Well, I'm not gonna finish this project before a certain forum closes, so I am moving it here. Couldn't resist one of the Atlas trainman DD boxes in late steam era scheme (roughly 1957 to 1963 scheme): Out of the box, rides a bit high: This class was originally looked something like this: http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/NS2986.jpeg But were heavily rebuilt in the late 1950s to look like this: http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/NS2907.jpeg At under $10, this car is a reasonable stand in for the N&W car, and the lettering is fantastic (except for the goofup on the lack of a "NEW" date of 1957 or later). As a bonus, the N&W In Color book I have has a photo of #49722 in this scheme taken in 1965. My budget plan for this car is to body mount the accumates, lower the car, and replace the clunky running board with a plano replacement.
Here is the car with the running board removed: Next I removed the "frame" and filed the bolsters down level with the "sill": At the same time I removed the couplers from the trucks. I reassembled the car with the trucks to see how much lower the car was (stock car on the left): That's where the project stands at the moment. I'm trying to find some paint to match the body since I am replacing the roofwalks with etched ones from Plano. Mark
Very nice. It's more work than I do. I certainly agree that the Atlas Trainman has some of the nicest paint schemes and body styles.
Nice work Mark, I shall be watching with interest as I have a few of these NW cars that need the same treatment. Cheers, Kev
Will the truck mounted couplers work, or would they hit the floor? I like the lowered look, but don't really want to mess with body mounting the couplers......Mike
It will work if you don't lower it as much; that is what I do. I always file the bolsters just a little with the Micro Trains trucks. As I said, I do do some work on these Trainman cars, but it is not as nice as what Mark is showing here. BTW, I do the same with InterMountain boxcars.
To avoid wheels touching lowered floors, you can simply remove the flooring (plastic deck) from the bolsters inward to the first crossbeams, on either side of the center sill. You don't need to re-inforce the frame because usually the metal weight does that; however if the weight doesn't extend that far you can glue plastic strip splices across the open flooring on the top (inside) of the plastic deck. Nobody needs to know if you have solid flooring there. As for lowering Trainman cars, try the 42' gons -- you have do some neat tricks to get them down to where they're supposed to be.
