Excellent work Charlie.

excellent !! 😁

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

I have completed the build of a Westerfield Models single sheathed Fowler design box car,  I numbered 18972.  My build included adding reinforcing braces to side corners, new “B” end details, wire grabs, ladders and ladder rungs, etc. And, Minneapolis & St. Louis (M&St.L) lettering and paint.  If you are interested, photos and write up are now available on my blog I have to share photos and writeup of modeling projects on my Minneapolis & Northland Railroad Company.  If would like to take a look please do at the following link:

 

http://mnrailroadcab100.blogspot.com/

 

Lester Breuer

I found this heavily weather roof in some shots posted of trains around St Louis Union Station and thought I’d try and replicate it on the Westerfield boxcar I’m working on.  Used the water based oils (black, white and blue) and painted the individual panels in different shades.  I came back and added the white as shown in the prototype image.  After the oils dry I’ll seal with Dullcote and add some black pigment.   In a few shots I used a Q-tip to remove some of the gray to let the original color to show through. 

--
Charlie Duckworth 
Omaha, Ne.

Ron

No, sadly. Don't we wish Athearn would revise the tooling (as they have done with several other
models!) and replace all of the molded on grabs and ladders with wire and stand off details??

At the time of the RMJ article I asked Richard about the arduous task of removing all that detail
with an X-Acto blade, and he just laughed! To anyone who has done it successfully, you know what
I'm talking about. 😂

Tim O'Connor

--
*Tim O'Connor*
*Sterling, Massachusetts*

Pre-shading is a good idea, but if it's not possible (RTR lettering) then post-shading by touching up
unlettered areas of the car works almost as well. :-)

Tim O'Connor

--
*Tim O'Connor*
*Sterling, Massachusetts*

Fading should be somewhat uneven, seems to me.the plastic models community has widely adopted the idea of pre-shading, following with an overall coat. That can of course be followed with various washes & oversprays. 

By pre-shading, i mean some areas are light (e g. Grey primer) and overs sprayed with darker or lighter shades. (E.g. the roof would be lighter, under the eaves & along the Z braces darker). This leads to a slight but visible variation in the overall color, which can then be followed with further efforts. 

I've not tried myself, but I've seen enough to be offering the suggestion Charlie.

Steve

I did one, right when the Roundhouse kit first came out, as an MP 86000-86149 car.  The model has wire grabs and separate ladders.  I really don't remember carving this detail off the model.  Was it ever available with separate details?

Ron Merrick

The MDC/Roundhouse 50-foot single-sheathed boxcars have have been featured a few times on the RCW blog. Here are the direct links. 

The photo of the model of the WP car with 15' door was built by Fred Jansz from the Roundhouse kit.  He did a great write up on it on Facebook WP modelers group and I think here too.  

Scott McDonald 

Bill Keene commented about SRLX 25034.

“The car is really silver. The shade seen in the photo (an Ektachrome slide) is actually the car as it was received when donated to the Kansas City Railroad Museum. It is rather dirty. It was later wished off to reveal the silver paint. As the car was clean and dry it was used to store the higher valued items that the museum did not have the space to display.

I believe the car still had the cooling equipment in place. The fuel tanks were almost full when the museum received the car.

The KCRM had a number of reefers. The gift shop was installed into one of them—WCLX 2711, a Wilson meat reefer. Others provided display space and general storage space—URTX 26679 was one put to this use. I had hoped to get all of the reefers in line on a single track in build order and tell the story of each but this never became a reality.

I was most familiar with the WCLX 2711 as I was managing the Gift Shop. After cleaning the car out it made a grand space. Left the meat rails in place. I may have a picture or two of this car including the interior. The car received a good deal of TLC. It was washed and waxed—good old Turtle Wax—twice a year. I was the target of a good deal of ribbing about waxing a freight car.”

As to the Kansas City Railroad Museum, don’t go to Kansas City expecting to see these cars. I found this explanation on the ‘net:

“The Kansas City Railroad Museum was a museum located in Kansas City, Missouri. It was operated by the Smoky Hill Railway and Historical Society. Founded in 1964, the museum was initially located at Troug-Nichols siding in Lenexa, Kansas followed by the "house track" in downtown Lenexa, Kansas until 1973. Expansion forced them to move north of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, at 226 West 3rd Street to the Kansas City Southern "old team track" in the River Quay area. They were forced to move to Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base and five other locations in October 1980. They moved again to Belton, Missouri, about 1995 where they started operations with reporting marks SHRX. Later, they changed the name to Belton, Grandview and Kansas City Railroad.

As of February 1987, the museum roster included 3 steam locomotives, 8 diesel locomotives, 1 gas turbine-electric locomotive, 1 trolley car, 9 freight cars, 4 cabooses, 1 rotary snowplow, 6 special service cars, and 21 passenger cars. Eleven were privately owned.”

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Railway Bull Shippers Group

https://groups.io/g/RailwayBullShippersGroup