Westerfield SP B-50-2 (Part 4) - Redress Decal Upgrades, Details & Weathering

This post is from a draft from 2022, the progress on the SPMW 2257 stopped until the new decals arrived from Todd Osterburg, now available from OwlMtModels as #1225 set.  I've also stripped off some of the reporting mark decals and repainted several of the areas.  

SPMW 2257 with upgraded MW decals.

The new decals include re-scaled English and Spanish warnings that the equipment can be moved at any time, so don't sleep under it!

The shattered B-end of the car showed signs that I needed to sand and rescribe a couple of the board lines which the crack crossed.  I sanded the area with one of my narrow sanding sticks and corner of the smoother sanding pads.  Rescribing was done with my carbide scribe.  The hand brake staff, upper eyebolt and brake stirrup still need to be installed.

I hadn't applied the B-end reporting marks until after this repair and body work was done.  I still need to install the grab irons at the endsill and lower rung of the side ladders.  Then the next step is putting on the B-end brake staff, platform, and the roof walk.

The underframe still needs to have the brake levers and rods fabricated and installed.

Roof Walks

Installing the resin roofwalks.

The roofwalks are easy to install.  I cut them out of the resin detail sheet and lightly sanded the sides and back to improve the bonding for the ACC/CA glue.  I also quickly rubbed a sanding pad along the tops of the roofwalk supports to clear the paint from the surfaces.

The lateral roofwalk pieces need to have support pieces glued to the bottom, which will keep them off of the roof sheets of the car.  The Sunshine B-50-15 (SP 32451) kit includes some DA rectangular brass strip, which is for these braces.  Because I'm not using 

In Closing

I've also dug out a set of DTA eye-bolts, and will be able to finish the roof top corner grab irons with them pretty easily.
This article was written back in 2024, but was some of the last freight-car work I did back before I switched focus to working on the layout, and the redesign in 2025.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Westerfield SP B-50-2 (Part 1) - SPMW 2257 Ready Boxcar

Westerfield SP B-50-2 (Part 2) - Finishing the Body & Roof

Westerfield SP B-50-2 (Part 3) - Paint, Decals, & Weathering

Modeling SP 32451 (Part 1) - Sunshine B-50-15 Resin Kit

A look at GGD-TTM's Pre-production Samples

So today some new pre-production images were posted to the 3rd & Townsend website of their upcoming Harriman V2.0 project cars.  These are the actual models from the actual assembly line setup.  So I'm interested to take a look!

72-IC-1/2/3 "Sub" San Francisco "Commute" Car

72-IC-1/2/3 model from Golden Gate Depot/Third & Townsend Models.

The "Sub" looks nice, these will be fun to see made up into Commutes with a 4-8-2 or 4-6-2 on the front, or in later eras GP9 or Trainmasters.  A friend without internet has asked me to order a couple of these for him... so I'll be doing a review when those arrive.

72-C-1 Coach/Chair Car

As-Built 1924 72-C-1 Coach from Golden Gate Depot/Third & Townsend Models.

I have one of these on order, looking forward to doing a kitbash of this car to modernize it to the post-1937/39 air conditioned version of the car.  Mostly I expect to be removing most of the square roof vents and adding a couple vents for the A/C intake/exhaust and underbody details, which should be fairly minor modifications to the painted models.

77-D-1/3/4 Diner

Aisle-side view of the first HW SP arch-roof diner in plastic!

Finally, an Air Conditioned (1937+) HW SP Diner!  I've only been waiting ~30 years for this car!  Obviously, I may need to relocated or add a couple of car-by-car accurate underbody details, etc... 

Very impressive kitchen side of the 77-D-1/3/4 Dining Car.

Some prototype cars had the single window opposite the kitchen blanked out in later life, but I'll take this as a starting point!

Close-up of the Kitchen section.

In some cars starting around 1946-1952, some of the lower kitchen windows were painted over as the back-splashes of the sinks inside were raised, making the lower windows in the kitchen section redundent.  I'm looking forward to seeing if the painted models will come with correctly painted over windows.

75-CS Lounge

Barber/Bar side of 75-CS Lounge Car  from Golden Gate Depot/Third & Townsend Models.

While I've not been waiting as long for one of these Lounge cars as I've been waiting for the Diner, these Lounges are MUCH harder to kitbash from anything that's been available in plastic so far.  So the only real option then was waiting for a TCY brass model to come up for sale and pay upwards of $350-600+ for it, unpainted, then painting it.

Side view of the interior on the Aisle-side of the 75-CS Lounge.

The interior looks nice on this model, it will be fun to put in figures chatting and sipping on various drinks in the lounge.  Notice that the two center windows have seating 'sections' there with opposed bench seats, where as the rest of the seating is chairs or small sofas with their backs to the windows.

72-O-1 Observation Lounge (Parlor)

72-O-1 Observation-Lounge from Golden Gate Depot/Third & Townsend Models.

I'm impressed to see photo-etched brass handrails on the observation car!  These cars also had a large window in the end-wall for the rear lounge occupants to watch the right-of-way receding as the train cruises smoothly to the destination.  The model also appears to have etchings in the transoms of the side windows.
So while this is a limited prototype car, and rather era constrained as well, I look forward to seeing a sample, I went ahead and ordered one of them in the Oregon - Washington RR & Navigation Co. paint scheme, which lasted longer than the SP's which were rebuilt in the early 1920s into full dining cars.

In Closing

An end-view of the various models from Golden Gate Depot/Third & Townsend Models.

My closing thoughts are that these models look like they'll easily live up to my 90%+ expectation of accuracy.  Probably will pass upwards of 95% out of the box.  I'm already planning to do some work to the diaphragms to make these cars work with my other prototypical passenger cars with correct distance "close coupling", which will probably require work to the coupler pockets too at some level, but honestly, I expect to have to do this on any car that I pick up, whether it's Soho, other brass, Walthers, Athearn, MDC, etc.  So I'm not in any way deterred from doing work on these models.

GGD/TTM pre-order artwork for SP 10115 San Joaquin Daylight "Protection" Diner.

Currently there was a note on the reservations now pushed back to the end of November 2025, with January 2026 ETA, which is fine with me.  Good stuff like this is worth waiting another few months from the original expected delivery date.  After all, I am going to be rebuilding my Jawbone Branch layout over the winter, so don't need a new set of passenger cars to run on it just yet.  But I will be very much looking forward to seeing how these cars turn out in the next few months.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

SP HW Psgr Car Index

SP Lounge, Club, and Taverns 1937-1960 - Combined Timeline Graphic Including Repaints and Rebuilds

SP Diners 1937-1960 - Combined Timeline Graphic Including Repaints and Rebuilds - My Graphic Timeline for SP Diners

Pre-Review for GGD SP Head End Cars (Announced 2024-12)

Pre-review of the Prototypes for GGD's 2025 Common Standard Harriman Passenger Cars in HO Scale - Discussing GGD's announced 80ft Harriman "V2.0" cars.

Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Update for July 2025 - Update discussing GGD's new paint scheme renders.

SP Head-end Passenger Roster Modeling Data and Analysis - with Prototype SP Roster of Classes of Head-end cars.

Modeling Nos.55/56 Tehachapi Mail

Modeling the Shasta

Modeling the Owl (Part 1)

Modeling the Owl (Part 2)