Walthers 50ft Auto-Boxcars (Part 3) - GN 43952 Gets End Doors

GN 43952 renumbered into the 43000-series last post, is almost done with tare dates and chalk marks.  Just one little problem...

In the last article in this series, Walthers 50ft Auto-Boxcars (Part 2), I wrote about upgrading the historical standing of these cars by changing the road number into a correct series.  However, two of the cars I have are above the cutoff number of 43900, which means they should have end doors, or I'll have to lower the 'hundreds number to something below a '9'.  Given that 400 of the 500 cars are not end-door cars and I only have four cars, I should probably only do one car with the end door.

Edit: Thankfully Doug Polinder pointed out in a comment to me that: "the model is a Howe truss. GN's cars were Pratt." So at best these cars are really going to just be 'stand-ins' for the GN prototypes. Sadly this is one aspect that the ORER fails us, using it as the only research material.

Swapping Ends?

Sister car, GN 41951, with door end side-by-side.

I found a couple of ends the old boxes for these kits.  I also found the incomplete GN 41951 in one of these boxes, and needs some more work.  The extra end-doors were still in the boxes, so I was able to find one to use on the GN 43952.  Of course the new end doors weren't pad printed by Walthers, so I will of course have to decal the whole reporting mark on the A-end door piece.

I first removed the plain A-end of the car.

The first step with the conversion is to take the floor out of the car, then carefully pop the old plain end out of the body.  Thankfully, 20-year-ago-me didn't soak the end with glue, to 'hard weld' it in like I generally do now.  So it was very easy to pop off and only a little cleanup along the top edge, under the roof.

GN 43952 with test-fitted A-End Door.

The new end's test fit is pretty good.  The end-sill opening around the draft box is rather tight, and I will need to press the 'snap pins' into the end harder when the glue is applied.  Generally the end-doors make the cars look more complicated, which is cool. 

However looking at 43500-series we find double-door 50ft boxcars which should match closer to the Walthers model.

Historically, many cars with end doors became problematic to keep serviceable, so many were fixed in the closed position or welded closed.  It would seem from the ORER 1950 that these 96 cars still had working end doors.

Interior view of the new End Door dry-fitted.

I applied Tamiya Liquid Glue to the four alignment pins and then wicked more in with the brush from the bottom edge up both hinge lines and some into the center.  Then pressed the end into the body carefully.  When the alignment pins were softened just enough with the glue, there was a small 'pop' and the end slid a little farther into correct alignment.  Before the glue dries, I have to be sure the whole end is properly seated.  I also wicked in some glue along the top edge of the end-roof joint, but not much more movement happened in that area.

In Closing

This has been a fun kitbash to balance out the four of these cars I have.  Of course, I'm not addressing the lower 43000-series cars, which were only single-door cars.  These cars still fill a great spot when modeling lumber train traffic into Southern California, of the early 1950s.

GN 43952 with the new door-end in place with road number decals in place and a few more chalk marks.

I had some fun on the chalk-marks on the new car end.  Specifically marking the locking bar mechanism and a hinge that was damaged, but looks like the carmen has chalked the OK for both.  This photo also  showed me that the "2" on the end out of alignment.  So I re-wet the decal and was able to adjust it before I used the MicroScale setting fluid on it.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Modeling Auto-Boxcars (Part 1) - Walthers 50ft Double-Door Single-Sheath Auto-Boxcars - An Overview

Walthers 50ft Auto-Boxcars (Part 2) - Renumbering GN Cars to Correct Series - Renumbering the Walthers GN cars into the historically correct number series for 1950 era.

Weathering NP 11661 - A Rapido Double-sheath Boxcar - Some basics of weathering with Acrylics on double-sheath boxcar.

ATSF 129872 WWII War Emergency Boxcar Weathering with Pencils and Acrylics - Continuing the weathering on a single-sheath boxcar with Acrylics.