Phosphate railroad car by Canute

[Canute]

Well, folks, I have a car to show you some of the more modern model railroading construction methods. No resin, yet. May have some pieces later in the build. Right now it's styrene.

This box car is actually a covered hopper. Some railroads in the US Southeast service phosphate mines. There are many uses in our daily lives, as dietary supplements, cleaning agents and other uses.

You can see the hatch up on the roof, above the SEABOARD on the left end of the car. Some cars had 2 diagonally across the roof, some had 4, 2 on each end.

This is a flat kit, meaning you have to build up the body from separate sides, ends, roof and underframe. Not quite like the old Athearn brand blue boxes of freight cars those of us of a certain age grew up with. This is one side of the car:

From the top, there is a backing piece, with the series of holes, the side of the car, with some fine holes and the contours of the side, a HAT section and the rib section. Because these were laser cut, the maker used styrene covered with a sticky paper to lessen the laser burning. These will all go together in a layer cake fashion, with assembly done on a magnetic building board to ensure squareness. Cleanup of the styrene is tricky, because of the thinness of the HAT and rib sections. The second side is drying in the fixture, so I didn't take a picture, yet.

The side piece with the fine holes for bolt details. You can see the shape of the bottom contours.

The  hat section and rib section. The braces on the outside of the car a called hat sections, due to the shape, with a thin but wide inner section and a square outer section. The laser cutting puts ridges on one side of the part. I found that if I sand the backside while it's all one sheet I'll do less damage to the hat and rib sections.

 

 

[lmagna]

Interesting build Ken

 

I don't think I have ever watched RR cars built before. I'm really looking forward to the painting and weathering part!

Edited April 29, 2019 by lmagna

[Canute]

Glad you're on here, Lou. It's a typical RR freight car with 2 colors, gray body and grungy brown/black underframe. Big change from the usual boxcar red body and grungy brown/black under-body.  There are so many shades of gray.

 

The weathering will be fun, since the phosphate sorta looks like cement. Dust around the hatches and doors dripping down the sides; maybe some lumps of the phosphate on the roof, near the loading hatches.  I'm going to grit blast it with baking soda before I paint it. The trucks are made of acetal plastic and paint doesn't stick too well to bare engineering plastic, so we grit blast to give it some "tooth". The trucks will be the same color as the body. The grit blaster gun looks like something from Buck Rogers.

[popeye the sailor]

interesting box car Ken.......the only one I've ever built was the snow plow.   I really like the molded wood........I did look into getting some for my ship builds.  looking forward in following along  

[CDW]

I have seen a LOT of phosphate cars here in my locality. Phosphate mines were everywhere, trains that were miles long were a daily challenge to and from work. Traffic would often sit long, extended periods of time waiting for the train to clear the crossing over the roadway while we watched what seemed like hundreds of phosphate cars pass by.

[Canute]

Denis & Craig, thanks for tagging along.

 

Yeah, Denis, a lot of folks think it's a box car, but the hatches are the clue. Some roads in the Northeast and Midwest built similar cars to move grain. We still have covered hoppers moving grain and plastic pellets, but those cars are about 20 feet longer and 60% larger cubic capacity.

 

Craig, talking to my southeastern RR buddies, Florida is ground zero for phosphate. NC has some mines, over towards Cape Hatteras.

[Canute]

OK, like a lot of plastic kit building, there are multiple portions going on simultaneously. While I waited for the cement to set up on the side, I did a little work on the roof and ends. The supplied roof is for a 50 foot car, but this is a 40 foot car. I removed 3 panels in the middle, put the resulting roof sections on my Byrnes sander and trued the cut ends up. I also sanded off the raised portions of the roof nearest the end. These are the locations for the roof hatches.

Removed roof section. I need to put it in the fixture to glue it up nice and straight.

The sanded smooth location for the hatches.

About 1966 or so, the railroads began removing roof mounted running boards from box cars and moving the brake wheels lower on the end. To add to the fun, the ends supplied are for a car with a high mounted brake wheel. So I have to plug all the little 0.010 holes with Evergreen styrene rod.

White specks are the plugs. I'll mount the brake mechanism in the correct location later. Too early and I risk mangling the parts.

 

And now I can start gluing the ribs to the HAT sections.

Cleaned up the first side.

Rib section in the assembly fixture. The yellowish section where the door will go is a bit of the paper the manufacturer used for the part layout. After the cement sets, I'll peel it off.

 

Hope folks are enjoying this as much as I am building it.

