Northern Pacific 36' Radial Roof Boxcar

At the turn of the century, the Northern Pacific had distinctive boxcars with radial roofs, where most railroads used normal pitched roofs. According to reference material published, there were about 1700 of these cars on the line, So I though I should have some for my Z Scale collection. I chose the version with the Fishbelly Sidesill Underframe, as rebuilt with AB Brakes, as these lasted until 1955, and on through the 1970's in MOW service. This car was from a series numbered 37300 through 38299.



Z Scale presents numerous challenges when adding details, and something as simple as sliding doors requires compromises to be made in order to represent those details. Here you can see what had to be done to achieve this goal with the doors and the end.



I tried to represent the AB brakes by including an Air Reservoir, AB Valve, and Brake Cylinder out of wood since there are no detail parts available for Z Scale. As you can see, there is room for much improvement by adding wire brake lines. I also used MTL Z Bettendorf trucks to date the car to the 40's and 50's.



The Brakewheel is an N Scale Gold Medal Models part on .008" brass wire, and the grab irons are .006" brass wire formed with tweezers. 28 grabs were used, but I did not bother with the roofwalk grabs as they did not look right on a previous attempt.



Overall, the model captures the flavor of the car, and I plan on making several more. Since I drew all the parts out in Corel Draw, and used a laser to cut them out of .018" thick plywood, the model is easily reproducible.



I made the decals on an Alps MD1000 after purchasing the NP Roman font from Rail Fonts, and using Corel Draw to get the Northern Pacific lettering to arch with the "fit to path" feature. I painted the model with Floquil Boxcar Red, and sealed it with Polly S Flat, then powdered it with Bragdon's weathering powders. I'm happy with the overall appearance of the model, and will build several variations of this car for my collection.


-Robert

 

Robert, superb! The real wood gives a lovely aged look to the car.

 

Thanks for the kind words guys.

What I wish I had as a skill set is like what Allan does. The metal cast work is simply amazing, and if I had that skill, we would have some really cool North American steamers available.

As you all know, the Marklin Z steamers are a 1 piece casting. Die cast? well anyway, they are all German prototype, however the wheel arrangements are usefull for NA style locos.

I would really like to see a shell for the 0-6-0 that looks like a USRA switcher. Also a bunch of detail parts like sand domes, steam domes, air pumps, generators, headlights, bells, whistles, etc for Z.

-Robert

 

Great work! How do you find the time, to have a job, and crank out these neat, detailed projects?



Boxcab E50

 

If I was to start my layout again, I would model Great Northern in the 1900's. That is because where else would you get a new toy every month. Every month I would wait for Robert to come up with a new car design.

 

I'm still looking for more photo's and info on the Northern Pacific 40' radial roof truss rod box cars, so i can do some of those next. I have 2 of these 36' cars done, and 3 more under construction that I hope to have ready in time for the Z Scale convention next week.

Did I say 'Next Week' ? I better get back to work.

-Robert

 

Looks good Torsja! The roof part is upside down, but it looks good that way too! I was working on this model, and I have a bunch that are waiting for me to add the grab irons, which is hard work.

I never made this car into a formal kit, so there are no instructions for it, but construction is similar to the Carson & Colorado Nn3 kit I made a few years ago, so I sent those instructions instead.

I never expected that you would build it so quickly, especially since there are no instructions for it, so that is really great work!

 

The finished car does look really nice and beat up!. For the old paintscheme's like yours, they painted all the steel parts black, so the grabs and brakewheels get painted black. Later on, when they did rebuilds they were completely one color, boxcar Red.

Your car looks really great Torsja! And it fits in well with your train too!

 

Wow! Look at those rotting boards! That car looks really old and so, so good! You have the weathering down perfect, as that car looks just like it's been on the rails for 50 years!