My Thoughts on Weaver's MILW Ribside Cars

I picked up one of these cars.  Overall if you don't have the time to build any of the Rails Unlimited kits, then this car isn't bad if you need these.  Compared to the H30s and the Wagontop cars, which were done in China (This car was made in the US I believe), the detail on this car is not as fine as those.  The only details off the top of my head without looking into my RPCyc book is that the grab irons don't appear to be the correct AAR style and that the longitudinal running board support appears incorrect.  Below is a photo essay of the car.  Its up to you to decide if you want it.  I'll stick with my 4 completed RU kits.

Ladder rungs are a bit thick.

No piping between brake line components.

Wrong style grabs.

Great door.

Thick and non-scale roofwalk supports.

Molded-in grabs on ends.

Brake wheel area looks legit.

1st at Indy '13

I'm writing this while waiting for a flight back from Indy.  Took a little detour after the show.

Good show overall.  Attendance may have a been a little light.  Hope its not the sign of the times.

I enjoy competing against other modelers from around the country at these contests put on at these shows.  It helps motivate and inspire awesome work by many.  Its always nice to see other's work as often one does not see it otherwise.

It would appear only my CofG GP18 placed in the contest, but I also brought an extended-height LO in SOU paint.  Below are pictures of both.  They will need weathering, but I have several other projects cluttering my workbench I want to finish and then get some scenery done on the layout.

SOU Merger History

I may add more to this particular post as time goes on, but I'll probably make a new post on further history topics that I would compile for my own benefit.

I just spent the last few hours researching the various subsidiaries and mergers that the Southern Railway ran through over the years as my knowledge was not where it should have been in knowing the history.  Muchof the history among the larger railroads was documented, but much of it is very sparse...at least online.  All dates are not guaranteed to be accurate, but I pulled charter dates, subsidiary dates with SOU (or CofG in one instance), and merger dates of 14 different railroads that made up the Southern Railway.  Of course there were many more Class 2 and shortlines that made up the SOU, but space, time, and lack of complete interest limited to what you will see in a minute.

What caused my spark of curiosity?  I am looking to build a GP18 unit for my road, where the dozen or so units that were a part of the SOU were from the CofG and NS mergers. One has to know their history here...due to my time frame, I am going to have to letter my first black-tux CofG unit, as it was a subsidiary of SOU,but neither CofG or NS merged with SOU until 1971 and 1974 respectively.

Anywho, here is the timeline I quickly put together.  One would have thought this existed already on the internet,but it did not...at least like this.  Perhaps it will help other modelers with their 60s/70s modeling.  Regardless, always refer to a prototype photo for modeling

Note:  Clicking on image will provide legible view.

Got Paint?

If you haven't heard yet, Testor's is dropping the Polly Scale and Floquil lines of paint along with some other brands I never used.  I went ahead and thought about the modeling I do and stocked up on 88 bottles of polly scale, since I prefer to shoot with acrylics.  If remained sealed and in a cool place, they should last me a long part of my modeling career.  I stopped in and bought a few more bottles on top of my original order at MB Kleins.  The retail on these jars is around $6, but Kleins sells at 4.59, which isn't bad for specific high-quality colors.  If you're going to paint your models, you might as well use quality paint on them, even if you could almost get a locomotive for the price of all of the paint.  They still had probably 85% of the colors left as of 5/28/13.  Here's what a bulk order of paint looks like along with a short list of my order.  There are some colors that I can get from Weaver Scalecoat or Tru-color in case I ever run into a shortage of something like boxcar red.