[popeye the sailor]

a covered hopper........so this is a converted box car to serve the need.   most hoppers that I know of consist of twin basins with a trap door in the centers underneath,   to empty it's load.  I was a bit confused with what you were doing with the side,  until I realized that you were adding the ribs outside....not inside.  it all makes sense now    chalks up to never seeing one of these kits go together   

[Canute]

Denis, it is an unusual car. It is a box car, but they added hatches to enable loading of the phosphate. Cars were unloaded thru the side doors. There are 2 spots at the bottom of the door that look like mail slots. They are fittings for a fork lift operator to force the door open for removing the phosphate. Why these cars were built new in the mid/late 60s looking like boxcars, I don't know. Kit instructions don't spell it out. The RR that I primarily model switched to covered hoppers like you are thinking of, in the 40s. They hauled cement from a limestone belt in eastern PA. Every RR was unique.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Canute

[popeye the sailor]

one of these days...........   I've been wanting to start a small layout with the grand kids........the two oldest are almost there {age wise}.  I see I'll have my work cut out for me.,  learning all the ins and outs   

[CDW]

When I was a young lad, my grandfather owned a cement warehouse. The warehouse sat next to a railroad spur track, where boxcar loads of bagged Florida Portland Cement would be rolled up along side the warehouse to be unloaded. Grandpa would pay me in the summer to help unload the bags of cement. During the rail trip, the pallets of cement (bags) would shift, and would have to be unloaded by hand.

Those boxcars of cement were so hot inside, and so were the bags of cement. Each bag weighed 94 pounds, so handling the hot, heavy, bags of cement was no small task. Will never forget my grandpa's long-time foreman at the warehouse, named King Jenkins. The man was a mountain. He would tease me by saying, "When you's gets so tired you's can't pick up a bag, you's picks up two bags. When you's gets so tired you can't picks up two bags, you's picks up three bags"...all the while he was doing exactly what he said. He would pick up and carry three 94 pound bags at a time of hot Florida Portland Cement from the boxcar and walk it inside the warehouse carrying it like it was a sack of potatoes. 😵

 

[Canute]

Denis, if all you want to do is have something for the grandkids to play with, you don't need to get this deep into making cars like these.  They have some nice starter sets with cars, an engine, track and a power pack. Pick up a track planning book to figure out how you want to lay out the track, especially if the set doesn't include one.

 

You should fasten the track down if you get an HO or N scale set. Track tends to move with a lot of activity around it. I'd glue it down. if you expect to leave it set up on a sheet of plywood or foam board. There are a few other model rails on this site, so they may chime in with additional info.

 

Bigger scales (S, 1/64, or American Flyer, pretty rare as a train set these days) or Lionel (O or 1/48 scale) don't need to be fastened down, but I'd put them on a plywood or foam sheet. Keeps the carpet gunk from getting up into the mechanism. I think the newer sets also come with knuckle couplers on everything. They look like miniatures of real couplers. If you buy used, no telling what you will find. That depends on the age. We got a donation recently at the club with metal sided HO cars with knuckle couplers. Very old stuff. Some newer all plastic stuff had couplers called x2f. They do not look like any coupler I've ever seen in real life, but a lot of cars from the 60s thru 90s had those couplers. They were cheap to make.

[popeye the sailor]

when I was a lad,  I used to have a Lionel set.......it had a plastic form layout and tunnel ,  on a 48 X 48 square of plywood.   it was set up in the living room.....a small room off of the kitchen,  with access to the bedrooms {walk through}.   it should have been in the den,  thinking back on it.......that was a long room,  where the TV was........it was a much larger room too.   it went well though, the way it was set up.......that is,  until my older brother got cute with it and turned up the speed,  sending it into the mouth of the tunnel,  breaking part of it away.   Dad got mad and banished it to the depths of the cellar......a small room where the water pump was located.   determined,  I decided to set it up down there........but in doing that,  I must have damaged something on the pump,  so it stopped working.   not a good day in the Wenzel house hold........I can tell ya that!   I can't recall whatever happened to it from there.

    when I started to work on the snow plow,  I had to find trucks and couplers.   HobbyTown was where I found them.......pretty knowledgeable people.  I think I still have some of the parts in the kit / diorama,  I have in the works for it.  I was going to scratch build some buildings for it,  but I've been getting catalogs from Micro Mark,  and I sometimes browse Walther's and Model train stuff websites........I have others book marked.   

[popeye the sailor]

child labor was the thing back then it seems........I used to work with my father too.   he was a truck driver,  delivering institutional foods.   I used to ride with him,  or work in the warehouse.  if I wasn't doing that,   I used to work with my Uncle,  delivering the Union Leader newspaper.........used to go all the way to the tip of New Hampshire.......Gorham,  Intervale  up past Conway and Wolfboro.  the workload varied,  but it was fun.....bank rolled my modeling.  

[Jack12477]

Kalmbach Publishing used to publish a magazine style How To guide on building a layout using the L-girder construction technique. I've build quite a few layouts using this technique. It is very easy to build, modify, adapt, is light weight but incredibly strong. In fact I repurposed my old one to be my shipyard workbench. If Homasote is still available, use that over 1/4 inch plywood, you can "spike" the rails to it easily and it acts as a sound deadening as well.

[Canute]

Jack is correct about the homasote.  It's a paper product, sold as a sound deadening material. It's easy to spike to, but if sawing with power tools, it does make a lot of dust. Recommend doing that outside. Get the lumber yard to cut it to the same size as your plywood pieces.

