Pictures of goodies

The following photo shows the end beam, bolster, and needle beam.


The bolster is the steel variety used on the shop built 1st class coaches. The difficult to see needle beam is prototypical for these cars, just like the bolster and end beam. An additional trust rod runs the length of the needle beam with a pair of small queen posts in between the 12" queen posts for the truss rods running in between the bolsters. I ran across the name for this arrangement in the 1895 Car Builder's Dictionary, but it escapes me.

At the far end of the car is a second needle beam and bolster; they are appropriate for the Carter built products, shop built second-class coaches, and the head end equipment.

A better view of these is here:


The QPs are scratch built on these parts. While Grandt Line offers fine products, they don't have the correct QPs...their 3" variety has too wide of a base...and they offer no such part for passenger cars. I'm not a big fan of PSC's brass needle beam, nor is it correct for this car, and so my tastes have required building my own. I will be very pleased with these cars when they are ready...they won't be ready until I am so.

Working on the details

I haven't completed much work this week. A very good pet died on Monday evening. He was a 5.5yr old cat. That left me bummed out and unable to really enjoy my hobby. He seemed to be perfectly fine until he collapsed and died...probably heart related. There were few things he enjoyed more than visiting my model railroad. Our surviving cat (6 yrs old) is also quite the railfan.

The bolster master for the shop built Oahu Railway coaches is essentially complete. The needlebeam is largely complete as well. Due to the effort it would require to fit the body bolster into the frame, I've decided that I'll add them to a new frame master to save much time and effort during assembly. In turn, I may release the Carter Bros coaches first since they'll use the existing frame mold. I already have the needlebeams for them well on their way and their bolsters were quite simple. The remaining parts consist of grab iron bending jigs, steps, and possibly brake parts.

With the Oahu Railway passenger cars nearly ready for production, I'm planning how to built DSP&P combine #6, chair cars #7-8, and baggage cars #40-41. They'll probably be next. I've been working on determining the width and spacing of the windows...a tricky task since #6 and #7-8 were different lengths.

A couple photos of end beam

The OR&L end beam is coming along nicely. I added the gap on the bottom based on a photo of a wrecked coach (the same wreck that caused #87, sister to the surviving 4-6-0 #85). Every piece of hardware that should be there is there, except the ratchet and pawl for the brake shaft and a pair of brackets to be created. I want these to be good since they are the most noticeable detailed parts on the models. If I had to do this for every end beam on every car, I wouldn't do it. Glad the South Park cars won't need as much hardware on their end beams.

The belated June Update

The end of May and early June were fun. So much fun. Glad they are history. My life may now continue.

I've done a variety of things since my last update.

#1 I've been unhappy with the paint on a few of my models. I decided to take care of it. It is now more than 10 years since I started my HOn3 C&S reefer. Back then, I painted it boxcar red along with my boxcar, gondola, and caboose which were part of the same assembly line. As I started to place the decals, I noticed my mistake...it wasn't red. As I recall, I next gave it a way-too-heavy coat of white either with a brush or a spray can. Then I realized that it should be yellow and gave it too heavy of a coat with that. I stripped that off a year or so ago, only for the spray can to mess up the model. So, I stripped the paint off again. This time, I'll use my sweet Paasche VL air brush to give it an extremely thin and nice coat of yellow.

along with her is the frame from a 23' Colorado Central flatcar.

I was also quite unhappy with my first scratch built boxcar. It went from gorgeous to ugly when I applied the dry transfer lettering. I didn't quite get the lettering straight. The paint was also chipping, so it was time to strip it. I may upgrade her now that the paint is off...she has a few deficiencies. I did finally decide to mount the doors in the closed position.

She's a DSP&P Barney & Smith boxcar

I managed to sand most of the paint off of my 26' DSP&P flat car's deck and primer-ed it up. I'm going to use a different technique as I know have masted an approach vastly superior to what I previously used.


#2 I decided to prep my Grandt Line C&S coal car and caboose for painting. Since the grab irons were already added, I found a method to applying the chemical blackening agent to the grab irons without removing/damaging them. I wrapped paper towl/napkin around them and soaked it in chemical blackening agent. I then did the same thing to the cars which I'd stripped.


#3 My local NMRA chapter was supposed to have Hopper cars as the monthly contest. Well, the monthly contest was delayed, but I used the contest as an excuse to build that Nn3 hopper Lisa got me for Christmas a year ago.


Here are the 0.010"x0.020" styrene bits I cut for the end platform, along with my "scratch built" brake cylinder and air reservoir:


Compared to the car castings:


And the complete car in my hand along with my scratch built brake wheel platform and prototypical grab irons:


#4 Over a month ago, I cut/filed/carved an end beam for the Oahu Railway coaches. I was unhappy with the shape...it wasn't perfectly symmetrical. I finally got around to fabricating one. Instead of a single piece of styrene, this was is up to 11. The shape is precise...something I'm quite happy with.

The good one is on the bottom

And the end view:

I need to add the various hardware bits to them.

Last weekend we met my parents and my brother's family at Carillon Park in Dayton for their annual train festival. It is one heck of a museum. This year we made it into the building which houses the 1905 Wright Flyer III...it was the first air plane in the world which could turn...it is more original than any of the 19th century steam engines left in Colorado!

One of the live steamers had a South Park mogul:

I doubt he knew what it was, but I could clearly tell. He just had it painted wrong and evidently didn't want to pay the royalties on the Cogdon stack ;-)

Here are a couple photos of the body bolster and truck pedestal of their 190X Barney & Smith coach/observation car:

Still alive, updates coming

I've been through hell with an aborted attempt at graduation (my degree has been finished since early May, but paperwork has kept me busy and delayed my graduation).

I'll have an update soon. I'll be uploading photos of a side project involving an Nn3 hopper car and then some work on the South Park passenger car kits. I have enough info to complete the Oahu Railway coach masters.

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).