Bridgetown 2023 RPM Meet - GN Plywood & Unlettered Tangent B-50-28 Boxcars for the Jawbone Branch

SP 4230 leads OCM-7 through the snow approaching Oakridge with a heavy consist of open lumber laden gondolas and flatcars. - Bob Zenk photo

I want to just do a quick report on the Bridgetown RPM meet in Portland, Oregon this month.  I enjoyed visiting with everyone who attended.  Thanks to Bruce Barney, Rod Loder, and the rest of the crew that was able to get the event set up at the Airport Shilo Inn at the Portland airport.  As always, conversations were fast and everyone seemed busy!  I was last able to attend the first Bridgetown RPM meet in 2018.  So after 5-6 years it was great to be able to visit friends again in the greater Pacific North West area.

The second consist I brought is a Valley extra freight with a classic "Deck" & a work consist with a 2-8-0 and a couple SPMW bunk cars, covered previously in early October 2023. - Bob Zenk photo

The models I brought to the meet included a ~40 car OCM lumber train with about 80% of the cars loaded with OwlMtModels Modular Lumber Loads.  The other consist pulled by SP 3666 was a San Joaquin Valley consist with three OwlMtModels Blackburn Sugarbeet Racks on F-50-series flatcars, a Red Caboose composite GS gondola, and the NC&StL Accurail 36ft Fowler boxcar kitbash I recently posted about here.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time during set up to pull out another 10-15 cars which I've been posting on the blog here, which would have included the NP 11661 double-sheath boxcar, a couple of UTLX tank cars, etc.

As my Jawbone Branch really isn't set up to show, let alone photograph, full freight consists of 40-50 cars, it was nice to get out and see some big consists again.  I'm hoping to remember my tripod so I can photograph the full consists at the SPH&TS convention in Bakersfield later this month!

Bob Cromwell's F-50-2 with OwlMtModels Lumber Loads

When I was able to go walk around the other vendors tables and model display tables I found Bob Cromwell's SP F-50-2 (printed by one of his friends many years ago) with a partly built up OwlMtModels 3004 lumber load on it! - Looking good Bob!

I look forward to seeing how Bob wraps this one up with all the stakes and bracing!

Bob's other models included a large number of tank car models from the 1920s and 1930s, all very nicely finished.

Remember that RPM meets are for you to bring your incomplete models to discuss and chat with others about.  It's not all about bringing "finished" models to show.  But like so much in the hobby, there's still stuff to do on the models.  This aspect is one of the main reasons I highly prefer attending RPM meets over any form of 'contest'.  Many of those that come to the RPM meets could and I'm sure have easily one 'contests' that they've entered.  And quite frankly, winning isn't worth it if you don't have friends to share it with.  So RPMs are a place to enjoy, and leave the competition outside.  The only one you're truly competing with in modeling is what kind of modeler, what kind of a person you can become.

GN "Plywood" Boxcar

For the last couple years I've been keeping an eye out for GN Plywood boxcars after seeing the photo below at Little Lake (Consist Photo Analysis (Part 2) - Owenyo Local, Circa 1950), with the train pulling a couple of GN boxcars near the rear of the consist.

SP 2751 at Little Lake 1950  by Serpico (little_lake003_sml) - Owens Valley History,com - Cropped & Enlarged Consist

While the model doesn't have the Superior-hybrid door of the newer announced IMRC run, which I think is what's in the photo at Little Lake, it was on sale for 50% off from Portland Whistle Stop!

GN "plywood" boxcar with Youngstown doors by IMRC.

I like the oddity of having a bright orange boxcar in regular service able to add some "spice" to the fairly 'boring' consists expected on my Jawbone Branch layout.  Yes, occasionally PFE reefers show up, but this adds a bit as foreign boxcars can roam around in the high desert too.

The red and white herald over the orange side is certainly interesting in the lack of contrast normally associated with the GN's paint schemes.

This car is shown in the new scheme from 1947 "as-built".  I may decide to dig up some black reporting marks and put some on, as the 'new' version doesn't appear to have any tare data, expecting anyone needing it to look at the right side data block for the build date.

This 3/4 view shows the A-end's post-war style of Dreadnaught end and plain rectangular panel roof.

I'm not sure how much weathering I'll be wanting to put on this model.  Maybe just enough to highlight the screw details at the panel joints to show that it's not the normal riveted construction.  As my modeling era targets 1946-1954, this car's 1947 build date keeps it mostly in the first few years of the car's existence. 

