|
|
 Posted - June 05 2014 : 10:32:41 PM
|
My era is allegedly 1930-ish. It can be hard to find inexpensive cars for that era (oh heck, it can be hard to find inexpensive cars from any era) but there are some that are common as dirt.
The Life-Like USRA 55-ton hopper, from old Varney tooling, is one of them. The USRA hopper is from 1918, and yet it was common through the age of modern steam and early diesels. It's a very popular and identifiable car, and it just looks right.
Accurail makes a nice one for $16, which isn't such a bad price. MTH makes some that had better be nice, for $35. Yyyyyeah. Hop along, hopper.
(Okay, so MTH has cast loads. BUT SO DOES MY LIFE LIKE CAR. Touche, Life-Like. Touche.)
Anyway, I have one of the Accurail ones, and I like it, but the Life-Like car is a trainset mainstay. It's all over the train shows. I acquired a small fleet for about a dollar each, and decided it would be nice to backdate them to earlier styles, to represent a fleet of used cars acquired by my little railroad. The contrast with the Accurail car would be interesting. The LL car is fairly modern, with Bettendorf trucks (equipped with Talgo couplers), power handbrakes, and ladders. Backdating it would involve K brake gear, a staff handbrake, grab irons, and older trucks...and an underframe. The Varney car had one, but since Life-Like took over, the underframe cover has gone to war.
$35...e-gad. Let's chop off 90% and see if we can do it for three-fitty.
I started out by staring at the car until I could studiously ignore all of this except for the trucks.
Trucks are obvious age cues (as is the handbrake, but I told you, ignoring that). A lot of train-show cars have well-worn wheelsets, too, which don't spin too freely, and also the couplers are truck-mounted...so I decided it was important to replace those trucks. So I went looking for the cheapest archbar trucks available, which were these:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/293-3035
First, I must warn you. These trucks are plastic kits! They have a bolster, two sideframes, journal box lids, nylon bearing inserts, and brake parts. As you can see, I don't always bother to install all of these before running the car. ^_^ They also have one-piece plastic wheelsets. However, the parts fit together very well and are a lot stronger than their delicate appearance may imply, and the wheelsets are very good-looking and free-rolling. Also, the trucks cost a buck and a half per pair, if you get them in the multipacks. YOU BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND MY MADNESS.
Tichy also has very economical one-piece Andrews trucks, which many of these cars had later, when upgraded from archbar type. (When you see Andrews trucks, it is a dead giveaway that the car had archbar trucks once, since Andrews were actually retrofit frame kits that used the original archbar journal boxes and bearing assemblies) If you're modeling a post 1939 period and the cars are in interchange service, go with these. I wanted archbar type, because they fix the car firmly in the prewar era. The Andrews trucks, however, are also a buck fifty per pair, in the multipacks, and do not require so much assembly.
Anyway, you assemble or obtain your trucks. Now pull off the Life-Like ones and keep them for spares. Take a piece of sprue, heat the end until soft, and cram-a-lam it into the truck mounting hole until it is filled with melted plastic. Now file the surface flat, and drill for a mounting screw.
To add knuckle couplers, do one of two things. One is virtuous, the other heinous. I have done both. Either assemble some Kadee couplers in boxes, install a screw and nut through the box to keep them together, and glue the boxtop to the frame, or saw the cast-on box from the Life Like truck and glue it to the frame, then snap in a SceneMaster knuckle coupler. File and shim as needed to get the height and location right.
Pop out the cast load. Throw in some Lincoln weights (pennies). I don't glue them down, because then the car looks bad empty. Insert the cast load.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/autobus_prime/rr/trainset_hopper_upg.jpg
All done. $1 for the car, $1.50 for the trucks, 89 cents for a pair of SceneMaster knuckle couplers. Total cost under $3.50...a bit more if using Kadees as in the car pictured (I actually preferred number 4s when they were still being made, just because I am eccentric that way...)
Now run it for 6 years and imagine how cool it will look when you finally paint it. And that's how we do it on the V & E...
|
Country:  USA ~
Posts: 432 ~
Member Since: March 04 2008 ~
Last Visit: December 28 2018
|
Alert Moderator
|
|
|
|
Posted - June 05 2014 : 11:41:24 PM
|
What about stirrup steps? A stemwinder brake wheel? A K-type brake cylinder, available in most pre-1960 craftsman kits? Now that you have started going down the slippery slope of upgrading with those fancy new trucks and couplers, I can see the detail parts dancing like sugarplums in my head! 
Don't worry, I'm doing the same to my small army of AHM 3-bay covered hoppers: new T/C, chop out all the steps and add wire grabs, maybe new brake gear if I get adventurous.
One more word of advice: I always thought that molded load looked like it was a tad much for that poor little hopper. Have you ever considered using real ground-up coal? It can be a bit of a pain if the car derails but it's so fun to make and use!
--CRC
|
|
Country: USA ~
Posts: 930 ~
Member Since: January 25 2012 ~
Last Visit: August 23 2023
|
Alert Moderator
|
|
|
|
Posted - June 06 2014 : 12:39:26 AM
|
quote:What about stirrup steps? A stemwinder brake wheel? A K-type brake cylinder, available in most pre-1960 craftsman kits? Now that you have started going down the slippery slope of upgrading with those fancy new trucks and couplers, I can see the detail parts dancing like sugarplums in my head!
Don't worry, I'm doing the same to my small army of AHM 3-bay covered hoppers: new T/C, chop out all the steps and add wire grabs, maybe new brake gear if I get adventurous.
One more word of advice: I always thought that molded load looked like it was a tad much for that poor little hopper. Have you ever considered using real ground-up coal? It can be a bit of a pain if the car derails but it's so fun to make and use!
Originally posted by PRR 4800Â -Â June 05 2014Â :Â 11:41:24 PM
|
The possibilities are there. Wire stirrups wouldn't be so hard. As you can see, the plastic ones have already removed themselves for me. :) I may drill out the brake wheel and mount it on a staff (and carve off the Ajax gear), and a rough-n-ready K brake wouldn't be so hard to fab up from a piece of sprue and a chunk of plastic tie. I've got plenty of both...
The live coal load is a nice idea, and it could be all randomly sized, too. But remember, I'm competing with MTH here. Got to have the cast load. 
Edited by - Autobus Prime on June 06 2014 12:49:06 AM
|
|
Country: USA ~
Posts: 432 ~
Member Since: March 04 2008 ~
Last Visit: December 28 2018
|
Alert Moderator
|
|
|
|
Posted - June 06 2014 : 5:57:49 PM
|
Great post Autobus. I like your perspective on modeling.
I like to paint, decal and detail my locomotives and rolling stock, especially the low-ball Life-Like examples such as your Chessie hopper. Gives me much satisfaction to run them in a train with high-dollar pieces and have trouble picking out which is which.
There is so much fretting about getting all the details right and correct - and to each his own - but my thing is train watching. Or in other words, think about how you watch a real train - taking in all of the scene at once, maybe trying to pick out a detail here and there, but...do you really notice if stirrups are there or not there? If the brake lines are correct? So while I may drool over the perfect Rapido passenger cars, I can't see the dollars spent on them if you run trains more than sit them on a shelf. (Disclaimer - I did go crazy after riding the Empire Builder last year and blow some $$$ on 4 Walthers Superliners. They are so pretty  )
http://tycodepot.com/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home
Forums
Events Calendar
Forum Admins & Mods
Register
