I've recently began hording MDC thrall gons in BN. I knew I should do something to mark the rotarty end since MDC never had anything to mark it on the BN cars. I could find many photos of the BN thrall gondolas, but all seemed to be recent and have white ends. But looking at similar cars built by FMC, ACF, PS, and a few others on BN's roster I noticed some had a white stripe. I just couldn't find a picture of a BN thrall with the stripe, but athearn makes the same car with a stripe. I though about masking the car off and painting an end white, but the last few factory-painted MDC cars I did this too had the lettering come cleanly off. Then I though about the striped-end cars and came up with an idea when seeing some guys at my MR club making control panels. They were using 1/8" automotive striping tape, and it looked right for the end stripes. So I picked up a roll from O'riellys auto parts and experimented with 3 cars. So far I think it's okay, the tape isn't very sticky and is hard to contour around the ribs around the end. My main questions are the following: 1. Did BN thrall Gondolas ever have white end stripes? 2. Do you guys think the tape will work? Or am I better off painting the end white, and likely having to touch-up white spots?
1. rrpicturearchives.net has a photo of at least one BN Thrall car will full stripe. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=412922 The other "high-side gons" are FMC I believe and they are done both ways...full end rotary stripe or more commonly the white rotary flag like you have done. You would probably do well to research further if you really want to get it right but I'd say in general either way wouldn't be too far from reality. Here's the page where the high-side BN gons start... http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?cid=6&road=BN&Page=42 . 2. Well, that looks pretty good for a quick and dirty striping job. But, while that passes the 3-foot test I think you're probably gonna want to paint the white stripes or maybe use white decal paper. I don't think the automotive tape will hold up, and if you want to weather the cars then it will probably not take weathering well, namely I think the thickness will become more obvious at that point. Probably the reason the paint doesn't adhere very well is that I think in some cases MDC did not paint these cars, but rather cast them in black and painted the ends and lettered them...so the paint decals don't really have anything to stick to. You could paint either the ends or the entire model with a glossy clearcoat, paint or decal the stripes on, and then dullcoat it afterward and you'll probably avoid or at least minimize the paint peeling issue. (or you could primer and paint over that with black paint...another option)
Ike, Thanks for the input, but there aren't very many pictures of the Thrall-built cars there. Most of the pics are either FMC (exactrail) or PS (Walther's) designs. Doug, Thanks for the input. So far no pictures of the white "flag" on Thralls. However, it appears that some of the things MDC stuck to the ends of the cars aren't actually there (perhaps painted over when they did the end white?) I experiemented on 1 car and the white BN logos seem to hold up against masking tape. So I'll probably just go with spray-bombing the A-end white...
Well I was "virtual railfanning" and came across this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygab6YnYrOI about 56 seconds in, there is a Bn thrall gon with an end stripe. And there is also one with a white end. Looks like the white stripe was replaced by the white end. I'm kinda in a bind here, because I perfer the stripe. But the end would be soo much easier to do....
