One more for now... The side is just about finished. I'll pour a mold, get a couple good castings, then start the rest of the car. The book is Southern Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment vol. 2, James Kinkaid, Morning Sun Books, prototype photo credit, Peter Arnold. Hope that covers the bases.
Looking good. Do you recommend the book, it looks good but at 120 odd pages I didn't know how comphrensive it was? Simon
I built 3 of the Republican Locomotive Works gunderson cars. Did BN, UP adn SP&S. Wasn't very happy with the qualitiy of the castings and they were a lot of work. Did debate about kitbashing my own and casting one but I only needed a few cars so passed.
The Morning Sun Books are great, usually 2-3 shots per page. Vol. 1 is all "company photography" quite interesting... Vol. 2/3 are "railfan" photography. Vol. 2 covers SP/SSW/PFE cars, best suited for 1970+, though there are a lot of older cars pictured. Vol. 3 covers passenger/cabs/MOW/leased cars, again, best suited for 1970+ The Southern Pacific In Color series also has good content. For historical value, you can't beat Tony Thompson's Southern Pacific Freight Cars series(Signature Press). Without Vol. 2 and its wonderful set of plans, the C-40-3 would have been a very difficult undertaking I have seen a picture of one of those cars done in SP, it looked kinda "chunky" to me. I'll keep you posted on my progress:bear-wackoas my mind and workbench are overloaded with projects...)
The images of that Espee prototype kitbashing made me think about some of Seaboard Air Line's first woodchip hoppers. Instead of having standard hopper bottoms and doors the cars were built with drop bottom doors such as what was used on the GS gondolas... a really different looking car!!! I am really surprised to see that some GS gondolas were also built as woodchip cars, though I did already know about the GS kitbashings by various lines.
Here is a shot of the SAL hoppers, very rare in that its drop bottom doors are wide open... SAL had all their 77T cars of this design built with the drop bottom doors. http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=26215
Jerry, those cars are quite interesting. It would make a good kitbash. Espee had over 1,000 GS gons in woodchip service(both steel and composite), plus the 500 General American(70t), 500 Gunderson(70t), 200 Pullman Standard(100t) and another 200 Gunderson(100t). Not to mention all the big rib side cars from the '70s(out of my era). Most never left Oregon/Nor Cal.
Old threads never die! The real question is where did the last 9 years go? My Toledo Branch layout should be fully operational in the next few months. I have a section of backdrop that needs to be finished before I will install the trestle and track leading into the woodchip dump for the Georgia Pacific paper mill in Toledo, OR. (Interesting operation with the dump being across a slough from the mill and the chips go through a auger/conveyor system over the water.) So, the need for more woodchip gons is fast approaching. Aside from that, a while back, I had dug out the masters for the G-70-15R (there used to be pics of it in this thread) and figured out why I set it aside, some plotting measurement was off when I built the masters that lead to a cross member not lining up with a post on one side when you assembled the car. I figured since you only see one side of the car at a time, I just modified the frame master so the cross members would line up with the side posts correctly. I poured new castings and built a test car, happy with the performance of the test car, I went ahead and detailed/painted it. It has a bit of a sag to it, the mold for the car side is old and a little warped, so a new mold is in order before I cast more up. Base castings. Assembled test car. Side detailing, all of the outside gussets were cut from strip, GMM ladders and brass wire/flat bar for the grab irons and stirrups. Painted car, comparison with the prototype.
Thanks Nick! Dimi Trains did a kit for the gondola without extensions also, N Scale Supply has them listed on their website. If not in stock, ebay might work.
Yes, Dimi (now owned by Tichy) made that gondola with and without 'sugar beet' extensions (same gons were also used for woodchip service). http://www.spookshow.net/freight/ttggondola.html
I still think that's a brilliant scratchbuild! I still have the side I made for a woodchip extension for the MT gon, but they've gone and released their own, so I've ordered those instead.
Lead shot in the castings is great. I did some similar ones for SP&S cars and used lead filings/powder and lead wool. Worked great!
The lead shot is great, the larger car has some good weight to it and the C/G is nice and low, hardly wobbles even when the load is in. The smaller GS gons are not as lucky in that department and tend to wobble when loaded, even with a bunch of micro balloons mixed in the load casting.
