OR&L window production

The window assembly line is up and running. I spent an 30min-1hr on it yesterday, and an hour or so today. It is most of the way done.




D is the exterior view of a window (actually, an end window...which is 5" narrower than the side windows). "A" shows the otherside of the top. The recess allows the glazing to be inserted. This may or may not be of benefit...but it does make the windows far more time consuming to construct. I don't know how well the mold will tolerate the undercutting...but it should be ok.

"B" is the framing behind the upper pane. "C" is a part "B" with the window frame added.

My current debate is whether to cast the windows as on a thin frame that aligns them, cast them as loose windows to be inserted, or to cast them integral to the interior walls of the car. The first option would be difficult to perform with precision (it would be too thin in between the windows). The third is attractive for assembly and appearance...but requires a more complicated mold. A perk to this third option is that the "B" frames would be unnecessary.

Herman Darr's catalog of plans hasn't yet arrived. It has been a week. I'm looking forward to getting it...especially the Barney & Smith plan (for the roof contours). I am now aware of at least five railroads which operated those cars...one of them was a Cincinnati road! I know of a few additional roads which operated the shorter (and earlier) version.

Casting on Valentine's Day

What a wife I have! She allowed me to take 4 hours for an NMRA meeting/layout tours, as well as an hour before church producing my first castings from the new OR&L car side/end molds. This evening she made Milanese Risotto (she did it the way I would, with chicken broth instead of beef so that it had a nice, yellow color) while I made authentic Wiener Schnitzel. Thanks honey, you're great!

And so here is the pre-production castings along with the roof. Note that the fascia is missing, hence the gap between the two, and I haven't yet performed the touch ups on the roof...



The side mold is perfect. There is a slight detail change I might make to the end master and then produce a new end mold. With the pre-production samples in hand, I can now prepare the frame and window masters, as well as prep the roof for molding.

I'm very enthusiastic as I think about my next project (I ought to prepare masters for those South Park cars which utilize the 34' car roof).

A sheathed OR&L roof

With this, major combat operations on the roof are complete. Minor touch ups are all that remain. The Oahu Railway coach is in the home stretch. I either need to get the necessary info to create the B&S roof, or work on masters for the cars using the 34' roof.


Sorry about the closeup...I didn't bother to really check the image before uploading it...

OR&L roof frame complete

The Oahu Railway roof framing is complete:






That piece of styrene in the middle will be removed once the sheathing is complete.

Now, I've begun to sheath it. The ends have their first layer:


Tonight, the first layer of sheathing on the short carlines is in place and the glue is drying.

For future planning, I've performed some research towards equipping my planned Pullman Plan 73 sleepers with the appropriate 6'wb trucks and 30" wheels. The Plan 73A are the only passenger cars which I can recall having been offered commercially...but I strongly prefer the more balanced looking Plan 73 cars. After I get my masters ready for the Oahu Railway coach, I can pretty much do all of there pre-1921 passenger car roster without much of a sweat (after 1921, they also had 44' arched roof cars)...so my passenger car attention will shift back to cars for the South Park Line.

ORL Roof ends in progress

I'm in the home stretch on the roof framing. I'd have it completed, but I felt like watching Cecil B. Demille's 1939 epic Union Pacific instead of working on the car. That was brought about by reading a new (to me) book on the V&T (for those not familiar with both, the movie Union Pacific used V&T equipment, especially the JW Bowker).



If I skip the Cincinnati Railroad Club meeting tomorrow night, I could have the roof sheathed by tomorrow night.