Milk & Mail - Fruit Car Primed

With the completion of the sides, ends and roof details, I could prime the body for the Fruit Car.  I elected to upgrade the fascia and door track and add a slide bar but chose to keep the original door stop even though it is a bit oversized.  Whenever possible I like to use original kit parts.  For the damaged end I had to bend a new pair of railings and replace the broken two-part sill casting.  I covered the roof with tissue paper to represent canvas and replaced the roofwalk with 2x6 planks and 2x2 supports.

The underside was primed first with my usual Dark Walnut while the rest of the car received gray.  The trucks will be borrowed from one of the other two cars in this train, that is, either the shorty baggage or shorty combine from Binkley.  I will replace the wheelsets and reassemble the metal trucks with Loctite Weld.  I have been able to unsolder these vintage trucks with some success, but not without damage.  Next I'm going to try and simply cut them apart with a motor tool.  The original car rode on arch bars with flat springs.  I think it will fit better with a passenger consist on wood beam passenger trucks.

Milk & Mail - Fruit Car Underframe

After describing the project overview, I decided to begin working on the Fruit Car first.  No particular reason, just the whim of the muse.  I began by deciding how much detail I wanted to add to the underside.  Here's where I landed:

This amount of detail seems sufficient to indicate brake gear.  I'm always hesitant to add the connecting rods that extend from the levers out toward the trucks for fear that it will interfere with the wheels.  This time I just left the rods off altogether.  

I want to upgrade the car beyond its original kit parts using materials and methods that would have been available to the original builder, as much as possible.  But these days I'm feeling more of a pull to just get things done and move on to the next project sooner than later.  Maybe it's my age, or perhaps it is the circumstances of our world driving this feeling.  Regardless, I press on.

Up next I will turn my attention to the fascia boards and sides.  Though, at the time of this writing, I have received the data decals for the Four Flats...so as soon as I commit to a lettering arrangement, I may return to them.  We'll see.

The Morning Milk & Mail - A First Look

A few days ago in my post, End-of-Year Goals, I described the projects I hope to complete by the end of 2021.  One of those is the set of cars that will become the "Morning Milk & Mail", an all-stops passenger train that leaves early in the morning, handles the mail and picks up the milk on the Pine Branch.  I also have a set of Selley short passenger cars that will become the limited express hot-shot which will make no stops, but I decided to start on these Binkley cars, and the Red Ball (Binkley?) Fruit Car that will run with them. **

Originally I had planned to use a Selley Combine on this train, but then I found the elusive P-35 Binkley "Shorty Combine Caboose" that was marketed as a companion car for their "Oldie" Baggage.  These weren't "Sierra" cars*, or "Overton" cars; at least they weren't marketed that way that I've seen.  Interestingly, if you take the Binkley 1870 Baggage-Mail car and chop it in half right down the middle, you'll get the Shorty Baggage and the Shorty Combine.  Is that what they did?  I can only guess, but I think I'm on to something.  It would explain why the baggage door isn't centered, and why the small baggage door on the combine is so close to the windows.  Hmmm...

What I'm starting with are three cars in varying degrees of completion.  The Fruit Car I purchased used.  It was missing one truck and had some damage.  Close examination reveals it may have taken a tumble to the floor at some point.  I will be replacing the damaged parts and making a few upgrades.

The Baggage is a complete kit - but with incorrect parts.  Instead of the two-part end sills per the instructions, it has a nice set of end sill castings from Binkley made for their Business Car et al.  I will be building it as instructed, making few changes or upgrades.

Finally, the Combine is a real challenge.  Somebody built it years ago and it has seen better days.  Fortunately it only needs a new baggage door and some cleaning.  I will do as little as possible to repair this car with the aim of bringing it up to a better standard of construction.

So many rolling stock 'orphans' I see were built with good intentions, probably by someone just starting out in the hobby making the kind of mistakes we all might make, even being careful.  But these cars aren't the Athearn or Roundhouse plastic shake-the-box kits of my youth, or even some of the more complex plastic kits.  These were kits that summoned the craftsman in the builder, using terms in the instructions like 'measure', 'shape' and 'cut'.  Simple words, but they are qualitatively different from 'assemble' or 'insert'.  They require the builder to think differently, to assess the work and make decisions based on the state of construction and desired outcome.

*Binkley did market a set of Sierra cars, but these were the cast metal bodies from the same molds as the Laconia Sierra cars, later sold by Ulrich and Walthers.  I have a pair of these, have built one, and the other is awaiting construction.  They're narrow enough (for me at least) to be HOn3 cars if riding on suitable trucks...

**At the time I'm writing this I'm waiting on decals for the Four Flats project.  Turns out I didn't have the ones I wanted to use, but thankfully I located some on eBay.  Hated to lose the momentum I had going on that project, but glad to put my energy into this one!

End-of-Year Goals

Yes, I know it is only August.  But August is nearly over, the kids are back to school, and the Chinese Pistache trees are beginning to blush.  So, I'm looking ahead to what I'd like to accomplish by year's end.  The Fall brings birthdays for my wife and both my boys as well as the holidays.  Not sure if we'll make it to Thanksgiving in Nevada this year, due to the virus, the weather, or both.  

All that to say, I'm trying to be realistic about what I might accomplish.  The Trail Drive of Christmas 2020 stretched well into the Spring of 2021.  I do have a tendency to fall prey to the planning fallacy.  That said, here's a look at what I'm thinking I'd like to accomplish.  All are projects in need of completion:

Firstly, the 0-4-0 Shifter.  I started this project not long after I got married...in 2001.  It is time to complete it.  Back when I started I had planned to use incandescent micro bulbs for the headlights.  I need to decide if I'm going to keep them or find suitable LEDs.  Next, the Ice Factory.  I have all I need to complete this scene, it is just a matter of chipping away at it.

Finally, the Fruit Car and the two passenger cars are going to become the Ocali Creek's Morning Milk & Mail train, an all-stops out-and-back on the Pine Branch.  Once completed the 2-6-0 will pull this until I detail and repaint the 4-4-0.  Not that this train will actually go from anywhere to anywhere on the railroad as built - I'll need staging wings on the main line to make this a reality.  Until then it'll run loops just for fun.

I'd also like to get track painted and weathered, and perhaps some scenic contours roughed in, but I'm not going to put that on the list.  Same with installing the passenger station scene or streets.  And of course, I'm going to finish the Four Flats first.  I'm in no hurry, but I'm ready to set some goals again and work towards them.  This post is, in a way, going on record and staking my claim.  Here's to a productive Fall!