 

Denis, model railroading is one of the bigger "rabbit holes" you can fall into. Good luck in this hobby area.

[popeye the sailor]

probably why it's so secular from the other modeling mediums....even with scratch builders.  it takes a direction all it's own   

[Canute]

There has been a national organization setting industry standards across the scales since 1935. Meaning if you buy something in HO scale, it won't matter whose gear you use. This applies to locos & rolling stock and portions of the digital command control systems we use. Guys are even working in "dead rail", where the locos run on batteries and follow radio signals. Our current live rail systems need track power for the "choo-choos" to work, but still work off radio signals. I can run trains via an app on my smart phone.

 

And like most "hands on" craft hobbies we fret over the aging of the craftsmen and women and will the youngsters pick up the hobby. My club tries to help there by having in a small group of 10-15 year olds for some "training" once a month. Most move on as they find other pursuits or go to college, but we do snag one or two. And who knows, maybe after a number of years these kids come back to the hobby.

[lmagna]

2 hours ago, Canute said:

Most move on as they find other pursuits or go to college

It's hard to compete against the attraction and demands of cars, girls, (Or boys) and the pursuit of higher income! But like you said, some will come back in later years just as we did.

[Canute]

Very true, Lou. The coming back to this hobby happens a lot. My club has 100 members, more or less. The majority are returners with some skills; mainly guys who have gotten into trains now as they retire, since they may have had trains when they were kids (50 years ago). That's what they say, Scout's honor. The long time model rails, like me, came up with a mentoring program for the new guys to get them up to speed in the club. But one thing it doesn't include is building stuff. A lot of guys are intimidated with assembling a kit. We see that at our local train shows here in western NC. Put a plastic kit, in it's box of parts on a table to sell and it gets looked at and passed over. Put the same kit, already built up, out and it get snapped up. People don't want to spend time building or they are afraid to fail. I keep telling them to try it, they might enjoy creating something to show off their own work. 🤯

 

And then there is a handful of us who actually scratch build and kitbash stuff. We call ourselves the "Dark Side" or the Jedis. I consider myself a padawan in that area.

[popeye the sailor]

they're missing out on the satisfaction of assembling a layout from the ground up  

[lmagna]

I always built my own, I even helped others build what they wanted in my shop when I had it. Didn't have all the tools like people around here have but it was working space and we did OK. But building may have been more of a matter of necessity rather than choice. I never really had the funds to buy some. (most) of the kits, to say nothing of the finished ships made by some of the people I knew.

 

Oh well, they were still fun years and good times. 

[popeye the sailor]

with my first wooden ship being non laser cut,  I learned to scratch build from the start.   a little different than plastic,  but not by much.  it affords so much more freedom and creativity

[CDW]

 

On 5/2/2019 at 11:25 AM, Jack12477 said:

Kalmbach Publishing used to publish a magazine style How To guide....

Those Kalmbach books peaked my interest so much back then, but I just didn't have the money at that time to finance the model rail road hobby. We had 5 little babies running around the house and climbing the curtains. It was all we could do to keep our household afloat. Extra space was a huge factor, too.

There is a reason the model railroad hobby was always filled mostly with seniors, and money was probably the biggest reason why.

Edited May 3, 2019 by CDW

[popeye the sailor]

quite a family   

[Roger Pellett]

I still have my old Lionel trains- an Alco Diesel Locomotive with Erie RR markings, a Lionel Lines 0-4-0 steam switcher and 6 cars.  In the 1970’s my parents house was burglarized and all my track, switches, etc were stolen.

 

I have three young granddaughters and would like to run them for them.  I was able to buy track to make an oval at our local Menards last Christmas but still need at least a transformer.  Any suggestions?  I don’t intend to get into the hobby “whole hog.”

 

Roge

Edited May 3, 2019 by Roger Pellett

[CDW]

29 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

quite a family   

They have been my joy.

[Canute]

Roger, I'm not very knowledgeable about Lionel power systems. The best I could do is to check any local hobby shops in Duluth (if you have any left) and see if they carry the Lionel line. Or see if there is a local train show up that way. The ones down here seem to have any number of folks selling used Lionel equipment.

[lmagna]

3 hours ago, CDW said:

We had 5 little babies

Wow! Five all at one time!

 

I can match you at five, (All boys in my case) but we spread them out over 50 years and never had more than two at the same time! I always thought my way was kind of dumb, but I don't have any idea how I would have survived doing it your way!

 

Great looking family though. How many years ago was that picture taken?

[CDW]

27 minutes ago, lmagna said:

How many years ago was that picture taken?

Early 1983, so that's been 36 years ago.

The little boy my mother is holding sitting next to me has four boys of his own now. The baby girl in my lap turns 37 this month. When our (then) baby girl was 15, our new baby girl was born (1997). What a surprise that was. Didn't see that one coming. 🙂