I also bought one #831 set of couplers. These are large off-set couplers for truck mounting. I put them on my SRRL caboose. You can see that I aquired a few older Kadees from eBay purchases in the below photo. The original owner had painted the couplers to look rusty. They also cut the trip pins. I've done my best to refurbish the internal workings of these units, but not all of them have worked well. I may have to just replace them.
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So, it turns out, I really like boxcars. I'm not sure why. But I already have a small fleet of them on my railroad and I'm not totally sure how this happened...
But, in any case, here's another. It's a Bachmann car lettered #556 for Pennsylvania Railroad. It needs some serious cleaning. So, I'm taking it apart and cleaning it with a toothbrush and water. Then the lettering will be removed so I can re-letter it for a railroad in New England. I'm thinking the two Bachmann cars I now have will be for the same railroad/ company. I will also be replacing the Hook & Loop couplers with Kadee knuckles and the plastic wheels with metal. It's snowing today in Massachusetts, so I hurried up and pulled out some stock. Here's a few of the photos I took!
I am so happy that this car is finally done! The background color of the decals doesn't quite match that of the walls, but that's okay. It's meant to model a car that's moved ownership anyway.
Besides the decals, this boxcar also got a new brake line (the old one had been painted blue), a paint job on the undercarriage, and the trucks got some love. I do still need to replace the couplers. The springs in these ones are all rusted. I may also repaint the grab rails black. They ended up blue somehow, too. Just because I don't have a railroad doesn't mean I can't work on my rolling stock... Remember the boxcars I bought a few months ago? I finally got a chance to start modifying and repairing them! Boston & Maine
I actually managed to finish this car today. It needed new grab rails, a new brake rod and brake wheel, different trucks & couplers. I also did a touch up to the paint job on the catwalk and steps in each corner. I also thought it would look nice to paint the handles on each sliding door. I think it makes them pop a little, which is a nice change to the single color of the car. The one thing this car is missing is a step next to the brake line. I had ordered it, but the company sent the wrong piece. So, I have to wait for that still... See Before and After shots below! Today one of my (several) orders from eBay came in! This particular one was a lot of 3 used box cars. The manufacturers were unknown, so I took a chance.
They are pictured below: a Boston & Maine, a Virginian, and a Santa Fe Refer. Tonight I decided to try and run my Forney DC power on the first complete loop of track on the LHRR. It worked for the most part - though there are some sections of track I need to scrub to improve electrical connection. I will be running battery power, but it'd be nice to be able to incorporate DC power for a visiting hobbyist (or a young cousin who is gifted a very simple Bachmann engine...). There's not much to report other than that. I still have to finish the ballast, so that'll be happening next week.
Check out these photos I took of my trains on the first ever run! One of the first projects I started after I decided I was going to build a garden railroad was building a few styrene skids for my box car. They are quite simple and I think they look very nice. All my styrene came from Evergreen Scale Models. I have to paint them still; which should reveal the wood grain that I etched into each piece before gluing them together. You can't see it in these photos because this was the first one I built, but I ran each styrene 'board' over sand paper before gluing together.
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Hello!My name is John. This is my website dedicated to all things model railroading! I hope you enjoy! Archives
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