Left side view of GN 10784 with basic weathering that I'll show in the upcoming blog post using AppleBarrel acrylic paints and some Gel-pens. - Still subject to some revisions and adjustments to the weathering!

Thus the paint shouldn't be 'falling off' yet by any means.  Although I could do a little chipping here and there along the edges of the plywood panels.  I'm sure I'll cover a weathering post specifically on GN 10784 when I get to working on this car specifically.

SP 102856 - Tangent B-50-28 Unlettered - Youngstown Door Boxcar

SP 102856 Bags of Gypsum Owenyo CA Transfer Docks - owensvalleyhistory,com - (sp_narrow_g44b_sml)

Owenyo is certainly the focal point of my Jawbone Branch layout, with probably 80% of the freight traffic heading to or from the transfer platforms or the transfer trestle.  These two photos from 1954 show the three year old car starting to weather some, notably the herald is starting to have some paint failure.

SP 102856 post-war B-50-28 boxcar SPNG Owenyo Transfer Dock 1954 - owensvalleyhistory,com (s-l1600_ebay01_sml) - (Cropped to show only boxcar)

Tangent has offered painted, unlettered versions of their RTR B-50-28 boxcars.  I was able to get one to do the car above.  The car should be the focus of a future blog post when I get around to doing it.

Painted SP FCR version of Tangent's B-50-28 boxcar with 7ft Youngstown Doors.

In my first review blog of Tangent's new B-50-28 boxcars, I introduce these models. New Tangent SP B-50-28 and T&NO B-50-32s - Review

This is the info for the unlettered version of the boxcar I've picked up for the SP 102856.

B-50-28

Built 9-12/1950 thru 6/1951 *
SP 102100-103599, 1500 cars <- Tangent's current offerings - 2023.
SP 104100-105099, 1000
SP 105100-105599, 500
T&NO 59750-60249, 500
T&NO 60250-61249, 1000

Modeling SP B-50-series Boxcars (Part 2) - Post-War All-Steel - Roster including SP 102856

SP Post-War 7ft Boxcar Decals by Dan Kohlberg

Daniel Kohlberg was holding down the Tangent Models table and on the side his selection of decals for use on the unlettered Tangent B-50-28s.

Daniel Kohlberg's catalog of decals he offers - Page 1

It was enjoyable to talk with Dan for a few minutes while I was away from the OwlMtModels table.

Daniel Kohlberg's catalog of decals he offers - Page 2

I picked up his set for various SP B-50-28+ series cars for $12 and will be looking forward to decalling one of my unlettered Tangent B-50-28s.

Dan Kohlberg's SP Post-War boxcar decal sets.

Reverse side of SP Post-War boxcar decal set, which shows lettering diagrams.

I look forward to sitting down and finishing the RTR-pre-painted, unlettered B-50-28 as the car in the photo.  I like having a prototype weathering/details photo to aim for.  I feel it actually makes modeling the 'typical' prototype easier when you have a specific target to make yours look like. - Maybe I should finish other projects I've already started first?

In Closing

One of the Proto:48 modelers at the RPM brought a Fowler 36ft CP boxcar.  I'm building a Westerfield one in HO, so you'll find inspiration in other scales too!

I would encourage all modelers to are interested in prototype modeling to attend one of your local RPM meets, which are held all over the USA on regular basis.  They are not "contests", but more a forum where fellow modelers can get together and share the hobby, discuss modeling techniques, products, skills and help one another become better modelers.  If nothing else, bring your cell phone camera and take pictures of weathering and interesting things that you might like to model someday.

As one of the attendees (railstiesballast) posted on TrainOrders.com recently:

"A fun day, with great clinics and awesome modeling on display.
As an SP fan (and former employee) I could not resist getting a couple of Tangent's new SP B 50-28 40 ft. cars with 10-foot wide doors, with their distincive yellow stripe. (See their photo on their thread.)
Here is one of the more imaginative models, an Owl Mountain Models lumber load that has shifted during transit. I have see a lot of these, but simply never thought to make a model of it.
I wish I had recorded the name of modeler who shared it, can anyone comment?
I highly recommend attending these gatherings, they always explore new territories in the art and science (e.g. 3-D printing) of model railroading, and offer a great time to catch up with friends."

SP 79934, F-70-3 kitbash in-process, photo of my load just after I finished it last month.  Railstiesballast's phone-pic was of this car & load.

He posted a photo of one of my shifted OMM 3001 Lumber Loads on a not-quite-finished kitbashed F-70-3 60ft flatcar.  I'm not active on Train Orders, but the community jumped in and answered the question.