Code	Item	Qty	Price	Grand Total
TES-414415	Polly Scale 414415 Wrought Iron Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414416	Polly Scale 414416 Rail Brown Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414417	Polly Scale 414417 Grime Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414448	Polly Scale 414448 Driftwood Acrylic Wash 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414293	Polly Scale 414293 Zinc Chromate Paint 1 oz.	3	$4.59	$13.77
TES-414290	Polly Scale 414290 Engine Black Paint 1 oz.	15	$4.59	$68.85
TES-414296	Polly Scale 414296 Stainless Steel Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414308	Polly Scale 414308 Dirt Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414110	Polly Scale 414110 Steam Power Black Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
TES-414113	Polly Scale 414113 Reefer White Paint 1 oz.	6	$4.59	$27.54
TES-414116	Polly Scale 414116 Reefer Gray Paint 1 oz.	5	$4.59	$22.95
TES-414122	Polly Scale 414122 Reefer Yellow Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414128	Polly Scale 414128 Caboose Red Paint 1 oz.	4	$4.59	$18.36
TES-414134	Polly Scale 414134 Undercoat Light Gray Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
TES-414137	Polly Scale 414137 Grimy Black Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
TES-414140	Polly Scale 414140 Tarnished Black Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
TES-414143	Polly Scale 414143 Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Silver Paint 1 oz.	3	$4.59	$13.77
TES-414281	Polly Scale 414281 Boxcar Red Paint 1 oz.	4	$4.59	$18.36
TES-414284	Polly Scale 414284 Pullman Green Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414302	Polly Scale 414302 Sand Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414314	Polly Scale 414314 Mud Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414320	Polly Scale 414320 Aged Concrete Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
TES-414326	Polly Scale 414326 Oily Black Paint 1 oz.	3	$4.59	$13.77
TES-414329	Polly Scale 414329 Railroad Tie Brown Paint 1 oz.	5	$4.59	$22.95
TES-414354	Polly Scale 414354 Special Oxide Red Paint 1 oz.	3	$4.59	$13.77
TES-414350	Polly Scale 414350 Mineral Red Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414374	Polly Scale 414374 Southern Sylvan Green Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414392	Polly Scale 414392 Seaboard Coast Line Hopper Car Orange Paint 1 oz.	2	$4.59	$9.18
165-16-206	Badger 16-206 Dark Flesh 1 oz.	1	$1.59	$1.59
TES-414119	Polly Scale 414119 Reefer Orange Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
TES-414188	Polly Scale 414188 Chicago and Northwestern Green Paint 1 oz.	1	$4.59	$4.59
			Subtotal:	$355.02
			Tax (6%):	$21.38
			Shipping Cost:	$0.00
			Grand Total:	$376.40

Latest Built Kit - ATSF Bx-12 Raised Roof Boxcar

I was asked to build kits by 2 good friends in the hobby.  This is the first of the last I will do outside of my roster.  It just takes too much time away from my other list of projects.

The kit was overall your typical kit, though some of the parts included were of higher quality and some had to be made yourself, like the side stirrups.  Below are some images of the process of building the stirrups, decaling, and the final car.  The stirrups had to be drilled out for .016" wire, cut from the brass fret, tops of steps bent 90 degrees, and then have the wire soldered in place, cut, and filed appropriately to fit into the car side and to act as the rivet on the topside.  Wire was also used to join the U of the stirrup to the Z cross-brace.  The running boards were made from laser-cut wood.  The stringers that held them together were thin and weak and for the latitudinal walk, I reinforced the roofwalks with brass bar.  One other challenge of the kit was extending the end ladders with the brass.  The instructions spoke of making a jig an drilling the ladder, but I found that difficult, so I glued it in place and used archer rivets instead.  I did however, use .016" wire to secure that part of the ladder to the boxcar.

March Meet '13

So I had heard about this meet for a year or two now.  Pretty much the must goto meet of O scale 2R.  Even more-so than the national conventions.  I finally had some air miles racked up and found super cheap tickets, so I planned a same day trip to the show.

I was able to fly in and fly out using public transit on Saturday, which worked like clockwork despite St Pattys Day events (CTA and Metra).  The hotel's bus was the only shortcoming of that plan, which I had to wait out in the cold for 20 minutes before they picked me up and they weren't picking up their phone while I was on the train...

Show itself was great - my first time at this particular show.  Met a few folks for the first time and was able to catch up with friends I've known for awhile.  Highlight of shopping was picking off of Bill Davis' table and the Keil Line table.  Grabbed a lot of things I've wanted but never seen offered before.  Very cool.  Wasn't expecting to get any cars, but found 2 that would work at the right price, a Weaver B60 baggage and a random AtlasO SAL boxcar.  Got some other detail parts and decals that I was needing and that was that for goodies.  There isn't a lot out there I want at this time, so I was surprised to get something.

Model contest room had a lot of nice stuff like the Lee Turner RS3 that won the entire show with custom engine and steam generator.  Spoke to him (not knowing who he was at the time) for 2 minutes afterwards and he said he had a family member work for Alco on those units and had photos on everything including the door hoods.  My NYC transfer caboose won 1st place in the caboose category, which is always a good feeling. It got beat up a little bit through all of the traveling I did, but nothing I cant fit.  It was a last minute decision to bring it too...glad I did.

Here are the photos I took of the contest room (and the flange lubricator from Keil Line).  I wish I had taken more of the show itself.  Hopefully I can make it back to this show, especially if this year's national is the last national for awhile (or ever).  I also plan to try to make this year's national and the Indy show. See you all at Strasburg on 4/6. 

USRA Gon Kit - Finished in RDG

This kit was reviewed in pretty good detail in O Scale Trains Issue #58.  This kit with the ends the way they were...had to be done in brick service for the Reading.  I had no other options after long research.  Special Thanks to Rich Yoder for providing me some good detailed prototype history, photos, and a decal source.

I had a lot more photos of the kit and felt like sharing.  I have no particular details to add.  It was a fairly easy kit.  Hardest part was the research, as is usually the case.