Lately I've been painting little people to populate a scene I decided to build for the Railroad-Line forum Spring 2020 challenge. It won't fit on the current Pine Branch Park railroad, but is still set in 1920s Florida, so it could be used down the road for an expansion. For now it will be the basis of a larger diorama. But that's the subject of another post...
As a break from painting I decided to make sure I had all the parts gathered together for a rolling stock rebuild. As the title suggests, this is for the Purina Ventilated boxcars (former reefers). Once I learned there were three road numbers produced, I had to collect all three. While I was waiting for a good deal on the last car I began researching. Turns out that actual prototype pictures of these cars is elusive. However, I think at this point I have learned enough to proceed with the project.
Here are the three cars in the state in which I found them:
Note the subtle differences. While 3 and 5 (the numbers are 4553, 4554 and 4555, so I'm just calling them by their final number) have fishbelly underframes, 4 has truss rods. 5 is the most complete, but has no grabs on the sides. 4 has grabs, but has hatches on top instead of the curved ventilators supplied in the kit. (I'm being generous here...crude blocks of wood roughly carved to approximate a Posson-patent hatch ventilator and likewise little squares of wood for hatches...)
4 has weathering which isn't that bad so I'll likely keep that as is. All of them, however, have little dings and nicks exposing the raw metal of the stamped-aluminum-over-card sides. Matching the paint color will be tricky.
Here are some of the parts I'll need to rebuild these cars into much nicer models:
The metal underframes will add much needed weight (along with metal Kadee arch bar trucks, not pictured) while the Tichy split K brake gear will accurately replicate what I suspect was used beneath these cars. Again, more research is needed, but I can only go so far before the time comes to quit searching and just build the dang things. If anyone comes along with evidence to the contrary, great! The last baggie of bits are 3-d printed parts from Shapeways for the aforementioned hatch covers that served to ventilate these cars. I have since learned that Westerfield makes them...grrr...after researching them and working with a custom designer to draft and print them. sigh.
I could, and will, say much more about these cars as the project progresses, but don't look for updates anytime soon. I have gathered the parts in a nice short file box so that I can keep them all together for that day I decide to begin the rebuild. I have already begun removing the old parts from the cars. But for now it is back to painting figures. Or maybe the Pine Branch station. Or perhaps finally getting the trim installed on the benchwork. Who knows. It is a hobby - my hobby - and I'll work on what sounds good whenever I feel like it. It feels good to get these cars and parts gathered together.