"Thank you for the info, and well done Mr. Hill.
I have several of his kits, but have lacked his imagination, my stacks are straight.
What is not obvious in the first photo is that it was a part of a 40 (?) car SP lumber drag with many open loads, being pulled by a Cab Forward.
An excellent contribution to an Oregon modeler's meet."

It is good to see 'railstiesballast' has received some inspiration to up his game of modeling what he saw for years working on the SP, not be limited to "what the instructions say" on the box!  I hope we all can keep our modeling fresh and dynamic, and visiting with fellow modelers will certainly help do that!

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Consist Photo Analysis (Part 2) - Owenyo Local, Circa 1950 - featuring GN "Plywood" Boxcar

Modeling SP B-50-series Boxcars (Part 2) - Post-War All-Steel - Roster including SP 102856

New Tangent SP B-50-28 and T&NO B-50-32s - Review - My first review of Tangent's new B-50-28 boxcars

Open Loads (Part 7) - Shifted Lumber Loads - Modeling unique shifted lumber loads - Think outside the modelers box, but inside what the railroaders every day experiences were.

Routing & Grading Cards with OwlMtModels 1220 Decals

Over the years, I've used blank snippings of paper glued to the car sides to simulate the routing cards on my models for over 20 years.  In recent years, modern modeling takes advantage of digital depth of field stacking and focusing which makes it possible to even read the smallest lettering on models.  In recent months, I've started to notice my older models with blank routing cards are starting to draw unwanted attention.

NC&StL 15337 Accurail kitbash with OMM 1220 routing and grading cards matching photo below.

However, for the prototype modeler and the operating modeler there's one detailing aspect which I've that can be improved with modern technology.  Why not also be able to read what is on the routing and grading cards on the model?

For more info on this NC&StL car see links below:
NC&StL 15337 (Part 3) - Wrapping Up & Weathering - Other articles on this Accurail 36ft Fowler kitbash are linked at the end of Part 3 article.

A New Chalk Mark Method - Using Gel-Pens for chalk marks!

NC&StL 15337 - Fowler -TRRA photo, East St Louis, July 1948, Illinois, Joe Collias coll, Bobs Photo - Ted Culotta collection

The prototype photo of NC15337 shows two or three cards.  The ones on the left are probably routing cards, and the one on the right is probably a grading card.  It's another level of modeling enjoyment to be able to match prototype photos even closer now.  Let's look closer at how this came to be.

OwlMtModels' Decal Cards

The OwlMtModels #1220 decal set includes 144 prototypically based cards, two groups are in white, a third group in light green/blue, and the fourth in a manila/beige color.  Thanks to Anthony Thompson and his prototype paperwork collecting contributors for making posts on his blogs over the years documenting the vast historical cards used by various railroads.  I'm also linking directly to Tony's blogs in this post for the prototype examples.

OwlMtModels' new #1220 Routing & Grading Cards decal sheet.

Earlier this summer I asked Todd Osterburg to see what we could do with PDC's fine line decals.  He was nice enough to draw the artwork.  The decals are produced by PDC in Canada and sold through OwlMtModels website for $2.00/sheet.

Railroad print shops would use various basic pastel colors which they had on hand.  Special colors such as yellow or red were reserved for home-routing/shop cards or bad-orders.  If there's interest, OwlMtModels may offer other versions, but this is a starting point for modelers.

Prototype Cards

A clerk cards a SSW boxcar with his hammer-stapler - Linked photo from Anthony Thompson's Routing Cards #11 blog.

Cards would be hammer-stapled anywhere along the lower wooden parts of wooden cars.  Steel cars had 'tack boards' and 'card boards' mounted to the car sides.  Flatcars and tank cars with wooden running boards could have the cards stapled directly into the deck or running boards.

Routing Card typical from Anthony Thompson's blog

The SP used a number system to send the cars around the system.  There were also basics for WB/EB and intcherchange cars seem to have cards for which railroad the car was going to go to.  For example D&RGW or UP at Ogden.

Routing Card Number index for SP - Anthony Thompson's blog Part 10 where other examples are shown.

There were many systems of cards used around the country.  It seems that different divisions would also have their own numbering series.

Another excerpt from Anthony Thompson's Routing Cards #11 blog

Much of the smaller lettering is not possible to print even with modern technology, so the decals are limited to the larger lettering.

