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 Posted - January 19 2015 : 7:59:45 PM
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One of the trains I'm slowly working to assemble is to be an "homage" to excursion trains that use to run through this neighborhood on their way up Ute Pass to what is now 11 Mile Canon. The following photo is of one of these trains circa 1910.
I have one that I put together a while back using a Tyco-Mantua Rogers 4-6-0, an Electrotren Wooden Coach (at the time I liked the size and design), an excursion car I built based on a Bachmann Old West flat car, and a Roundhouse Colorado Midland Caboose.
More recently, I've really gotten in to the older Mantua stuff and I'm pretty much running that while the other stuff sits on a shelf. So . . . one of my current projects is to put together an excursion train using a Mantua Mogul 2-6-0, a Mantua brass and die cast combination car, an excursion car built on a Mantua Metal Products flat car, and a Mantua 8 wheel brass and die cast caboose.
The Mantua flat car is longer than I would have liked to use for the excursion car (see the length of the excursion car in the old photo versus the other cars in the train), but my goal is less about exact modeling than using the Mantua Metal Products locomotive and cars to "sort of" model it. Ha! Whatever the heck that meant.
Here's the excursion car. I wasn't very good about taking photos so I don't have any of the "template" I used to make the side framing. Basically, I glued thin strips of cardboard either side of where I wanted an upright to go for a side frame (or the end frame). I could have used wood for that, but I didn't have any thin enough that it wouldn't interfere with the frame pieces I was laying out. Then with all the uprights laid out, I marked either end of the template to line up the horizontal boards.
This worked much better than marking each piece separately. At least you have a chance at having things symmetrical.
One problem I ran into was the roof. I first made a roof out of wood and it warped just enough to not be able to get it to fit. The second roof is made of styrene (those expensive pieces they sell at the hobby shop!). Though, I liked the way the styrene remained nice and straight and I have some left over for something else.
The seats are a rather simplistic design from scale lumber.
Below is a warped roof . . .
The styrene replacement . . .
The side and end framing (made of scale wood) are attached to the metal body of the flat car with dabs of Elmers. The roof is removable and rests on top of the framing uprights.
Now . . . round up about fifty scale people, all in different poses, dressed in period clothing, get some of 'em to stand on top of the cars . . . Ha!
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Posted - January 19 2015 : 9:03:13 PM
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Nice work Barry
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Posted - January 20 2015 : 12:13:59 AM
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Looks like an intricate bit of modeling. I bet you have quite a bit of time into that car. It looks good. That mineral red color looks right for the era, too.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - January 20 2015 : 09:23:38 AM
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 Beautiful car, Barry.I didn't even know they had anything like that back then.
-Steve
"A lot of modellers out there who go to these train shows see broken HO stuff and go, 'This is useless' when, in reality, they can still be used for modeling whether it's as a prop on your layout or a cool project to make something old new again."
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Posted - January 20 2015 : 10:07:33 AM
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Ingenious.
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Posted - January 20 2015 : 10:27:17 AM
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Barry,
Maybe some of these would be useful. if you can find them at a reasonable price.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ho-Scale-1450-Roundhouse-30-Flat-Car-unlettered-with-box-and-instructions-/371238386479?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item566f883b2f
http://www.hoseeker.net/mdcinstructionscars/mdc30flatcar.jpg
Regards, John
Well, a gun that's unloaded and cocked ain't good for nothin'. <> Rooster Cogburn - True Grit
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Posted - January 20 2015 : 11:42:36 AM
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Thank you folks for your kind words. John, I did build an excursion car on one of those smaller frames and it definitely fit the prototype better (this photo taken through the shadow box glass), but this time, the whole idea was to just use Mantua cars; that's where I'm headed with this.
The previous excursion car based on the Bachmann "Old West" flat car . . . (this has the Electrotren coach in front and the Roundhouse caboose in back)
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 Posted - January 20 2015 : 4:50:48 PM
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I think that is a cool car. My hat is off to you and this project.
Regards, John
"I suggest a new strategy, R2: let the Wookiee win."C-3PO - A New Hope
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Posted - February 22 2015 : 6:26:37 PM
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| That is just amazing.
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