First floor out of the mold

I ran out of my primary rubber while making the mold for this. I had just enough material in all the right places for the mold to be usable. For subsequent parts (platform end sills, platform decking, needle beams, and car bolsters), I'll be forced to use a more expensive platinum cure rubber which I have on hand.

The first casting out of the mold is a scale 7" thick and has a little trouble where I inadvertently damaged the flooring in a couple places. This was because I wasn't very careful despite the fact that the part hadn't yet fully cured. Because of the size of this mold, I need to modify my casting set up, and then I ought to be able to get it down to my desired 6.5" thickness.



My present research is into the most probably WABCo products used on the Oahu Railway cars from 1889 until the end. I'm using trade journals, WABCo catalogs (1886, 1890, 1900), John H. White Jr's books, and Car Builders Dictionaries (1879, 1888, 1895, 1906). I'm counting on my Oahu Railway friend Jeff to provide enough information on the brakes under #2 for me to identify them (they look to me like the Quick Action air brakes due to the shape of the triple valve and lack of multiple air tanks). I'm expecting 8" cylinders.

Truss-rod & Bolster configurations on OR&L Passenger cars

I've been studying many photos of Oahu Railway coaches, surviving and deceased, for clues as to sort out the truss-rod and bolster details.

So far, I've learned a few things.

The shop built clerestory coaches (such as my kit) had the customary two truss-rods which connected to truss-rod irons at or just before the bolsters. The body bolsters were the common type, metal plates, presumably attached to the side sill (I have yet to find a photo showing the bolster-side sill arrangement for these).

The arched roof cars, as well as shop-built clerestory combine #36, and the observation cars Pearl (Carter built) and #64 had wood body-bolsters with truss-rod washers. The body truss-rods ran from end sill to end sill with square washers visible. #64 has more than two truss-rods...probably 4...which is peculiar for a car that never need to haul much weight nor have other cars behind it.

I haven't yet come to any conclusions about the Carter built coaches (3, 11, & 12) and combines (38 & 39).

I'm going to ponder these questions, perhaps ask around, and try to make sense of it. My gut says that the truss-rods connected to the end sills were a sufficiently stronger/better arrangement that they could get away with wood bolsters.

In the past week my preferred local hobby shop as moved out from under its former toy store roof (Johnny's) and become a stand alone store: Tim's Trains & Hobbies. Today, my friend Pat and I visited. I picked up a number of sizes of styrene needed for building Oahu Railway freight cars. In general, Oahu Railway freight cars used sills of twice the size of South Park cars (for which my "lumber yard" was stocked). Afterwards, we stopped by an open house at the local RR Museum (a collection of private cars in poor repair) and toured ubiquitous Cascade as well as a 10-1-2. For those not familiar with Pullman cars, Cascades were sleeping cars built by Pullman starting in 1938 with 10 Roomettes (single rooms) and 5 double rooms. A 10-1-2 was a heavyweight sleeper (1920-1935).

Oahu Framing

The shop-built Oahu Railway coaches didn't have ceilings (sheathing under the framing). Accordingly, I consider it important to have a prototypical frame under the cars which is consistent with that under the surviving coaches.



The red mark is the result of my toddler and his red crayon...I'll remove it before the mold is made. Every visible surface on the frame has been textured with wood grain. I'm in the process of researching the hardware that goes on it (and what can be cast in-situ). I've identified two bolster types, but not been able to clearly determine if one style was specific to Carter built cars or shop built cars. I do think that the Carter built cars and #64 had ceilings (#64 definitely did).

I've temporarily cleared my workspace and filled it with grad school stuff in my attempt to gain freedom for hell (grad school).