Grading Cards

The grading cards: A, B, C, D (or X, depending on the railroad doing the grading) were easy ways to sort out which cars would be available for loading.  The traffic departments would actually keep a large sheet of paper, similar to the operating department's Train Sheet, to keep track of all the cars on the division going to customers and expecting to be becoming available in the coming days.  They would also keep track of how many available boxcars (XM) would be available in each grading category.  Shippers would then be putting their orders in for their loads which would require at least a certain grade of car.

Grading Card examples linked over from Tony Thompson's blog.

Anthony Thompson's blog, Route cards, Part 19: grading freight cars, covers more details of car grading.  Operationally, I'll probably be doing more on car grading for my Jawbone Branch at some point, but for now back to the car carding.  Tony has some additional grading card variations in Route cards, Part 23: varieties of grading cards post, including the octagon-shaped cards.

The railroads would grade cars according to several subjective standards by the carmen looking them over between loadings.  Cars could be improved to some extent by sending the cars over to the RIP track and spending some time cleaning up the interiors by fixing exposed nail heads, damaged boards, etc.  Some cars would be carded to be "CLEAN OUT" which would involve removing old materials and debris from the car's interior.  Normally, the customer that unloaded the car was supposed to clean out the car but that didn't always happen.  The railroads often had a whole track in the typical yard for cars needing "Clean out".  Cars could easily spend 8+ hours in these tracks as you wouldn't want to be inside cars sweeping them out if more cars were being shoved into the track.

Accurail PFE R-40-27 with a routing, Time, and CLEANED card, typical for perishable assignments.

Reefers obviously would need more specialized care and cleaning, thus it was concentrated in a few repair shops.  PFE had three locations, Portabello in Idaho, Colton and Roseville in California.  SFRD concentrated their efforts at San Bernardino and Bakersfield's facilities.  These repairs and cleanings could include removing spoiled perishables, cleaning the bunker drains, repairing or replacing the linings of the car if damaged or contaminated, etc.

Tank cars often needed to be cleaned if they were being reassigned to another loading.  Some loads required regular steam cleanings, other linings required NOT to be steam cleaned.

Flatcars were pretty simple, their wooden deck edges were easy targets for the clerks' hammers.

In Closing

At a little over one cent per card, these decals are quite affordable, and one sheet can do dozens of cars.

Right (not photographed) side of Accurail kitbash, which is finished in 'typical' fashion with chalk marks and routing cards.

I've started applying the cards to cars in my fleet, so you might start noticing them in future blog posts.

Jason Hill

Purchase OwlMtModels #1220 Routing & Grading Card Goodies here.

Related Articles:

Anthony Thompson's Review of OMM 1220 Decal post (Routing Cards, Part 30)

Anthony Thompson's Routing Card blogs - search

Some specific blog posts worth a look.

Route cards, Part 11 — examples

Route cards, Part 19: grading freight cars

Route cards, Part 20: more grading cards

Route cards, Part 23: varieties of grading cards

NC&StL 15337 (Part 3) - Wrapping Up & Weathering - Other articles on this Accurail 36ft Fowler kitbash are linked at the end of Part 3 article.

A New Chalk Mark Method - Using Gel-Pens for chalk marks!

Upgrading SPMW Pullman Bunk Cars (Part 1) - New Paint & OwlMtModels Decals

It's been at least 20 years since I last worked on my Rivarossi SPMW Pullman cars, and I think it's about time to do some upgrades!  While not as perfectly accurate as the Walthers and Branchline plastic-tooled passenger cars of the early 2000s,  So, they can be had at swap meets and on-line websites second hand.

Starting Point & History

Time to upgrade my SPMW Pullman Bunk Cars!

One nice advantage of using the old Rivarossi cars is that they're not to expensive and they also have the non-air conditioned roofs!  The lack of A/C makes them perfect for modeling these bottom-grade tourist cars, several hundred of the older "Tourist" Pullmans were sold to the SP during 1948 in the lead up to the disposition of the 9000 Pullman cars to the railroads at the end of the year.  This makes since as the court's anti-trust order came in 1945, the railroads and Pullman had been negotiating exactly which cars would be sold off, scrapped, or would be bought for continued service after the Pullman company owned pool was broken up in December 1948.

Several other large batches of Pullman cars which the SP bought in 1948 were retired by the SP in 1953 as they wore out and weren't needed with the LW cars the SP bought in 1949 and 1950 for the Cascade and Sunset Limited.  Then another large group of HW Pullmans were retired from revenue service in 1955-56 after the discontinuance of all the SP's 3rd rank passenger trains at the end of 1954.  Most of SP's premier HW Pullmans didn't last past 1956 in regular service.  The remaining SP HW Pullmans were held, leased, in the new railroad owned Pullman Pool until the 1962-1966 time frame when the US Government finally cut off the requirement to keep a national pool of passenger cars for national emergency military movements.

