunshine Models kit for a New York Central 1-1/2 door boxcar. That was great - but the best part was the fact that car was finished - on a railroad with precious few "Finished" cars anything "Done" is worthy of a blog post - and a sincere thank you. 
Actually, this past week I've contracted with Pierre to build a couple of other cars. Having seen his work in person I highly recommend.  

For details on Elgin Car Shops check out his website. 

And  as requested Pierre, now I can say "Pierre Oliver built that car for me . . ."

A home for orphans . . .

Paul Dolkos spent almost two decades building and detailing his beautiful Boston & Maine White Mountain Division. In addition to the layout itself, he created a roster of cars appropriate for his northern New England railroad. But, when he switched from modeling the B&M to the Baltimore Harbor District some of the New England cars seemed a little hard to justify.  . . . he also needed some Micro-Engineering track components to finish his latest addition to the new layout. The dealers were out of M-E turnouts, but I wasn't. And, while Paul found it hard to justify more than ONE Rutland car on his new layout, I can justify a couple on my layout. So, we made a swap. On Sunday I went over to Paul's to inspect progress on his railroad, and pick up the cars. I ended up with four of Paul's former freight cars - they are already performing yeoman service on the Winooski Sub. 

Paul didn't build all these cars - back in the early days of Paul's layout a mutual friend, Tom Underwood, built a number of cars for Paul. They are easy to identify by their "builders plates" that Tom added to the underside of the cars. This is the one from the Rutland flat car. In this case, this Rutland flat (detailed Athearn) was the 44th car Tom built, and he completed it in September 1993. 

Note Tom also included information on the lettering (in this case, CDS dry transfers). I think the builder's plates are kind of a neat idea, and I may incorporate them on cars I build in the future. 

Future to the Rescue?

Building rolling stock is perhaps my favorite part of the hobby. Since I profess to like it so much, you shouldn’t be surprised that I think building, painting and decaling a single-color boxcar should not be that much of a challenge. Then I ran into this project – a Missouri Pacific 10-6” 40-foot boxcar.
The origin is one of the Sunshine Models doorprizes from the Naperville Railroad Prototype Modelers shows Martin and Trish Lofton sponsored for years.  Each year, the presenters and attendees staying at the show hotel were presented with a door prize – some are loads, and one year we got a complete flat car, but most have been an assortment of resin details (doors, ends, etc . . .) to convert an injection molded plastic car to some specific prototype or another. I have ten or so of these and they all produce some pretty neat and unusual transition era freight cars.
I constructed this freight car while we were building our present house, so it's the most recent freight car I've built.

The building process went remarkably well.  The door prize parts were installed on an InterMountain 10’-6” AAR boxcar, and I even replaced most of the Intermountain details (ladders, brake rigging and the like) with parts from Detail Associates.  Then I rearranged the brake components to match the prototype (which differed from the stock Intermountain arrangement and fashioned the underbody piping from brass wire.
I photographed the finished, but unpainted car and then sprayed the model with Polly Scale acrylic paint.  Then, like usual, I gave the model a clear gloss coat and applied the decals. I finished decaling and applied the final clear flat overcoat.  I have never had decals silver (leave visible film) as badly as these did. I suspect the issue was the Testors Acryl clear finishes I used. It was the first time I tried using this stuff, and found it left a visible, white, streaky haze. Perhaps I got an old bottle of the stuff.
What a mess.
I put the model aside and built, and rebuilt, the layout.
After all the issues I've been having with the Berry Machine kit, I figured a break to build a freight car was just what the doctor ordered. So I opened the box with the stash of freight cars and guess which one was the first one to greet me?
Great, another problem child!
I studied the model, and figured the basic car was worth the effort to strip and refinish it.  But recently I’d been reading in FineScale Modeler about using Future Floor finish as a decal clear coating. I have some of the stuff, so I figured I had nothing to loose.  If it worked, great, if not, it was just one more layer to strip. I lightly brushed a coat of Future on the sides and left it to dry overnight.  This next morning the silvering had all but disappeared - although the car still had some streaking, but I think that will be easy to hide with some weathering. Once the model is weathered, I'll post a follow up. In the meantime, I think I'll use Future to do the decals on my next rolling stock model.