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Re: now - GN 3000 series boxcars

Tim O'Connor
 

Rich

Ah so! But things get more interesting --

The Red Caboose model CORRECTED the door opening. The Front Range door opening is
actually 7-9 rather than 8-0. And the Front Range doors are 8-0 which is also incorrect, while
the Red Caboose doors are 8-3 which is better, for covering the Red Caboose 8-0 opening.

Obviously, larger opening = narrower side panel.

Front Range also made two 40 foot combination door box cars with offset doors so these are
worth looking at for modeling double door prototypes.

BUT the FR doors span a distance on the side of 14-9. The plugdoor (cast in place) in this case
is 6-9 -- a number Fred Becker chose because he already had the 8-0 sliding doors! But the kit
also includes 8-0 plug doors in case you want to model a 40 foot double plug door box. Of course,
8-0 is technically incorrect for an 8-0 plug door since the nominal width of the plug door refers to
the opening and not to the extreme width of the door, which is larger than the opening (typically 8-3
or so for an 8-0 opening).

:-)


On 7/17/2022 8:23 PM, Richard Remiarz wrote:

Tim,

 

Red Caboose must have made more significant changes to the tooling.  The Front Range 8’ door car had somewhat narrower panel sizes than the Red Caboose version of the car, so the Front Range cars look better than the Red Caboose version as a double door boxcar.  In the attached photo you can see the Front Range car on top and the Red Caboose car below.  The side panels closest to the doors on the Red Caboose car are much narrower than on the Front Range car.  A have also noticed that the sides are much thicker on the Front Range cars than the Red Caboose version.

 

I am building one of the cars using the Front Range body.  I will use the roof, underframe, and ladders, etc. from my 8’ door Red Caboose car, since the body isn’t correct anyway.  The underframe will need to be slightly narrowed and shim added to bring up the height. 

 

I will also build one of the cars from a Branchline kit. 

 

After all of this, modeling the 3500 series is really fairly simple, trim the side sills from the McKean/Accurail car and add an overhanging diagonal panel roof.

 

Sincerely,

Rich Remiarz

_._,_._,

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts
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