SPMW System Outfit Consist, circa 1960 Lone Pine  - owensvalleyhistory,com - ebay47_lone pine_sml

While I'm keeping my modeling in the pre-1958 era, this consist certainly could have existed in Freight Car Red scheme before 1958.  So I'm going to do some upgrades to my old Rivarossi Pullman SPMW cars.

My original starting point for these three models were my 25-year-old models using MicroScale decals and minimal research materials, resulting in cars that were only retired in 1954-56.

One of my original SPMW Pullmans from the early 2000s. - Jan 2020 at LMRC, Jason Hill photo.

 

In the last 15 years SPH&TS has printed their series of Passenger Car book, including one dedicated to the SP's Pullman cars, which covers much of the prototype information.  Plus Pulllman Panorama has more information on Pullman series, arrangements, plan numbers, basic dispositions, etc.  And now in 2023, Ken Harrison has released his wonderful SPMW book with many photos.

Unfortunately, my cutoff has been circa 1953 for my fleet since I settled on steam-diesel transition era modeling and even with the Jawbone Branch's cutoff date now being pushed back towards 1954/55, these cars are really pushing the limits of my 'comfort' bracket for modeling.  Also one of the numbers I chose 25+ years ago should have been a 16-Section Tourist Sleeper, so basically totally the wrong basic model.

Repainting

These issues have finally pushed me to redo my SPMW Pullman cars.  

SPMW 4807 before decalling, left side.

The cars that became the 4807 was repainted using a custom mix of StarBrand paint from P-B-L of SP Freight Car Red and I was out of the Light Freight Car Red, so I mixed in some Depot Buff to make the paint look like it's been sun-faded a bit.

SPMW 4807 before decalling, right side.

The car was easy to repaint.  I removed the interiors and roof/window section.  A piece of scrap sheet styrene was used inside the windows to keep paint from wondering around the already painted interior of the cars.

SPMW 4812 before decalling, left side.

The 4812 used a nearly straight mix of StarBrand SP FCR, which is actually quite a bit more saturated.  So I'll just say that this car's been more recently repainted to full FCR colors.

SPMW 4812 before decalling, right side.

The I had already painted the roofs aluminum/silver a number of years ago, so no need to do that again.  I did swap a couple of the roofs around again, to make the two FCR cars come out with aluminum roofs and the car below got the only non-aluminum roof.

They're Green?!

The third car received some special treatment, when I went back through Ken Harrison's SPMW book again, I found several photos of freshly retired Pullman Tourist Car.  These cars didn't receive FCR paint immediately, but instead continued in Pullman Green with patching for SPMW within a couple of months of being sold to the SP in 1948.

Left side SPMW 4866 before decalling.

Because I do generally consider 1946/1948 as the early edge of my modeling, I decided to repaint one of my Pullmans from FCR into this 'original' scheme when these cars came to the SP.  Specifically, I chose the 4866, which was converted in Feb'48 and was still in patched green scheme later that year when photographed.  Ken has a photo of this car in the book, which mostly matches up with the old Rivarossi models I'm using.  The car has single aisle windows, but one minor change is it has four full size windows on the A-end lounge room.  I don't really feel like rebuilding the windows, as I'd have to change the prism glass in the roof.

Right side SPMW 4866 before decalling.

It is hard to tell in the prototype photo if the letterboard was patched with SP Dark Olive Green or maybe black.  I pre-painted the black patch on the side and also the letterboard between the panel joints.  Then masked the lower center panel per the photograph for the reporting marks.  The old Pullman Green was custom mixed from StarBrand SP DOG, with a bit of black to get towards my 'standard' Pullman shade (less "warm" red-brown) and then Depot Buff was added to bleach and pre-weather the green color.  As this green coat is actually going directly over weathered FCR, it creates an interesting reverse-modeled appearance.  The letterboard was then lightly oversprayed with the 'Pullman Green' custom mix, which let much of the pre-shading black come through.  This effect is commonly used by aircraft and armor modelers to create special effects around panels and panel lines.  In this case to creating a color difference around the center letterboard panel, which would have been patched out.

Decalling!

