Locomotives must have something to pull... I started to make some conversions of Marklin German cars into Polish PKP. I started with 4 axle gondolas. Prototype gondola No 1: My repainted model:
Apart from the decal markings, was any work required to convert the cars? And it certainly is interesting to see a slice of railroading not often looked at "over here."
Well - those two cars were only repainted and decals were applied. Small detail were also painted: white handrails, red brake levers on white plates, yellow pulling hooks. Finally there was some weathering including rusty look of inside of the gondola. But the next 4 axle gondola project is more ambitious ! When you look closely at the photos of original PKP gondolas and Marklin models based on German prototypes you can see same rather visible differences: 1. On German prototype there is no pillar on the side board between edge of the car and the doors but on PKP gondolas there is one pillar. 2. On German prototype there are two pillars on the side of the board between doors but on PKP gondolas there are three pillars. I decided do improve this. Starting point was e-bay shopping ! I got from one seller three Marklin gondolas. The shape is the same but they were painted for Swiss Railways including interesting and unusual for gondolas but prototypical pink painting scheme. Unfortunately the shape of the trucks is different that on German DB version. DB trucks are similar to Polish one. Swiss are less prototypical for PKP . The first job was "destruction phase" - I had to remove two pillars placed between doors. The space for sanding the board was very limited so I decided to make o "new board" using metalized foil - actually this was a cap from a bottle of wine !To look it more prototypically I added some signs of exploatation using a skewer. to be continued ...
New pillars added: Primer applied - it is possible to see a difference between original and rebuilt gondola: After final painting, decaling and weathering. Comparing both sides of the gondola it is possible to see the individual touch and apperance of the gondola as a result of applied techniques:
Flat car with Polish Ocean Lines container. This is simple Marklin car - unfortunately container is not very well modelled. This was also my first experiance with bigger decals - unfortunately I did not managed tomake them good. Finally I applied heavy weathering to cover a bit not very nice decalling.
I think your container turned out quite well. Before you criticize yourself on the decals, consider this quote from an American painter on TV: "we don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents." One question: wouldn't the container have additional markings on it like - "Lift Here" or height, or maximum weight?
Yes. It should have but unfortunately I do not have decals for it. The decals have been adopted by fellow modeller who is working in 1:700 scale - definitely too small to produce such a details. By the way one can see some of his excellent works here: http://evadam.pl/en/
Some more gondolas. Little differences in construction (realistic). One is "out of production factory" second one after some years of service.
Really like these gondola's, Pawel! Too bad Marklin puts the trucks way too much inwards (because of that darn radius=145 mm...). It shows now that you have them soo realistically looking. Keep weathering! Matt
These are well done, really outstanding pieces! and good weathering! look as if they have been around for years! Well Traveled.
In order not to add too many threads I post here some photos of another PKP project. This time it is not a typical conversion. Well there was a conversion stage at the beginning when I found on Shapeways double-decker passanger car of former East German Railway. They were imported by Polish PKP Railways starting late 50ties until late 70ties. Polish versions were a little bit different comparing to German one. I asked German designer to adjust it to fit to the Polish versions. There are two versions of the end of the car set. This is an interesting car also due to the different paint schemes used in the history. Final Shapeways designs can be found here: https://www.shapeways.com/product/5...eilig-fur-spur-z?optionId=59099282&li=ostatus This is an interesting car also due to the different paint schemes used in the history: The printed model looks like this:
Looks good already, but might want to sand the shells with a fine grade sand paper, to rermove the printing artefact.