Besides scenery projects, I’ve been working on a few rolling stock projects. Our NMRA division started a weekly modeling work-session/chat every Thursday night as a way to keep interested members in contact. I found a weekly session is a good motivator to work on projects that can be divided into small bites while chatting online.
The first project was a resin F&C PRR FM flatcar kit. I pulled this one out of my stash of resin kits, and since I had never actually built a resin kit before I figured it would be a good one to start with, as the box actually include parts for two complete flatcars. If I messed one up, there was a spare to work on! The build was fairly straight forward, and the only downside was the completed cars weigh next to nothing. I decided to add a load of lead-shot-filled cable reels to add weight to the cars so they would track properly in operation. The reels are a laser wood kit from GCLaser with added detail and homemade decals. The load blocking was constructed of scale lumber and is taken from an ARA loading diagram.
Completed car end before load added.
Three-quarter view of completed car.
Car end after load added.
Side view of completed car and load.
Three-quarter view.
The second car project was also a “Thursday Night Build”. This project was a little simpler and consisted of a Rapido PRR F30a flat car and a resin-printed boiler load from Resin Car Works. The blocking was made of phosphor-bronze wire and scale lumber, following a loading diagram from the RCW website. Despite having a metal body, the car was still a bit light per NMRA standards, so I made styrene floors for the hollow boilers and added weight inside. The car ended up only about 1/8th of an ounce too light. I also swapped out the Chi-Com Kadee knock-off couplers for real Kadee scale couplers and used my usual weathering techniques for the deck and the rest of the car.
Side view of completed car and load.
Three-quarter view of completed car and load.
There are a few other projects in the works, and I’ll try not to let a year pass before updating again!
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