So now the question is who's decals to use?  I've seen MicroScale's offerings, but they really don't give good return for the space of decal paper used.  Too much space is spent on very rare and specialized MW equipment that I don't even plan to own anytime soon, but not enough of the common car types.  I found an answer when Todd Allen Osterburg told me that he was developing several new SPMW decal set, which are now being offered by OwlMtModels and printed by Bill at PDC in Canada.  

SPMW Pullman Conversions - OMM #1224W

The OwlMtModels 1224W & WS set is available at OwlMtModels' new store-front.  Two versions are available; one with solid lettering (W), and the other with 'stencil' bars remaining (WS).  The set is designed to decal up to three cars from the common number series of SPMW's Pullman bunk cars.  Included are "Occupied Outfit Cars" signs which can be fabricated to hang on the end-grabirons and on the switch stands of the track the cars are left on, effectively 'blue-flagging' the cars so they aren't coupled to.  Often these standing outfits when set up for 'camp' mode would not be moveible without some amount of work to stow and clear away the various stairs, ladders, water, electrical, etc connections to the ground. 

Examples of OMM's stencil reporting marks, and warning signage from OMM #1225WS set on B-50-2 Ready Boxcar.

OwlMtModels is also offering decal set #1225 SPMW Boxcars, which covers many assignments for B-50-8/10/11/12/13/14/15/16 classes. and #1218 for SPMW Supply Boxcars.

SPMW 4807

SPMW 4807 Decalled Left Side

The 4807 was lettered with 'typical' arrangement for reporting mark placement, and I chose to add the Danger/Peligro warnings, which tended to move almost anywhere along the lower car side.  The left side still needs a "LT WT" stencil applied to the left of the weight 152000 stencil. - Just noticed that I missed that when I took these photos.

SPMW 4807 Decalled Right Side

The SPMW 4807 still has some kludged roof vents, which I'll probably be removing.  The 4807 actually did have a T-smokejack which was closer to the center of the car, in the corner of the main 12-section part of the car.

Vents clipped off, sanded, and 'patched' with light gray GellyRoll gel-pen.

I went ahead and removed the extra centerline roof vents.  I used a sanding pad to roughly clean off the scars in the roof, but that of course exposed black colored original roof. 

I'll be doing some tricks to hide that.  I decided to try using the same Gel-Pens that I used for chalk marks to roughly get the same color on the roof, then I'll do some more roof weathering blending.  Might be interesting to draw in more of the roof panel lines on the un-detailed roofs.

SPMW 4812

SPMW 4812 Decalled Left Side

The SPMW 4812 is more 'typical' of the most retired Pullmans in Ken's book before the late 1958s when propane tanks for cooking and heating were cut into the side of the car.  Cars with these modifications are certainly interest, requiring ladder/stairs and doors, etc.  Many of the cars in the book also show swamp coolers and even fuel-oil tanks installed in vestibules with the doors sometimes removed.

SPMW 4812 Decalled Right Side

But these cars are pretty much done now.  I'll probably do a bit of weathering to slightly knock down the brightness of the white decals.

SPMW 4866 - "The Green One"

Left side of finished SPMW 4866 with patched reporting marks.

One interesting small detail is that the prototype 4866 had a non-standard stenciling applied to the car in the prototype photograph.  It had periods on the "M.W." which all other cars I've seen photos of didn't have.  I used the 0.5mm White Gel-Pen that I covered using for Chalk Marks last month's blog.

Right side of finished SPMW 4866 with patched reporting marks.

The under body of 4866 is still showing mostly FCR color for now.  I'll probably weather it darker as it would have had coming from old Pullman scheme.

Other Modifications

I am planning to make a couple more changes to these cars, as Ken's book has shown more of what these non-air conditioned Pullman Tourist cars looked like in SPMW service.  One of the big features about these 1948 conversions is that they do not have roof ducts.  Therefore they also shouldn't have the A/C equipment under the floor.

The Rivarossi models come with three battery boxes on one side, and another on the other side.  The prototype photo of 4866 shows the car does have the large water tank and the short-fat air tank, but nothing else hanging under that side of the car.  I'll probably cover cutting these boxes off in Part 2, which shouldn't be too hard with a razor-saw.

I will also say that these cars had some modifications from 25 years ago, including cutting down the fixed 'diaphragms' and not fitting any new diaphragm (which is correct for most MW cars), body mounting KD couplers on closer couplings, and rebuilding the bolsters to lower the car to more correct heights.

