Happy New Year

It has been one month since my last post...too long. The trifecto of my birthday, Christmas, and New Years always robs me of some good modeling time. Still, I picked up some quality time with my dad studying NKP car #5 in Lima. My favorite gift was definitely Sundance's Colorado Central book which has been on my list the past couple of years...a tremendous book which goes mile-by-mile on the line documenting everything with photos, statistics, and maps...almost all of it from before 1890!

For the NMRA meeting, I managed to get my stock car part of the way done. I didn't finish the interior detailing/weathering or really even touch the underframe...but she still looked nice enough to draw some compliments. More importantly, it and my steam locomotive slides were conversation starters to get to know some of the NMRA members.

Here's the roof sheathing ready for installation. The sub-roof is at the lower right.


Being an open car, and being a fan of prototypical construction, the roof has appropriately sized car lines and joists (I can't recall if it has an appropriate number of car lines). The sub roof is made of sheet styrene due to the difficulty of doing the entire thing in board-by-board in a timely manner. Here it is, hurriedly painted and awaiting touch-ups:


Here's what the car looks like today:

I haven't sealed the decals as of yet. I don't quite like the spacing of the & P, so I might see about moving them if I can. Currently, the trucks are attached in the prototypical fashion with a pin...a time saver that will be replaced with a screw in the future.


My Oahu Railway coach patterns are coming along. I'm currently working on cutting the inside contours to the car lines.

I've decided to leave the clerestory car lines flat on the bottoms to improve their structural strength. I'm not that far from a completed roof. The car still needs the window patterns and an underframe. Of the cars I'm planning, I'll probably keep more of these OR&L coaches than any other cars due to the shear volume of these cars on the Oahu Railway and also due to their relative length (2-5 cars was normal Colorado narrow gauge trains, the Oahu Railway ran 4-20 car passenger trains).