Bill . . .



Sometimes it takes me a while to integrate the professional life I lead with
the modeling side. My office recently had an entire building, about 70,000
SF two story gymnasium and offices laser scanned for the purpose of creating
CAD drawings of the plans and elevations. The cost, about $28K, was not
peanuts, at was cheap compared to sending out a bunch of colledge
grad-u-ates at slave prices to get going with the tape measures and sketch
pads. And it took them two days, providing us incredible detail in the
bargain.



I am inclined to think that this same process could easily be used to scan a
freight car. The actual product from the process above was a three-d
electronic model of the building. The same could be accomplished for the
freight car. It would probably take about two hours, and would cover ALL
surfaces of the car . . .





I may make an exploratory phone call tomorrow . . .



SGL



From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of Bill
Welch
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 2:43 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Walthers and the FGE/WFE/BRE Mechanical reefers built in
the mid-1950's-HELP WANTED





Wathers for awhile now has been wanting to do the 50-foot Mechanical
reefers built by FGE for FGE/WFE/BRE in the mid 1950's. This project
is still alive, although sometimes it seems like it is on life
support. The major holdup I am told is the lack of drawings for the
superstructure. Greg Martin has been trying to track down drawing and
ALL of the obvious possibilities have been exhausted. There is an
example of one of these 1950's era cars at the North Carolina
Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC. It is honestly beyond me why a
company like Walthers cannot/will not hire someone with the skill to
use this car to develop their own drawings. Walthers does have the U/
F drawings and I have recently unearthed many, many drawings for the
FGE WFE, and BRE paint and stenciling for both the pre-1959-60 and
post 1960 stenciling that I will be sending them. They have plenty of
photographs and technical information. Maybe there is a North
Carolinian on this list with drafting skills that could lend Walthers
a hand. Seriously, maybe there is someone on this list that knows
where these drawing can be located.

The cars built from 1953 through 1957 had the same basic side
construction with an additional grill added above the engine
compartment on the left side the most significant difference. By
doing the tooling with a portion of the side that can easily be
removed, and using separately applied grills, hopefully photo-etched,
and both iterations of the Improved Dreadnaught ends used on these
cars, Walthers could do the 1,000 plus cars built by FGE/WFE/BRE from
1953 through 1957. I am told the Northern Pacific had very similar or
even identical cars.

I call attention to this possibility, recognizing my friends at the
WrightTRAK have a beautiful kit for the cars built in 1955 thru 1957.

Bill Welch
2225 Nursery Road; #20-104
Clearwater, FL 33764-7622
727.470.9930
fgexbill@... <mailto:fgexbill%40tampabay.rr.com>










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