Thoughts of Post-1958 Outfit

SPMW System Outfit Consist, circa 1960 Lone Pine  - owensvalleyhistory,com - ebay47_lone pine_sml

Maybe I'll find another body, and do a post-1958 gray with black lettering version, just to do it for OwlMt to show what they'd look like.  I have this great photo of a gray SPMW Outfit at Lone Pine, which probably was stationed there as they scrapped the track back from the end of the branch at Owenyo in 1960, from the owens valley history website.  This consist has three of these older ex-Pullman 12-1 bunk cars without A/C.

In Closing

I'm going to wrap up this post at this point.  Just to point out, I only used the one set of OMM 1224W for these three cars.  Some creative cutting was used to get '80' and '81' and '72' to get the digits for the '07' and '12' number jumble to work out nicely.  '44's were cut up to provide the leading '4's for the '48' series cars.  Extra hundred series numbers pairs of '44' and '55' are provided for the 4400 and 5500-series cars.  We'll probably change future prints to have an extra 48 or two to help if you focus on these cars.

Completed SPMW 4866 with end-reporting marks too.

Edit, 2023 Nov: After talking with Ken Harrison at the Bakersfield Convention about the patch on the letterboard, I'll probably be patching that section again to full black, as we decided that both patches would have been done at the same time when the SP bought them and struck out the Pullman lettering.

So I'll come back and do a Part 2 with any last touch-ups I do on these cars.  Perhaps, I'll do it on the gray scheme with black lettering...  At some point in the future, if I want to add lighting to these 'camp cars' so that I could do cool night-scenes on the Jawbone Branch, I may refit these cars with Walthers metal trucks as on SP 5199 (Part 1 & Part 7).

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Chalk Marks - A newer blog on using GellyRoll pens for chalk marks by clerks and carmen on freight cars.

SP 5199 (Part 1 - My build-blog on a 69-BP-30-1 from Southern Car & Foundry.

Freight Car Overview Index - A list of my modeling blogs on various SP & Multiple RR's cars, including many SPMW cars.

Owens Valley History - Website with hundreds of photos of Owens Valley and the Jawbone Branch, which I'm modeling.

Walthers 50ft Auto-Boxcars (Part 2) - Renumbering GN Cars to Correct Series

In the first installment of this series, I just did a general survey of the various Walthers 50ft Auto-Boxcars that I had.  Sadly many of them aren't correct, but in this post, I want to address one of the simpler fixes to get a couple of the cars into more 'historically accurate' number series.

One of the nearly completed Great Northern 50ft OB Auto-boxcars by Walthers, from the early 2000s.

These cars needed a bit of work, so lets look at what's involved with updating and correcting a couple of issues with the stock model.  I'm not going to get into the odd brake equipment arrangement in this post, as I don't think it's the first think I look at on a freight car like this.  Even if the model is going to be a stand-in, I would like the primary exterior visible parts of the model to be mostly correct, i.e. roof, ends, sides.

Edit: 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.

Historical Data

Pre-relettering look of the car in the GN 41700-series.

To find out if the car's even existed and had the right door arrangement, I turn to my Westerfield Models CD of ORER 1950 fleet data.  Under the Great Northern, I can see that they do not have the stock model road number listed.

Clipping from 1950 ORER - No 41000-series cars active on the GN this year.

Great Northern's entry in ORER 1950 does not show the 41900-series is empty by 1950.  However, don't give up hope on your model yet.  Search the rest of the company's roster.  There may be another series, or the original road number may have been changed during a rebuild, etc.

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

 The ORER does show 43500-43899 series show steel frame, 12ft staggered-doors. The 43900-43999 are similar, but also show full end door. The Walthers models come with end-doors as an option in the kit, so it would be possible to model either series if some minor decalling and renumbering was done.

Renumbering

So I'm doing some renumbering of the GN cars that I have into the 43k series, which should be easy to change the 1 to a 3.  The 43500-43899 and 43900-43999 show as XM (General service boxcars) in the AAR Mechanical classification column.

Removed the "1" with a No.11 blade scraping carefully.

I started the renumbering work with a No.11 X-acto blade carefully scraping the surface just down through the pad-printed ink of the "1".  If I go too far, a small drop of darkened FCR paint works to fix it, although the new "3" will be covering most any scratches that happen.

The new decal in place with a bit of water still around.

I'm keeping the renumbering simple with Micro Scale's Block Gothic Alphabet and Numbers, White #90051.  The 9" lettering is what I'll need to change the side road numbers.  If your decal collection has a more "GN" standard lettering style, then obviously it's better to use that.

Buckled End Joints

One of the problems of putting the optional ends on is getting solid joints in the corners.

