The C&S Coal Car diversion/Train show

On Friday evening, I decided to build the C&S Type 3 Coal Car kit. What a great ebay find! I'm keeping an eye out for more.



I decided to work in Liam's room as mommy was working with him in there. The result was me sitting on the floor to build this under low light and on a surface that temporarily stole a few of my parts (darn rub gnomes!)

The entire family was there. Chester was supposed to be my spotter while lifting heavy parts, and Pumpkin was supposed to be our supervisor...he didn't give many instructions.

I ventured from the instructions at the start by drilling #78 holes everywhere on the car body. I then cleaned up the big pieces and chose to assemble the I-beam steel underframe first. You only need to drill out one of the two holes in each bolster...so long as you drill out the correct one.
A bolster, the end of the frame, the pad that goes on the bolster, and a completed assembly sitting on the I-beam.

Chester didn't do his job very well. He fell asleep!

I then went back to the directions to assemble the box.
Adding the stakes

Corner reinforcements

Unfortunately, I could decide whether to square the sills or the sides. (dumb) I squared the sides instead of the sills. I then dropped the floor into place...to make certain that it was square. I realized my mistake when the wooden frame didn't quite fit...it was 1" scale too short. I quickly seperated the parts that were drying and re-glued them...still squaring the corners. Unfortunately, I then had to help with the dishes and the parts didn't dry quite right...too long.

I then set about to assemble the steel underframe (SUF) when I got back. I didn't follow the directions so that I could photograph it seperate from the car. These cars were quite modern freight cars when completed around 1910. They consisted of wood boxes similar to the Type 1 and Type 2 coal cars, which were patterned off of some coal cars inherited from the UPD&G (they were so new that they arrived painted for C&S instead of UPD&G (IIRC)...they were built by St. Charles/AC&F). The principle difference was that they were equiped with Bettendorf hardware like the Type 2 cars...and SUFs instead of trussrods like the 1s and 2s. The only surviving C&S Coal Car is Type 1 car #4319 in Black Hawk, Co. For more info, see Harry Brunk's Up Clear Creek for the C&S stuff or Run Rudnick's UPD&G/DL&G modeling guide for the story of the first cars.



It didn't fit...it was too wide. The problem was that by not squaring the sills, the sides were around 1/2-1" scale too narrow. Many platform cars (flats, gons, etc) had end sills which extended beyond the side sills, so it didn't occur to me before this point that they should be flush with the sides (square the sills, not the sides). I fixed it by filing the end of each crossmember of the underframe, and it now fits fine.
It now is awaiting the brake rigging.

But it looks rather nice as is!

Total time expended: 2hr 15min...30min of which was probably fixing my mistake with the body.

I also spent 2.5hrs on a Life Life P2K stock car kit in HO on Friday...it is assembled...the time would have been better spent on my On3 stuff...any On3 stuff...good sign that On3 is still the scale for me!

Today I went to my LHS, Johnny's Toys for their annual train show. There were a few layouts there: an HO layout with L&N stuff, an On30 layout that was quite nice, a large scale layout, a couple live steamers (1/8th full size and 1/12th full size), an H0e amusement park layout, an S gauge layout, and the store's fine HO layout (but with steam running for the show!).

I did a bit of bargain shopping:
-B-man large scale track: 24 curves and 8 straights for $44 total (the first track for Liam's future Fn3 trains...I was considering brass track...but this was too cheap to pass up!)
-A Thomas the Tank engine OO set for Liam....$25
-An OO Thomas freight car for $6
-some detail parts that were cheap
-styrene for the Fn3 locomotive
-An MRC Prodigy Express DCC system for $90 (for me...I wanted an NCE Powercab...but this was too cheap to pass up...this and a set of sprung HO trucks for $2 were the only things for me)