Given that I built these models about 20 years ago and some of them saw years of service, getting knocked around, the ends were starting to come loose.  So I wicked in some Tamiya Liquid Plastic Glue, which is lower viscosity than water into the corners of the ends.  Then I carefully pushed the end in to get the mitered joint to close.  

After closing the end up with liquid plastic glue to secure it.

The end looks much better after closing the openings.  A little bit of plastic actually squeezed out from this process, but that's easily cleaned up.  I did a little wash with water and AppleBarrel 20512E Burnt Umber to dull down the new white decal to match my previously weathered numbers on the cars.

Adding Tare Station & Date

I also need to add some basic 'tare dates' to the cars.  This is a station code, month-year stenciled onto the side of the car, usually in the panel just inboard of the car's weight data block to show when the car was last weighed to 'zero' it.  This allows the clerks working the car scales to be accurate within 200 pounds of the car's loaded weight when billing cargo by weight.  The weighing also allows the railroads to detect over-loaded cars which are a safety hazard and could cause additional wear and tear on the engines, infrastructure, and bridges.

The Great Northern has a very odd system of station codes, using an alpha and sometimes a number as well.  Some of the great past researchers of railroad history have documented these codes and what they station they represented, so I'm able to 'build' plausible station tare date codes for my models.  One GN car that I've done already has A-1 on it.  I made it out of some spare 3" stencil white decal "A" and a "-1" from the January month of a decal tare data set.

Operations Notes

ATSF 140 BK-4-H Cliff Jan 8, 1953, (at LMRC in 2018, Jason Hill photo)

Most of these GN cars traveling to Southern California would be in the lumber trade with finished lumber in these big double door auto-boxcars.  The routing usually would be GN, then interchanged to the WP at Bieber, then to the Santa Fe at Mormon Yard (aka Fresno), before routing to Southern California on the Santa Fe on symbol 'GWS' over Tehachapi.  Eastward routed cars onto the Santa Fe, would be switched over to N-34 or BK-symbol at Bakersfield to Barstow, then they would be worked into the eastward symbols from there out of San Bernardino.

If it was heading to a Southern Pacific destination, the car may have be interchanged at Bakersfield to avoid additional congestion in the LA basin.  So this ends up being more of a Santa Fe-centric modeling post for today, but the skills are good to learn for any prototype modeler that needs to do renumbering of the freight cars.

Open Doors or Closed Doors?

GN 43741's Left side with doors closed, representing a loaded car.

One of the nice aspects of the Walthers model is the option to model the car with the doors open.  While normally, you don't want cars running around loaded where the stuff inside can fall out or be stolen, often the empty car doors wouldn't be properly secured.

While the Right side of GN 43741's doors are modeled open, for returning empty towards home.

This lead to a tendency for the doors to open themselves with the slack action in the trains.  On layouts with reversing loop staging, it is possible therefore to set up one side of the car as the "Loaded" side, and the other as the "Empty" side.  At La Mesa Model Railroad club, this trick is really only visible in two places (Caliente-Tunnel 2 and at Walong on the Loop).  

More Tricks!

For discussion during a video shoot with TSG Multimedia, I cut down a couple OwlMtModels 3004 lumber loads to make a lighter weight faux load for the Walthers boxcar.

In one of the TSG Multimedia videos I filmed a number of years ago on the new OwlMtModels 3004 lumber loads, I talked about putting them inside of boxcars in a cut-down form.

OwlMtModels 3004 Lumber Load inside Walthers DD boxcar.

So that's always an option too if you want to show an open door as the load and claim the closed door is empty!

SP 67789 with a stash of 3004 lumber loads hiding inside at King Lumber in Bakersfield, at LMRC. Jason Hill photo circa 2018.

Another option is the photo below, where I staged a photo at King Lumber to show the car being unloaded.

Pondering future options, it might even be possible to put magnets inside the lumber load to remotely move them back into the ends of the car to hide them. - Although, I've not actually tried this --- yet.

In Closing

The majority of my cars are now in good shape residing in the 43000-series!  However, one now has a new problem.  Next time I'll be having a closer look at the 43900-series cars which need end-doors.

Redecalled GN 43952 with tare date added.

This car is now renumbered to the correct 43000-series from the 41000-series, however now the 43900-series should have end-doors.  Not a problem as these cars came with the option for end-doors.  So I'll be digging out the old spare parts from 20 years ago to rebuild the A-end of the car, seen at left in the above photo.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

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

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.